ABSTRACT
Choosing the most rewarding market segments is probably the most important strategic decision a firm must make. It is also perhaps the most demanding of decisions. When a firm chooses the market segment(s) it wishes to pursue, by necessity it is also eliminating a number of potential market segments from its customer base. However, segmentation is often carried out ineffectively by business marketers. Effective segmentation offers a number of advantages to any firm that successfully completes the task. Once the segmentation process is nearly complete, the firm must choose the target market segments it wishes to serve. A target market is a set of buyers with common characteristics that a company decides to serve. Positioning essentially means developing a theme which will provide a 'meaningful distinction for customers'. The concept of positioning was strongly advanced by Ries and Trout (2001). They state that many products already have a distinctive position in the mind of the customer.
