When is market segmentation not useful

Similarly, instead of targeting all your segments via all social media channels, the key is to use the right channel for each segment that will connect with them based on their attributes and past activity.

One way to do that is to analyze the age distribution of users on the top social platforms. In addition to communication channels, you should also segment your market based on engagement time.

The answer is simple: Each segment responds differently when contacted at different days of the week or times of the day.

You may find that working professionals are more likely to respond to your emails during weeknights, for example, while stay-at-home parents respond during weekday afternoons. Sending emails outside of those time frames might lead to your content falling on deaf ears.

This data from CoSchedule shows that Tuesday is the best day to send an email :. But take a look at your own email marketing data before copying. The best time to send an email, of course, varies from company to company and segment to segment. The same applies to social media. Tracking segment performance over time will allow you to measure the improvement in your marketing strategy for that particular group of people. Not only will it make your efforts worthwhile, but avoiding these segmentation mistakes is bound to boost your marketing ROI.

If you lack the analytical capabilities or marketing expertise in-house , think about bringing in a consulting firm or outside help to segment your customers. Skip to content. Get A Free Consultation. Read this next. Why I Decided to Start Podcasting. Back to our blog.

Get Free Instant Access. I consent to receive email messages from Single Grain. Schedule Your Free Consultation. Set up a free consultation with a marketing specialist. Just a few more details. What services are you interested in? There are four primary categories of segmentation, illustrated below. With segmentation and targeting, you want to understand how your market will respond in a given situation, like purchasing your products.

In many cases, a predictive model may be incorporated into the study so that you can group individuals within identified segments based on specific answers to survey questions.

Demographic segmentation sorts a market by elements such as age, education, income, family size, race, gender, occupation, and nationality. Demographic is one of the simplest and most commonly used forms of segmentation because the products and services we buy, how we use those products, and how much we are willing to spend on them is most often based on demographic factors. Geographic segmentation can be a subset of demographic segmentation, although it can also be a type of segmentation in its own right.

It creates different target customer groups based on geographical boundaries. Because potential customers have needs, preferences, and interests that differ according to their geographies, understanding the climates and geographic regions of customer groups can help determine where to sell and advertise, as well as where to expand your business.

Firmographic Segmentation is similar to demographic segmentation, except that demographics look at individuals while firmographics look at organisations. Firmographic segmentation would consider things like company size, number of employees and would illustrate how addressing a small business would differ from addressing an enterprise corporation. Behavioural Segmentation divides markets by behaviours and decision-making patterns such as purchase, consumption, lifestyle, and usage.

For instance, younger buyers may tend to purchase bottled body wash, while older consumer groups may lean towards soap bars. Segmenting markets based on purchase behaviours enables marketers to develop a more targeted approach because you can focus on what you know they, and are therefore more likely to buy. Psychographic segmentation considers the psychological aspects of consumer behaviour by dividing markets according to lifestyle, personality traits, values, opinions, and interests of consumers.

Large markets like the fitness market use psychographic segmentation when they sort their customers into categories of people who care about healthy living and exercise. Find out how to drive product design and profits with customer segmentation. Why should market segmentation be considered a strategy?

A strategy is a considered plan that takes you from point A to point B in an effective and useful way. Market segmentation is similar, as there will be times you need to revisit your market segments, such as:. If your customers change, then your market segmentation should as well, so you can understand clearly what your new customers need and want from you. For example, natural disasters caused by global warming may impact whether a family chooses to stay living in an area prone to more of these events.

On a larger scale, if your target customer segment moves away from one of your sales regions, you may want to consider re-focussing your sales activities in more populated areas. For example, Winter has several holidays, with Christmas being a huge influence on families. Knowing this information can help you predict and prepare for this period. For more information on how Qualtrics helps brands master market segmentation from start to finish, check out our Segmentation Research Service.

Where can you use market segmentation in your business? When your business wants to enter into a new market or look for growth opportunities, market segmentation can help you understand the sales potential.

It can assist in breaking down your research, by aligning your findings to your target audience groups. If you have your entire market separated into different customer segments, then you have defined them by set criteria, like demographics, needs, priorities, common interests, or behaviour preferences. When you know a lot about your customers, you can understand where your business is connecting well with them and where there can be improvements.

Market segmentation can help with customer needs research also known as habits and practices research to deliver information about customer needs, preferences, and product or service usage. This helps you identify and understand gaps in your offerings that can be scheduled for development or follow-up. Proven Results : Discover five proven practices that will enhance your business research. Use market segmentation to understand your customers clearly , so that you can save time and money developing products and services that your customers will want to purchase.

