What factors should you consider when segmenting stakeholders?

1 Purpose and goals

Before you start segmenting your stakeholders, you need to have a clear purpose and goals for your communication. What are you trying to achieve? Who do you need to reach and engage? How will you measure your success? Your purpose and goals will guide your segmentation criteria and help you focus on the most relevant and influential stakeholders.

2 Stakeholder attributes

Stakeholder attributes are the characteristics that define and differentiate your stakeholders. They can include demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioral, and relational factors. For example, you can segment your stakeholders by age, location, values, needs, preferences, actions, or relationships with your organization. Depending on your purpose and goals, you may use one or more attributes to segment your stakeholders into meaningful and manageable groups.

3 Stakeholder power and interest

Stakeholder power and interest are the two dimensions that determine how important and influential your stakeholders are for your organization. Power is the ability of a stakeholder to affect your organization positively or negatively, while interest is the level of attention and involvement a stakeholder has in your organization. You can use a power-interest matrix to map your stakeholders into four categories: high power-high interest, high power-low interest, low power-high interest, and low power-low interest. This will help you prioritize your stakeholders and allocate your resources accordingly.

4 Stakeholder expectations and needs

Stakeholder expectations and needs are the outcomes and benefits that your stakeholders want or require from your organization. They can be explicit or implicit, rational or emotional, realistic or unrealistic. You need to understand and align your communication with your stakeholder expectations and needs, as they affect their satisfaction and loyalty. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods to gather feedback and insights from your stakeholders.

5 Stakeholder communication preferences

Stakeholder communication preferences are the ways and means that your stakeholders prefer to receive and share information. They can include the frequency, timing, format, tone, style, and channel of communication. You need to adapt and customize your communication to your stakeholder communication preferences, as they affect their attention and engagement. You can use analytics, testing, or observation to identify and optimize your communication preferences.

6 Stakeholder feedback and evaluation

Stakeholder feedback and evaluation are the responses and results that your stakeholders provide and produce after your communication. They can include the opinions, emotions, behaviors, and impacts of your stakeholders. You need to monitor and measure your stakeholder feedback and evaluation, as they affect your communication effectiveness and improvement. You can use indicators, metrics, or tools to track and analyze your communication performance.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?