What Does Market Segment Mean?
If you are considering a career in meeting and event planning, you will need to understand how the profession is divided up. This means your market segment, or broad-spectrum specialty. For instance, if you want to plan events for businesses and other organizations, then your market segment will be corporate.
Why should you be concerned with this? Because it will determine how you market yourself, how you market your company if you go it alone, and how you network. This means that if you work solely for non-profits your networking sphere will likely encompass a good deal of the political world, grant writers, public relations personnel, event facilities, caterers, and hotels and motels. If you go for-profit, your sphere needs to include the properties and caterers, but you may have less interaction with politics and grants.
Make sure when you choose your event planning specialty that you understand the market segment it falls into. Talk to your business professors to see how they can help, and join a professional organization as well. Ask a lot of questions; people who are truly inclined to teach and to help others will be patient with your answers, but also make sure you do a good amount of your own research.
The end result will be a better understanding of your job and target areas. This could translate into a more secure position at a company or a more stable customer base, and less time spent creating it.
