Online Briefing

Best Practices in Customer Segmentation:
Defining Segments to Support Core Strengths

May 20, 2003
11:00 - 12:00 pm ET
(free for ITSMA members)

Registration Closed

Briefing slides available; free for members (password-protected)

Effective segmentation is critical to success in a skeptical market where buyers need clear assurance that offers speak directly to their needs. Yet many technology services marketers do little more than lip service to the concept. How relevant are traditional segmentation techniques used in consumer product marketing to the challenges of IT services marketing? What segmentation approaches work best in the world of technology services and solutions?

Join Julie Schwartz, ITSMA's Vice President of Research, for a review of the latest segmentation thinking and practice in technology services marketing. Julie will highlight the theory behind services segmentation, discuss segmentation research tools and techniques, and highlight industry best practices.

This briefing will be especially useful for marketers involved in services and solutions strategy and market planning, offer development, communications, and sales support.

Presenter

Julie Schwartz Vice President, Research, ITSMA jschwartz@itsma.com

As Vice President of Research, Julie oversees all of ITSMA's customer research, thought leadership publications, multi-client studies and custom engagements. ITSMA Research includes: best practice cases, industry white papers, benchmarking studies, sales models research, pricing & packaging trends, marketing audits, brand awareness reports, how customers choose research and other studies designed to provide insight to companies that market and sell technology services.

Prior to joining ITSMA in 1996, Julie served as a senior analyst with State Street Research providing investment analysis on technology companies to corporate clients. Earlier in her career, Julie was the director of professional services research for Dataquest, and The Ledgeway Group where she was manager of research.

She has authored numerous articles on IT services trends, marketing, branding, and sales topics and she is a frequent speaker at industry events, ITSMA conferences and forums, and client meetings. Julie created ITSMA's Services Marketing Performance Index, developed a balanced scorecard approach to measuring marketing performance, and is the architect of ITSMA's 360° brand assessment research to help company's better understand how their brands are perceived with customers, prospects, partners, employees and influencers.

Julie has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated summa cum laude and was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She also has a Master of Science in Management from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and was named a Seley Scholar.

General Information

ITSMA's Online Briefings offer recent research findings or survey results from thought leaders on a variety of services marketing topics. The Online Briefings can be viewed individually, or in groups composed of people within the same company. The briefings are available anywhere in the world that has telephone service and access to the Internet. A typical program runs 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of questions and answers. They are presented every three to four months depending on the association calendar, holidays and the like. The person making the online presentation speaks into a telephone and advances the visual portion of the presentation via their computer connected to the Internet. This can be done at the speakers office or home as long as two telephone lines are available, one for the audio and one for the Internet connection. At the end of the presentation and at the presenter's discretion, the listeners are invited to ask questions. Each listener with a question identifies him or herself and is listed in a queue and taken one at a time by the presentation monitor. They also manage the question and answer session by giving each questioner access to the phone line to communicate with the presenter.

Technical Requirements

This briefing will be administered by Connex International. All participants are required to test their browsers on Connex International's Website 24-48 hours prior to ensure they are 'Java-enabled'. This test can be done at www.connexpresents.com, by clicking on the "Equipment Check" icon.

You will be provided with a pass code and dial in number 24-48 hours prior to the briefing.

The technical requirements for receiving this ITSMA seminar are:

• Direct or dial-up Internet connection of 28.8 kb/s or higher.
• Netscape Navigator 3.04 or higher, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.02 or higher, or any JAVA enabled browser.
• Separate Phone line to access audio teleconference.
• If participating from your company inquire of the company's Internet Firewall 48 hours prior to the event. This will enable your technician or a Connex technician to reconfigure connections to ensure the Internet portion of the presentation.
• No plug-ins or software downloads required.
• Compatible with a wide variety of browsers including Netscape 3.0+, IE 3.02+, or any Java-enabled browser. (Compatible with NT, Win95, Unix, Win3.1, Mac.)
• Works through 99% of all firewalls and proxy servers.

Fees and Registration

Aside from the telephone call, the fee for the presentation is complimentary for active ITSMA members, and $395 per location for nonmembers.

Note: Registration is on a first-come/first-served basis. You must register by 5:00 pm ET, Monday 19, May 2003.