Market segmentation, or size, is a common practice when building marketing campaigns and determining a strategic sales coverage model. Segments are nothing more than the resulting tiers of the industry based on unit counts, where each organization may prioritize or deprioritize profiles based on their hypothesized product-market fit.

While the exact splits may vary from company to company, 4 clear segments are always considered:

• Independent (IND)
• Small and medium-sized business (SMB)
• Mid market (MM)
• Enterprise (ENT)

Here’s a example of how the US restaurant industry could be split using the aforementioned groupings:

• IND: 1 – 2 units
• SMB: 3 – 20 units
• MM: 21 – 100 units
• ENT: 101+ units

By bucketing prospects into their segments, organizations hope to better anticipate the hypothesized complexity of the deal, aligning the longer and more complex deals to more senior reps.