marketing

Audience Segmentation: Build a Stronger Customer Connection

audience segmentation

Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your audience up into different groups (segments) to provide a more tailored approach to marketing.

Done correctly, audience segmentation allows you to focus on subsets of your audience, target different groups of customers based on their wants and needs, and ultimately, provide a higher level of individualized customer service.

Most businesses offer a variety of products and/or services — but that doesn’t mean that your entire audience is going to be interested in all of them. Your local big-box store sells everything under the sun, but if you don’t have a baby, you’re not in the market for diapers. And if you don’t have a yard, you didn’t come to buy a lawnmower.

Even businesses that focus on selling one thing and one thing only need to use segmentation. A bookstore won’t have much luck selling young-adult fans on Proust or Hugo. A shop specializing in NFL jerseys will be wildly unsuccessful trying to sell Buffalo gear to a New England fan. And a tax accountant is going to market to single, unmarried 1040 filers much differently than they would to a corporation.

Audience segmentation matters. And if you put it to work for you, you’ll reap the benefits.

Types of Audience Segmentation

There are four main types of audience segmentation: Demographic, Geographic, Behavioral, and Psychographic.

Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation relies on customer traits such as age, gender, relationship status, ethnicity, income, occupation, and religion. This data tells you who your customer is, what products and services they might be looking for, and what price points they can afford.

Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation is the “where” in the equation. It allows you to segment your audience based on location, so you’re not wasting marketing dollars trying to sell snow shovels for Floridians or bikinis to Alaskans. It also allows you to target people with the right offer at the right time. Think “back to school specials” in college towns or targeted ads for studded tires the minute the snow starts to fall.

Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation focuses on how the customer has interacted with your business in the past. Do they visit the website regularly, add things to their shopping cart, and then abandon it? Do they buy the same product or service on a regular basis? Are they engaged with your brand on social media? How much do they spend per visit? All of these things offer insights into how you can best market to each segment.

Tip: A good customer relationship management (CRM) tool is the perfect way to capture information like this!

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation is all about personalities and interests. If you own a sporting goods store, you need to know which customers are hunters and which are fishers. If you sell insurance, then you need to be able to target luxury car enthusiasts. Psychographic segmentation allows you to divvy up your audience based on their belief systems, lifestyles, hobbies, and even their attitudes and opinions on current events and political leanings.

Each of these segments have subsegments and sub-subsegments and … well, you get the picture. It’s up to you to decide how far down you’re willing to go — but be cautious of “over-segmenting.” It’s nice to give everyone a fair shot at a piece of the pie, but remember that each time you cut it, the slices get smaller!

Segmentation Lets You Hit the Right Mark at the Right Time!

You can’t please all of the people all of the time. But a good business owner will always do their best to please most of the people most of the time. Audience segmentation makes that a possibility. By marketing to different people in different ways and at different times, you have a better chance of making sure your message makes an impact.

Need some assistance finding out where everyone belongs? Mischa Communications can help you sort your audience into the appropriate groups. It’s time to talk.