The term market always deals with the aggregate demand for a particular product or service of all consumers. The consumers may be both existing and potential for the product. In fact the consumers are the backbone of any market and it may be vary place to place and consumer to consumer. Even a specific market for a given product is not totally homogeneous.

A market is always split up into several smaller units in small business marketing with uniform characteristics. It always facilitates the effective tapping of the market. Market segmentation is the process of disaggregating the total market for a given product into a number of sub-markets. The diverse market is broken up in the process into a number of relatively consistent units.

Any given market or a consumer group can be recognized by their varying needs and buying behavior, then only it is possible to made up of a number of subgroups. In fact it is not possible to sum up the consumers into suitable segments according to their characteristics. Anyhow the segmented groups would vary significantly among segments but would also be identical within segments.

Market segmentation bestowed with the marketing person with some benefits. In the first place, it helps him distinguish one customer group from another within a given market and thereby enables him to decide which segment of the market should form his target market. It also enables the effective crystallization of the specific needs of the buyers in the target market and facilitates an in-depth study of the characteristics of the buyers.

When the buyers are approached after careful segmentation, responses that are predictable would be forthcoming from them. This would help the marketing person develop his marketing program on a predictable and reliable basis. When the needs and characteristics of the customer group have been brought into a clearer focus, marketing offers that are most suited to the particular customer group can be easily developed.