Editing Market segmentation (section)

=== Data sources used for segmentation ===

Marketers use a variety of data sources for segmentation studies and market profiling. Typical sources of information include:<ref>{{cite web|work=U.S. Small Business Administration |url= https://www.sba.gov/blogs/conducting-market-research-here-are-5-official-sources-free-data-can-help |date=10 September 2014 |first=Caron |last=Beesley |title=Conducting Market Research? Here are 5 Official Sources of Free Data That Can Help |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141113211626/http://www.sba.gov/blogs/conducting-market-research-here-are-5-official-sources-free-data-can-help |archive-date=13 November 2014 |access-date=3 June 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Marr |first=Bernard |title=Big Data: 33 Brilliant and Ad Free Data Sources for 2016 |work=Forbes |date=12 February 2016 |url= https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/02/12/big-data-35-brilliant-and-free-data-sources-for-2016 |accessdate=3 June 2022}}</ref>

==== Internal sources ====
* Customer transaction records e.g. sale value per transaction, purchase frequency
* Patron membership records e.g. active members, lapsed members, length of membership
* Customer relationship management (CRM) databases
* In-house surveys
* Customer self-completed questionnaires or feedback forms

==== External sources ====
* Commissioned research (where the business commissions a research study and maintains exclusive rights to the data; typically the most expensive means of data collection)
* Data-mining techniques
* Census data (population and business census)
* Observed purchase behaviours
* Government agencies and departments
* Government statistics and surveys (e.g. studies by departments of trade, industry, technology, etc.)
* Omnibus surveys (a standard, regular survey with a basic set of questions about demographics and lifestyles where an individual can add specific sets of questions about product preference or usage; generally lower cost than commissioned survey methods)
* Professional/Industry associations/Employer associations
* Proprietary surveys or tracking studies (also known as ''syndicated research''; studies carried out by market research companies where businesses can purchase the right to access part of the data set)
* Proprietary databases/software<ref>Wedel, M. and Wagner, A., ''Market Segmentation: Conceptual and Methodological Foundations,'' Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998, See Chapter 14</ref>