Do you segment your customers? Or do you just lump them all into one category? Do you categorize your customers by technologies, techniques or products they use? If you don’t segment your customers, you will be missing out on fulfilling your customer’s specific needs.
Market segmentation can be defined as dividing or categorizing your market into homogeneous groups. Each group of customers will most likely respond differently to different messages, promotions, or products that you offer. By segmenting your customer data base you’ll be able to more closely target your marketing communications efforts.
Market segmentation can even play a role in your product development efforts. You will be able to clearly see any unmet needs your customers may have. Or, you can see customers who are not served by your competition. But, don’t just segment your customers on the usual categories such as geographic or demographic. Go further and also categorize them on psychographics or behavioral responses.
Geographic segments such as region (country, state, city), size of metropolitan area, climate and the like are fine if those characteristics correlate with your products or services. And the usual demographics attributes (age, gender, occupation, education, etc.) can also be beneficial, again, depending upon your offerings. But, you should further categorize into psychographic behaviors. See the related blog article on psychographics. Also look at behaviors such as brand loyalty, readiness to buy or your customer’s usage rate. Don’t forget value-based segmentation. You can determine your customers’ values through the use of market research. Too many companies think they know what their market segments consist of but they really need to dig deeper into their customers’ perceptions about their company and your products.
So make a commitment for 2010 to segment your market. You’ll be rewarded with increased sales by honing your marketing communications efforts.
