What is market segmentation?

Sport England has developed nineteen sporting segments to help us understand the nations’ attitudes and motivations – why they play sport and why they don’t.

The segments provide the knowledge to influence people to take part. This work is part of our drive to get two million people doing more sport by 2012.

Each segment can be explored at differing geographic levels.It is possible to find out what people's sporting habits are in a particular street, community, local authority or region.

For example – Leanne is a Supportive Single.

She is the least active segment amongst 18-25 year olds. We know that she is likely to be single, living in private/council rented accommodation and will have a significant number of children.  We now also know what motivates her, what brands she aspires to, how we can overcome things that stop her taking part in sport and how to get her involved in sports she likes - such as the gym and keep-fit. From this we can work out which sporting interventions are likely to be more successful for Leanne.

This research builds on the results of Sport England’s Active People Survey, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's Taking Part survey and the Mosaic tool from Experian. It will inform our Strategy and Business Plan 2008-2011 and help us invest our money into areas that will have the greatest impact.

Segmentation overview
New to segmentation? Find out why and how we did it - and what it can tell you.  More info

Find out about the 19 segments.   More info

How to guide
Businesses use segmentation data to sell more products or services - find out how you can use it to promote sport.  More info

Case studies
Find out how other sports organisations have already used the data to promote sport.  More info

Geographic information
Find out how to look at the distribution of the segments by different geographies, and also how to access the raw data to enable use within most statistical and geographical software packages, for example Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  More info

Segmentation and Sport England's priority groups

Find out how Sport England's priority groups (women, C2DE social class, black ethnic minorities, those with a limiting disability) are incorporated within the sporting segments. The segments provide a more sophisticated way of understanding our market than traditional priority groups.

Although segmentation is extremely powerful it is still only one tool, it must be used sensibly and interpreted in the context of other relevant information about a locality and the people living in it.   More info

FAQs and technical report
We have prepared a list of FAQs and and a technical report.  More info

Training and contact details
Each Sport England regional office has staff trained to produce market segmentation information in more complex ways than the information available on the web. Over time, we will build a significant body of knowledge and ensure the wide use of this data.  In the short term, the availability of this information will be aligned to regional priorities
More info

 

What is market segmentation?