Do you find yourself using a “one-size fits all” approach to target your customers?
Is your marketing approach more of a general mass marketing strategy that encompasses shotgunning general promotions out to a general population in hopes of increased brand awareness and revenue?
Are your efforts and cost outweighing your ROI?
Are you finding it difficult engage and retain customers?
If the answer was yes to any of these questions, then you are going to want to keep reading.
Customer Satisfaction Through Personalization
The key to customer satisfaction in today’s marketing strategy is content personalization. Yes, content personalization is the way to the heart of potential customers. In a survey, it was found that 74% of the customers reported feeling frustrated if their content was not personalized while 59% of them accepted that personalization influences their shopping decisions. Content personalization plays an important role in increasing the traffic, engagement, and sales in a business.
Now you’re probably wondering, “How do I go about personalizing my content for my customers?” Well, a simple way of doing this is through market segmentation. By segmenting your customers, you are able to divide your customers based on their similar traits into smaller more manageable groups. Allowing you to provide them with content that is tailored as per their likeness. So in this article, we will discuss in detail what market segmentation is, the benefits and how to get started.
What Is Market Segmentation?
Market Segmentation Definition
Marketing segmentation, or customer segmentation as its also known by, can be understood as the process of dividing a wider population or target market into smaller, more defined and easily manageable subgroups on the basis of certain factors like demographics, interests, needs, age, gender, behavior, etc. These subgroups usually share common likes and dislikes and have similar characteristics.
Now what is important to note is that each individual in these sub-groups is not exclusive to that group. It is very possible that an individual could be a part of more than one group at the same time. For example, during the market segmentation a person who is a part of the male gender group can also belong to the 25-30 year old age group and also at the same time be grouped by another characteristic/trait like income bracket, location and so on. How you choose to segment your customers is based on how you want to personalize your marketing approach to them. By identifying and segmenting your customers based on these various aspects, you can start to get a clear sense as to who your customers are and how to create valuable, relevant and consistent content that engages your customers.
Benefits of Market Segmentation
Market segmentation is a critical aspect of marketing automation. It helps businesses in identifying their customers in ways that allows them to effectively engage and respond to their customers via multiple touchpoints and along various steps of the buyer’s journey. The range of benefits that it offers includes:
Identifying Impactful Business Tactics
There are various marketing tactics out there that a business can use to attract its potential customers. But the complication lies in coming up with a perfect tactic that will reap maximum benefit. So, in order to decode that perfect tactic, the best way is to know your ideal audience. Market segmentation allows you to do just that and in turn guides you towards the marketing strategy that will work best for you!
Attracting Leads
When your marketing messages are direct, personalized and clear then there are more chances that they will hit their target. So, by dividing your audience into subgroups and crafting messages that appeals to them, you are more likely to connect and engage with them.
For example, if you know that your winter boots are more stylish and upbeat and would cater to the likeness of 20-30 year-old women, then designing messages that are targeting them will ensure their engagement.
Targeted Advertisements
By utilizing market segmentation you can effectively define your audience and know their age, purchasing habits, interests and more. This knowledge can help a business in creating impactful, targeted digital ads.
For example, if your audience is 7-15 year-olds then a business can create more visual and flashy ads while alternative ads can be implemented to attract a 25-30 year old audience to appeal to the emotions and conscience.
Catering to Demands
When you understand your customers well, you can sense a change in them. So, if your customers interests begin to change then using market segmentation will allow you to interpret and react to that change.
For example, if your customers residing in Spain are showing a change in their purchasing preferences, because they have an upcoming festival then you can introduce a new range of blingy footwear to cater to their changing preferences.
Develop Customer Loyalty
Through market segmentation, you can know and understand your customers well allowing you to meet their needs and offer them products that serve and resonate with them. Doing this consistently helps in developing a sense of personalization which cultivates brand loyalty.
Now that you have understood the meaning and benefits of customer segmentation, let’s look into the criteria to consider when Segmenting.
Segmentation Considerations
Each of your customer segments should consist of customers who are very closely aligned with one another, yet are different enough from customers within other segments. Ask yourself the following four questions when determining if a segment is an ideal grouping:
Is your segment measurable?
Can you clearly measure and study your group when conducting segmentation analysis?
Is your segment substantial?
Is the segment large enough to warrant the investment of time and resources?
Is your segment accessible?
Are you able to communicate with this segment? If one of your segments is international, do customers speak your language and live in an area where your marketing efforts and/or products and services will reach them?
Is your segment differential?
Do the customers in this segment have similar needs that differ from other segments?
Types of Market Segmentation
There are four main types of market segmentation known as the pillars of market segmentation. These pillars of market segmentation are as follows:
Geographic Segmentation
Market segmentation on this basis is the easiest to define. In this category, people are defined depending upon the geographical boundaries within which they live, work or visit.
Its examples include classifying customers on the basis of their zip codes, city, country, or on the urban or rural basis.
For example, a business that deals in home décor and manufactures furniture might decide to target rich customers who are living in urban areas in some specific metropolitan areas.
Psychological Segmentation
In this category, the customers are identified on the basis of those factors that are related to their personalities and characteristics. Now classifying customers on this basis is a little hard because it is a subjective approach but since segmentation on this basis usually offers the most useful insights into the customer’s spending habits, it is worthy of all the required efforts.
The examples of psychological market segmentation include defining customers on the basis of their personality traits, motivations, lifestyles, interests, priorities, etc.
For example, if the business dealing in home décor chooses to focus on customers who favor a luxurious lifestyle and are motivated to purchase only those products that are unique then they will need to identify their potential customers on the basis of psychological segmentation.
Behavioral Segmentation
Classifying customers on this basis requires a little research. Unlike the psychological segmentation that divides customers on the basis of who they are, the behavioral segmentation focuses on how the customer acts. Here businesses try to divide customers based on their purchasing habits, spending habits, brand interaction, etc.
Simply put, the brands here try to establish how often their customers interact with them, how often they make a purchase.
For example, a home décor business will try to establish which of its customers have made a high-end purchase in the last two month and will decide to target them for additional purchases.
Demographic Segmentation
Differentiation on this basis requires the collection of critical information about potential customers. Here the statistical data about a group of people is the basis of classification. Its examples include grouping people on the basis of their income, ethnicity, age, gender, family situation, education, etc.
A home décor business that decides to target those customers who earn between $100,000-$150,000 per year is classifying customers on a demographic basis.
Now that we are done with the different types of market segmentation, let’s talk about getting started with market segmentation.
Summary
The key to customer satisfaction is personalization and taking the time to segment your customers and learn as much as you can about them allows you to tailor your sales and marketing efforts to best align with their needs, interest and desires. When your customers receive this sort of personalization, it results not only in an engaged audience, increased sales, but also brand loyalty.
