Digital Marketing Segmentation | How to Segment?

In a previous post we discussed “Why to Segment?” Today, we will look at some practical ways we can go about segmenting our audiences. There are two primary ways we can go about doing this.

1. Strategic Segmentation

Strategic Segmentation looks at groups of customers and tries to identify insights which will help in one of the following:

a) Targeting

What kind of a customer can be targeted? If it is an existing customer, is the customer happy or unhappy with the products and services of the company? If happy, is there the possibility of cross or up-selling? If unhappy, is the customer at risk of switching to a competitor? Is the customer worth retaining? Being able to segment and target audiences in this manner makes for more efficient processes and better customer service.

b) Messaging

Messaging tries to address the specific content that each of the identified audiences is currently seeking. For instance, those who have just stumbled across your product or service are probably interested in knowing more about you and your offering. While those who are already aware of what you offer will be more interested in the exact details of what’s on offer.

c) Product Development

Are your customer needs satisfied by your current product offerings? What else are customers seeking? What proportion of your customer base could benefit from those enhancements? What is the feasibility of offering those services? What does it take in terms of time and development effort? What could the resultant revenue be to the company? Segmenting on these lines makes use of listening to customer issues to enhance product features.

For a related post, see 3 types of “Do-it” Customer Segments

2. Tactical Segmentation

Tactical segmentations on the other hand is more interested in segmenting users by the likelihood (or not) of their buying a particular product or service. For example, people searching for particular recipes could be segmented and targeted to purchase a specific ingredient by a food manufacturer. Or those looking at Housing or Real Estate websites could be target by a bank for a Housing Loan. Alternatively those looking at comparison and aggregator websites for interest rate information could be up/cross-sold suitable products by BFSI marketers.

When the Strategic and Tactical Segments are mapped to Customers and Prospects (Who to segment?) you can develop a right framework that helps position your products and services most effectively.