ABSTRACT
According to Wind and Thomas, segmentation can be a powerful tool for industrial marketing management. " In fact, it may be the only way for some firms to survive in industries dominated by a few giant competitors" ( 1994:80). Segmenting other stakeholders, rather than just customers, is the true strength of industrial segmentation. This is an interesting pair of observations. First, it states that seg menting and targeting to a niche is a viable strategy alternative; one does not need to be the largest finnin an industry to survive, if one owns the niche. Second, segmenting debtholders (for example) would allow for the better placement, interest rate given, and restric tive covenant writing for a firm; if one could find bondholders who were willing to take a higher interest rate in return for fewer restric tive covenants (or vice versa), the corporate finance people could have more flexibility in dealing with their debt placement. This is a new area for marketing to make an impact on the firm's business. Other nontraditional, nonmarketing areas can benefit from seg mentation. Brenner ( 1 996) deals with using segmenting and target ing methods in shareholder relations in an attempt to find investors "whose love will last. " Cahill ( 1 996a) deals with segmentation strategies in internal marketing programs on the grounds that employees differ and that communicating with employees would be more effective if the messages were segmented and targeted.
