Segmenting industrial markets:

1.       Size of the customer: this has been one of the traditional methods of segmenting industrial market. Bases on the size and the purchase, we may have:

a.       Category customers - these are large buyers

b.      Category customers - medium sized buyers

c.       Small buyers

2.       Geographical location: the geographical location of a customer or customer accounts is another basis for segmenting the industrial products markets. For example, firms located in the Thane - Belapur belt constitute one segment for a telecom firm, while firms located at Nariman point in Mumbai is another market segment or plan.

3.       End use: another way of segmenting the industrial market is by differentiating the end users who use the firm's product. For example, for a feed steel manufacturer, some of the end user segments include automobiles, construction, and office furniture, cables etc. each of these segments has their characteristics and requires a different marketing approach.

4.       Buyer behaviour or motivation or purchase criteria: within a specified end use segment, we can further segment the market on the basis of the purchase criteria. For example, using price as an input we can segment buyers into insensitive, sensitive and highly sensitive to the price changes.