MKTG 2P91: Introduction to Marketing

Research Tips for Defining Target Markets and Market Segmentation

• What is your customer focus?
  • Consumer Markets
  • Business-to-Business Markets?
• What is your geographic focus?
  • Local, municipal, or regional?
  • Provincial?
  • National?
  • International?
• What type of data are you looking for?
  • Demographic (age, gender, income, ethnicity). This data type is the easiest to source.
  • Psychographic (profiles are often proprietary, few free data sources exist, except as noted below)
  • Usage - who are your current customers? 
    • This is internally sourced data (within a company or organization)
    • Potential customers (e.g., new customer segments may be identified via primary or secondary market research).

Best Bets for Canadian Consumer Markets

Best Bets for Canadian Business-to-Business Markets

B2B markets may be segmented by the following methods:

• by industry (NAICS, SIC, or other industry coding schemes)
• by size of business (by revenue, by number of employees, etc.)
• by geographic location
• by product usage 
• by customer value

Source: Clow, K.E. (2012). Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications,1st Canadian edition. Toronto, Pearson Canada, p. 103.

Niagara (Ontario) Data Sources

• Some industry reports may provide industry revenue data, which can be used to calculate a company's market share. See Ibisworld Industry Insider article: how to calculate market share.
• Consult company financial reports or published sales figures as reported in trade publications. Some standard sources and tips on identifying additional sources of market share data appear below. 
• You may also be able to gather data on market share by searching in the Library's Business Databases (ProQuest One Business or Business Source Complete) for articles that mention the phrase "market share" along with your company name, industry name, or product category.

Statistics Canada

United States Government Sources

Library Databases

Some valuable marketing data can be gleaned from secondary data sources such as newspapers, or industry and trade magazines. You will need to conduct some focused  literature searches to identify additional information on your target market.

For example, if you are researching the target market for sports drinks or energy drinks (such as Gatorade or Monster), search for:

• Concept 1: (target market OR market segmentation) AND Concept 2: (brand name OR category name)

Here is search strategy example for the Business Source Complete Library Database

This retrieves articles such as:

• Kaplan, A. (2014, September 15), Energy Drinks Grow Up. Beverage World, 133(9), 1-12. 

Start your research with these Library Databases: