ABSTRACT
Many textbooks claim that target marketing is straightforward in businessto-business markets. While there are generally fewer customers in business-tobusiness markets than in consumer markets and more official data tend to be collected for industrial markets, to glibly state that target marketing is easy is to gravely underestimate the reality of the task. In most countries there is significant industrial census data collected for government purposes, known in the UK and USA as SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) data. Unfortunately, many SIC codes are too broad to be useful in this way. However, compared with consumer markets, it is reasonable to argue that target marketing is sometimes relatively more straightforward than for targeting consumer goods or services.
