Ahhh, the art of pinpointing your ideal customer. It’s fun, right? But, it’s a heck of a lot of work. And chances are, with your product or service, you cater to more than one type of customer.
These days, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. In fact, as Chris Gee, head of digital strategy and content at Burson-Marsteller, says, “Marketing in general, was all about mass audience. Now, it’s much more about communication to niche targeted audiences.”
Yes, niche targeted audiences who are far from passive and stick around to hear what it is you have to say—no matter how personal it is or not. Today’s customers want to feel as if you’re speaking directly to them when you’re promoting your product or service throughout various sales materials.
Actually doing that, however, can sometimes feel as if you’re trying to slam a revolving door—impossible. And, for a good reason as customers open their wallets to businesses at different stages of the sales funnel.
Before you know it, you’re stirring an overflowing pot of different customers that don’t necessarily blend well together. Potential customers, new customers, impulsive customers, loyal customers, discount customers, wandering customers; the list goes on and on.
Lucky for you, there’s a method many successful entrepreneurs use today to provide more tailored (and tasty) sales messages to each of their customer groups. It’s called audience segmentation.
If you’re anything like me, just reading that phrase makes you a little antsy. The last thing you need to do is add more work to your already full plate. For that reason, I’m here today to share all you need to know to become a pro—from what audience segmentation is to four easy strategies that will boost your sales, how to collect the data you need, and how to implement your segmentation efforts in no time.
But, first: what exactly is audience segmentation and how can my business benefit from it?
In the simplest terms possible, audience segmentation is the process of breaking apart your target customers based on specific criteria (we’ll get into this in a bit!). Why? Because it helps you deliver tailored, personal sales messages to each of your audience segments.
So, how does it work in the grand scheme of things? Personally, I love this image to sum things up. It illustrates the steps to take to achieve profitable relationships with each of your customer groups.
(source)
I won’t get too much into the weeds here. But, this is what’s known as the STP Model: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning, Approach.
- Segmentation: brainstorm the various groups you can target.
- Targeting: zero in on the specific audience segment you feel will be the most profitable at the stage of business you’re in (for example, if you’re just starting out, your focus will surely be on your potential customers and applicable segments).
- Positioning: outline tailored statements to appeal to a specific audience.
- Approach: identify how you’ll get in front of that specific audience to promote your product or service.
Make sense? Segmenting is just a piece of the puzzle when it comes to targeting different groups of customers more efficiently and effectively. Best of all, it comes with a list of advantages, which makes the process hard to pass up.
- Increases profits. The second you start dishing out more tailored messaging thanks to your segmentation efforts, your target audience members will be much more likely to close.
- Decreases marketing costs. When your targeting efforts become much more focused, you won’t waste money on marketing to those who don’t fall into your ideal group.
- Lowers risks. Painting a clearer picture of your audience segments leads to smarter decision making for your business.
- Reduces negative comments/complaints. From a customer standpoint, it can become pretty annoying to receive sales message after sales message—whether it be through an email or Facebook ad—when you’re not the person the business should be selling to. Let the complaining and influx of negative comments begin, from clicking the Spam button to reporting the ad! Thus, when you stop sending messages to the wrong people, you’ll receive far less negative comments and complaints.
Now, are you sold on audience segmentation? I thought so. Segmentation strategies have come a long, long way from the primarily male versus female categories. So, to help you maximize your segmentation efforts and ultimately sales, let’s walk through four of my favorites, shall we?
4 Easy Audience Segmentation Strategies That Will Make You Strike Sales Gold
1. Demographic.
As I mentioned earlier, segmentation strategies have evolved from merely breaking apart your markets based on gender. Demographics, however, still play a big role in delivering the right sales messages into the right hands. So, what are your demographic segmentation options? You can focus on various things such as age, gender, marital status, religion, family size, occupation, income, and education.
For example, let’s say you’re a chiropractor and you’re looking to target moms. That’s a pretty broad category, wouldn’t you say? To take it a step further and up your chances for sales success, you can break your target group apart based on their children’s ages. Yup, it’s doable! That way, you can create a sales campaign focused on moms of children ages 0-4, who are in need of your services as they’re straining their backs to pick up their children frequently.
And, a second campaign focused on moms of children ages 14-18, who are in need of your services as their kids might be actively involved in high school sports, which could be affecting their health (depending on the level of impact).
Here are your options for collecting demographic data:
- Survey/questionnaire
- Website analytics (ex. Google Analytics)
- Online market research (ex. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts or American FactFinder)
2. Geographic.
Do you serve customers in a particular area? Or have a target audience that spreads far and wide, with varying needs and wants based on where they live? Segmenting your audience based on a specific geographic area might just be the best strategy for you—no matter if your business is large or small.
