Visualizing market segmentation using self-organizing maps and Fuzzy Delphi method – ADSL market of a telecommunication company

A common problem for marketing strategists is how to appropriately segment the market and select segment-specific marketing strategies. This paper presents a novel approach which integrates Fuzzy Delphi method, self-organizing maps (SOM) and a visualization technique to cluster customers according to their various characteristic variables and visualize segments by producing colorful market maps. These market maps not only help the managers to see fully visualized clusters of market but also reveal mutual non-linear correlations between different customers’ characteristic variables. In this research we studied ADSL service market of an Iranian Telecommunication Company. SOM algorithm and visualizing technique were implemented in MATLAB environment to produce market maps of data set.