His Chin was Criticized: Market Segmentation

Last week a few buddies and I watched The Ultimate Fighting Championships 61. It was pretty good. A few featured fights were Tito Ortiz vs Ken Shamrock and others. One of the fights was between Andre Arlovski vs Tim Sylvia. During the Arlovski vs Sylvia fight, the announcer made a comment that Arlovski’s chin has been criticized for being weak (he was knocked out by Tim Sylvia a few months ago). We all thought that was funny – what a phrase “his chin was criticized” – ha!

I am a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu under the Carlson Gracie School in Northern California. But, it’s been about 10 years since I’ve done anything with it. I still love martial arts, but I spend my time doing other things now. Maybe someday I’ll start again.

Hitwise announced some statistics this week on The Ultimate Fighting Championships with MMA Gloves that I thought was interesting. During the week of July 9, The UFC ranked 121 by market share of visits among all sites. This was interesting.

The UFC demographic was also analyzed and it’s summarized below:

Young & Rustic – 6.1% of UFC traffic, 2.7% of Internet population

Like the soap opera that inspired its nickname, Young & Rustic is composed of young, restless singles. Unlike the glitzy soap denizens, however, these folks tend to be lower income, high school-educated and live in tiny apartments in the nation’s exurban towns. With their service industry jobs and modest incomes, these folks still try to fashion fast-paced lifestyles centered on sports, cars and dating.

They are more likely to go to auto racing, watch professional wrestling, watch soap operas, and live in rural communities in Georgia and Kansas than the general population.

Red, White and Blues – 4.3% of UFC traffic, 2.1% of Internet population

The residents of Red, White & Blues typically live in exurban towns rapidly morphing into bedroom suburbs. Their streets feature new fast-food restaurants, and locals have recently celebrated the arrival of chains like Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and Payless Shoes. Middle-aged, high school educated and lower-middle class, these folks tend to have solid, blue-collar jobs in manufacturing, milling and construction.

They are more likely to order from HSN, go horseback riding, and own an outboard motor than the general population.

Crossroads Villagers – 3.8% of visitors to UFC, 2.6% of Internet population

With a population of middle-aged, blue-collar couples and families, Crossroads Villagers is a classic rural lifestyle. Residents are high school-educated, with lower-middle incomes and modest housing; one-quarter live in mobile homes. And there’s an air of self-reliance in these households as Crossroads Villagers help put food on the table through fishing, gardening and hunting.

Market segmentation is very interesting and being able to do this for your website visitors is fascinating and incredibly pragmatic: knowing your audience can help target your message, finding affiliates, and establish relevant advertising partners. Bottom line — it’s good all around to know your customers and market segmentation is a tool to help us better understand the customer.

Back to fighting really quickly: there was a small point of contention during one of the fights — the announcer was confused on whether one of the fighters was doing a Kimura or an Americana. This is an easy confusion: they are both arm locks and the goal is to manipulate the elbow joint to make your opponent submit and tapout. But, there’s a slight distinction — Americana has the arm hyperextending toward the head whereas a Kimura has the arm hyperextending toward the hip. Below are some pictures:

Americana

Kimura