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that can reveal changing consumption trends.

Technology is also making it easier for even small companies and entrepreneurs to gather

information about potential customers. For example, the online game company GamePUMA.com

originally believed its target market consisted of US customers. But when the firm looked more

closely at who was downloading games from its website, they were people from all over the globe.

The great product idea you had? As we explained in Week 3, "Consumer Behavior: How People

Make Buying Decisions," companies are now using the Internet to track people's web browsing

patterns and segment them into groups that can be marketed to. Even small businesses are able

to do this cost-effectively now because they don't need their own software and programs. They

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can simply sign up online for products like Google's AdSense and AdWords programs. You can

locate potential customers by looking at blog sites and discussion forums on the web. Big-

boards.com has thousands of discussion forums you can mine to find potential customers. Do you

have a blog? Go to BlogPoll.com, and you can embed a survey in your blog to see what people

think of your idea. If you have a website, you can download an application onto your iPhone that

will give you up-to-the-minute information and statistics on your site's visitors.

Getting a read on potential target markets doesn't have to involve technology, though. Your own

experience and talking to would-be buyers is an important part of the puzzle. Go where you think

would-be buyers go—restaurants, malls, gyms, subways, grocery stores, day care centers, and

offices. Ask questions: What do buyers do during the day? What do they talk about? What

products or services do you see them using? Are they having an enjoyable experience when using

those products, or are they frustrated?

Figure 4.2

The Healthy Choice line of frozen dinners was launched by a heart attack victim.

Source: Photo by Ken. (2008). Flickr. Used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Healthy Choice frozen dinners were conceived as a result of questioning potential customers. The

food-maker ConAgra launched the dinners in the late 1980s after its CEO, Charlie Harper,

suffered a heart attack. One day a colleague complimented Harper on his wife's tasty low-fat

turkey stew. That's when Harper realized there were people like him who wanted healthy

convenience foods, so he began talking to them about what they wanted. Two years after the

Healthy Choice line was launched, it controlled 10 percent of the frozen-dinner market (Birchall

[b.], 2009).

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Segmenting and Targeting a Firm's Current Customers Finding and attracting new customers is generally more difficult than retaining your current

customers. People are creatures of habit. Think about how much time and energy you spend when

you switch your business from one firm to another—even when you're buying something as

simple as a haircut. If you aren't happy with your hair and want to find a new hairdresser, you

first have to talk to people with haircuts you like or read reviews of salons. Once you decide to go

to a particular salon, you have to look it up on the Internet or your GPS device and hope you don't

get lost. When you get to the salon, you explain to the new hairdresser how you want your hair cut

and hope he or she gets it right. You might also have to navigate different methods of payment.

Perhaps the new salon won't accept your American Express card or won't let you put the tip on

your card. However, once you have learned how the new salon operates, doing business with it

gets much easier.

The same is true for firms when it comes to finding new customers. Finding customers, getting to

know them, and figuring out what they really want is a difficult process—one that's fraught with

trial and error. That's why it's so important to get to know and form relationships with your

current customers. Broadly speaking, your goal is to do as much business with each one of them

as possible.

The economic downturn of the first decade in the 2000s drove home the point of making the most

of one's current customers. During the downturn, new customers were hard to find, and firms'

advertising and marketing budgets were cut. Expensive, untargeted, shotgun-like marketing

campaigns that would probably produce spotty results were out of the question. Consequently,

many organizations chose to focus their selling efforts on current customers in hopes of retaining

their loyalty once the downturn was over (Birchall [a.], 2009).

This is the situation in which the adventure-based travel firm Backroads found itself in 2009. The

California-based company increased its revenues by creating a personalized marketing campaign

for people who had done business with Backroads in the past. The firm looked at information

such as customers' past purchases, the seasons in which they took their trips, the lev