If you’re a more substantial business, your options can be as broad as focusing on a particular region, such as the Midwest. Or, if you’re a smaller business, as narrow as a specific city. For example, when you’re a local business and looking to reach a distinct audience for your next sales campaign via a Facebook ad, you can zero in on your community’s residents thanks to location targeting—the city, congressional district, and even zip code.
Here are your options for collecting geographic data:
- Website analytics (ex. Google Analytics)
- Your CRM (if you have one, and you really should!)
- Social media accounts
3. Lifestyle.
This strategy is also what’s known as psychographic segmentation. While demographics focus on physical characteristics, psychographics dig a little deeper to focus on the various activities, interests, and opinions of your audience that might compel them to purchase from you.
Let’s go back to the chiropractor example. If you’re working in that industry, you probably serve a wide range of clients. With that, I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it again and again. You can’t be something to everyone in your sales messages. I know, even if you really do serve almost everyone.
So, let’s say you notice quite a few Crossfit gyms popping up within the community where you work. Well, with all the running, jumping, lunging, squatting, pushing, and pulling involved, Crossfit can be very tough on the body. Thus, enthusiasts of the sport are a prime target.
Do you think segmenting your audience based on those who are interested in Crossfit will help you niche down while earning plenty of conversions from your sales pieces? Absolutely.
Here are your options for collecting lifestyle data:
- Survey/questionnaire
- One-on-one interviews/phone conversations
- Website analytics (ex. Google Analytics)
- Social media accounts
4. Behavioral.
Remember back at the beginning of this post when I said customers open their wallets to businesses at different stages of the sales funnel? Well, in addition to that, your customers also behave differently when making a purchase decision. And, that’s where behavioral segmentation comes into play.
There are six types of options available to you to segment your customers based on how they act as consumers of your product or service.
- Benefits sought—the different reasons customers come to you to satisfy a need.
- Buying occasion—when customers purchase, use, or think of buying from you. For example, during the holiday season, before year-end, anniversary, vacation, and so on.
- Usage rate—the frequency of purchase, or interaction with your product or service. For example, heavy, medium, or light usage. As for a chiropractor, maybe a customer returns to you once a quarter, which could be considered light usage of your service.
- Brand loyalty—the level of your customers’ commitment to your product or service. Some people never stray away from a particular brand, while others like to keep their options open.
- User status—non-users, prospects, first-time buyers, regular buyers, and deserters.
- Buyer readiness—based on the five stages of the purchasing cycle: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and purchase.
Here are your options for collecting behavioral data:
- Your CRM—you can gather information on your customers such as buying behavior (active vs. dormant), how they were acquired (Google, trade show, Facebook ad, email, etc.), their last login date (if applicable), items purchased, and so much more.
- Website analytics (ex. Google Analytics)
Now, how do I start implementing these segmentation strategies?
Once you’ve gathered data based on your segmentation strategy, it’s time to break up your audience into individual buckets. That way, you can begin writing sales copy that appeals to each of those and gear up for a successful promotion.
As an entrepreneur in general, your target audience might zero in on women—ages 25-45. That’s because they’re most likely the decision makers of the household. Yet, there are so many different segments that make up that broad group of people.
For example, you can put them into buckets based on a behavioral segmentation strategy like user status. Some will be prospects who need to learn about why your product or service is the best offer. Others will be first-time customers who need further instruction on how to get the most out of your product or service. Regular customers who could benefit from being introduced to additional products or services that can further help solve their biggest headache. And, even deserters who need information on an issue you fixed, new feature, or offering you didn’t initially provide to win them back.
So, no matter what sales piece you’re working with—whether it be a sales letter, video sales letter, Facebook ad, email sequence; you name it—start small and begin writing for a particular segment that needs the most attention at the moment. When you dish out sales copy that doesn’t appeal to every member of your broader target audience and instead appeals to a smaller bucket, you’ll start to notice an uptick in conversions.
In the end, audience segmentation is all about helping you get the right message about your product or service to the right people. But, correctly using this method is no easy task. Be strategic in your efforts. Ensure you have a quality amount of clean, accurate data based on the specific goals you’d like to achieve in your business. Then, you can look forward to boosting your ROI while making the time you spend writing copy worthwhile.
If you’re still feeling a little lost when it comes to honing in on your ideal customer, however, I’m offering you a FREE copy of our Ideal Customer Worksheet, delivered straight to your inbox. It’ll walk you through the questions you need to ask yourself about your target audience so you can get to serving up alluring content that gets your people to bite onto your offer.
All that’s required to get your hands on it is your email. Just drop it into the box to the right-hand side of this page, and you’ll get it right away!
Have you tried segmenting your audience or have some questions about the process? Leave me a note in the comments section below. I’d love to hear your experience or be of help!
Leave a Reply