Marketing and content teams will value having detailed information on each segment, as this allows them to personalise their campaigns and strategies at scale. This may lead to variations in messaging that they know will connect with audiences better, making their campaign results more effective. If the campaigns are combined with strong calls to action, the marketing campaigns will be a powerful tool that drives your target market segments towards your sales channels.

A good segmentation analysis should pass the following tests:. Market segmentation is not an exact science. There are numerous ways to gather demographic data. One way is to ask your customers directly. This can be time-consuming, but getting the information directly from customers will help ensure its accuracy. If you go this route, be careful to be respectful in how you ask and give customers sufficient response options so you get accurate results. You may also be able to obtain demographic data directly from customers by looking at social media and other online profiles where they may provide information about themselves.

You can also get demographic from second-party and third-party data providers including marketing service providers and credit bureaus. Public records, such as those kept by the U. Census Bureau and the U. Postal Service, can also provide useful information.

Collecting this data in a data management platform DMP will help you to organize it and use it to target your marketing campaigns or content personalization efforts. Dividing your audience based on behaviors they display allows you to create messaging that caters to those behaviors. Many of the actions you might look at relate to how someone interacts with your product, website, app or brand.

Behavioral data is useful because it relates directly to how someone interacts with your brand or products. Because of this, it can help you market more effectively to them. You can collect this data through various sources including cookies placed on your website, the purchase data in your customer relationship management CRM software and third-party datasets.

Geographic segmentation, splitting up your market based on their location, is a basic but highly useful segmentation strategy. There are several kinds of geographic segmentation.

The most basic is identifying users based on their locations such as their country, state, county and zip code. Identifying characteristics can require you to get more specific since one county could have rural, suburban and urban areas. People who live in different countries may also have different interests. Baseball is very popular in the United States, for example, while cricket is more popular in India.

Companies can also consider different needs in different regions. A clothing company, for instance, will show ads featuring warmer clothing to people living in cooler climates and show the opposite to people living in warmer climates. Psychographic segmentation is similar to demographic segmentation, but it deals with characteristics that are more mental and emotional.

Understanding these aspects of your audience can help you to create content that appeals to them more effectively. Some examples of psychographic characteristics include personality traits, interests, beliefs, values, attitudes and lifestyles. If you find that members of a demographic segment are responding differently to your content, you might want to add in some psychographic information.

While demographics provide the basic facts about who your audience is, psychographics give you insight into why people decide to purchase or not purchase your product, click on or ignore your ad and otherwise interact with you.

Some members of this segment are converting, while others are not. When you add psychographic information into the mix, you may find that people that purchase your products often value community and friendships and are environmentally conscious. Based on this information, you could create ads that show people entertaining friends in their home and emphasize the environmentally friendly attributes of your brand. You can collect this data in many of the same ways you can gather demographic data.

You can ask your existing customers for this information using surveys. You can also look at the way people interact with your website and see what types of content they engage with, which gives you insight into their interests and preferences. You can also supplement your first-party data with second-party and third-party data. Demographic, psychographic, behavioral and geographic segmentation are considered the four main types of market segmentation, but there are also many other strategies you can use, including numerous variations on the four main types.

Here are several more methods you may want to look into. In a recent survey of marketing professionals in North America, 62 percent of respondents said improving audience segmentation to enable more precisely targeted messaging was a top priority.

Market segmentation offers many benefits to marketers, publishers and others, including the following advantages. Market segmentation can help you to improve the performance of your marketing campaigns by helping you to target the right people with the right messaging at the right time. Segmentation enables you to learn more about your audience so you can better tailor your messaging to their preferences and needs.

Targeting a specific segment that is likely to be interested in your content or product is much more effective than targeting an overly broad audience. If you advertise to an entire market, you will end up spending a massive amount of money on ads, but a relatively small percentage will convert. If you instead direct your marketing to a segment with the right characteristics, you can increase the conversion rate of your campaign considerably. The more specific the audience of people interested in your brand, the more beneficial targeting can be.

Marketing them to a broad audience would result in wasted ad dollars. You might split your audience up by age and push individuals ads that show people who are close to their age. Market segmentation can also help companies to develop products that better meet the needs of their customers. You can create products to appeal to needs your main market segment may have and develop different products tailored to different parts of your customer base.

Say, for instance, you run an automotive company, and your primary market segment is middle-class families.