An interesting development in the past few years has been the emergence of a new segmentation concept called micromarketing, or segment-of-one marketing. In relation to bargain holidays and / or package holidays, forced by competitive pressures, mass marketers have discovered that a segment can be trimmed down to smaller sub – segments, even to an individual. Micromarketing combines two independent concepts: information retrieval and service delivery.
On one side is a proprietary database of customers’ preferences and purchase behaviors; on the other is a disciplined, tightly engineered approach to service delivery that uses the database to tailor a service package for individual customers or a group of customers. Of course, such custom-designed service is nothing new, but until recently, only the very wealthy could afford it. Information technology has brought the level of service associated with the old carriage trade within reach of the middle class. The served market may be too broad to be served by a single marketing program.