As a proper marketer, before you begin segmentation and targeting to create your strategy, look first to the first P of marketing. Your product.

Why? If your product doesn’t work, the most brilliant targeting strategy can’t work. You’ll have no monthly recurring revenue, no cross- or up-sell and there won’t be any positive word of mouth. Your allowable will therefore be low. Worse, every incremental sale will destroy brand equity.

Many examples abound, but the multi-generational loss of customers created by GM’s X-body cars comes to mind. Lots of segmentation and targeting, but the problem was that the product was utter garbage. In today’s connected world, the X-body would have killed GM.

More on segmentation to come.