Market segmentation is an important instrument in strategic marketing and regarded as a key element of marketing strategy (Palmer & Millier, 2004; Hooley, Piercy & Nicoulaud 2012). It is viewed as a basis for superior financial performance (Cravens & Piercy, 2013). It is often also referred to as marketing’s Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) process in marketing literature. There is criticism against market segmentation’s usefulness to marketing practitioners by marketing academics for a while now. For instance, Foedermayr and Diamantopoulos’ (2008) analysis of market segmentation practices indicated a need for market segmentation research that could be generalized with more confidence. Their literature review revealed that most segmentation research deals with how it should be done and not how it is done. Reibstein, Day and Wind, (2009) asserted that marketing academics’ neglect to develop applicable models for critical and strategic marketing issues had created a vacuum between academics and their marketing counterparts in practice. In a sense, it also marginalized marketing as a discipline that should add value to executives looking for solutions to the problems they face in a fast-changing market space. After his research, Quinn (2009) concluded that there is little practical advice in marketing literature for marketers on choosing variables, identifying segments, controlling performance in segments, or how to follow a process in doing all this. The research was based on segmentation practices from retail apparel managers in the United Kingdom. Lastly, Harrison and Kjellberg (2010) concluded that there could be other ways to segment markets than the segmentation process literature suggests. While marketing theory suggests that market segmentation is a determinant of marketing success, it is unclear to what extent marketing decision-makers share this sentiment. The most pertinent finding of the review in this paper is that there is no uniform way of market segmentation used by marketers. For some time now, marketing academics have urged their colleagues to come up with research that will be useful for marketing practitioners.

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Visser, J. H. (2016). Bases of market segmentation success: A marketing decision makers perspective. International Journal of Business and Administrative Studies, 2(3), 96-101.