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Wednesday, February 16, 2005

What Is The Market Segment For Your Business?

The focus of this article is Market Segment which comprises of the following key constituents:

  1. Attract Customers;
  2. Acquire Customers;
  3. Convert Customers;
  4. Retain Customers.
For Attract Customers, your marketing people will need the following key measures:

  • Suspect - The total market size by number of people;
  • Prospect - The potential market available to the Company by number of prospective customers;
  • Target Customer - The market that the Company intends to target by number of customers.


For Acquire Customers, your sales team will need the following key measures:

  • Lead conversion rate - No. of leads taken up, i.e. calls made as a proportion of the number of leads provided;
  • Enquiry rate - No. of enquiries received by channel and media;
  • Sales conversion rate - No. of new customers initiated expressed as a proportion of the number of customer enquiries received;
  • Cancellation rate within commitment period - No. of new customers cancelled (within any initial commitment period) expressed as a proportion of the number of new customers initiated;
  • Complaints on acquisition rate - No. of complaints received during acquisition campaign expressed as a proportion of the number of calls made;
  • Number of new contracts sold - Number of new contracts sold during a specified period;
  • Value of contracts sold - The value of new contracts sold in the market place and expressed in USD, or EURO, or local currency;
  • Commission per contract sold - The commission amount per contract sold, expressed in USD, or EURO, or local currency;
  • Number of products per new contract - The average number of products sold per new contract, calculated as the number of products sold divided by the number of new contracts;
  • Cost to Acquire - Cost of acquiring a new customer expressed in USD, or EURO, or local currency. This value may be calculated as total acquisition costs divided by the total number of new customers;
  • Cost to Setup - Cost of activating a contract for a new customer.

For Convert Customers, your sales and marketing team will need the following key measure:

  • Contracts entered rate - The number of contracts entered per specified period.

Finally, for Retain Customers, your business will need the following key measures:

  • Company Triggered Churn - The number of customers cancelled by the company;
  • Customer Triggered Churn - The number of customer initiated terminations;
  • Company Triggered Churn Rate - The % of customer churn triggered by the company;
  • Customer Triggered Churn Rate - The % of customer churn triggered by the customer;
  • Lifetime Value - The lifetime value of a customer to the company expressed as an amount in USD, or EURO, or local currency.


“If everyone is moving forward together, then the success takes care of itself."

Henry Ford