8 Ways to Create Audience Segmentations

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. - St. Francis of Assisi

Necessary actions in the world of #customerretention are often referred to the multitude of tactics at our disposal. I’ve mentioned before that we often wrap ourselves up in focusing too much of our time on email, SMS, paid ads, etc, etc, etc and so on.

We forget a step even more necessary than understanding if X tactic will move the retention needle (and before we move on, yeah, you’ll probably see movement if you put budget and/or additional sends behind something, but will it maintain?).

Consistent understanding of how a customer behaves and interacts with your brand will provide greater visibility and the groundwork for what’s necessary to build retention.

When I read the quote above, I thought to myself, I’ve met many marketers that think it’s impossible to refine and segment audiences in a way that is impactful for their businesses. I’ve decided to compile a list that hopefully inspires others to get those wheels spinning and drives us to create even better #AudienceSegmentation for customers.

?8 Ways to Break Down Segmentations

*with the understanding there is power in combining and testing the intersections of these segmentations

Demographic Segmentation: This category hits the basics at a pretty high level and focuses on data points like age, gender, income, education, marital status, occupation, ethnicity, and location.

Psychographic Segmentation: Based on psychological and lifestyle attributes, including values, beliefs, interests, hobbies and attitudes. Psychographic segmentation helps in understanding the motivations and preferences that drive customer decisions, especially during specific times during their life. For example, when partners become new parents, they may experience a shift in overall values, hobbies and attitudes. Same can be said for college grads, new homeowners, and so on.

Behavioral Segmentation: This zeros in on the customers’ purchasing behavior, usage patterns, brand interactions, loyalty, and engagement with marketing efforts (e.g., email and SMS engagement). Behavioral segmentation helps in targeting customers with specific buying habits and preferences.

Geographic Segmentation: Through this, the segmentation takes a look at the country, city, perhaps climate or even overall population density. Whether you have location-based offerings or perhaps have a product that could be affected by certain geographic areas (i.e., humidity and beauty company), this could be a great opportunity to bring attention to the benefits of your products.

Technographic Segmentation: This type of segmentation focuses on the audience's technology preferences, which includes but is not limited to digital channels or devices. Through this insight, if you know 80% of your customers visit your site from mobile, lean into that optimized mobile experience. If a segment converts highly on SMS, how are you working to continue to add value through this channel?

Occasion-Based Segmentation: Focus on specific events, seasons or occasions throughout the year that may be impactful not only to the business but are memorable and poignant for customers. This could include things like anniversaries, birthdays, back-to-school season, sporting events, customer milestones, and so on. For example, if you’re a pizza place, and National Cheese Pizza Day is around the corner, maybe it’s time to offer Kevin McCallister’s family a free cheese pizza.

Usage-Based Segmentation: Segment customers based on how frequently or intensively they use a product, service, app or website. This can help identify power users, occasional users or dormant users (and all those in between!) and provide the appropriate message.

Customer Lifecycle Stage: Segment the audience based on their position in the customer journey, such as prospects, first-time buyers, repeat customers, one-and-done and loyal advocates.?

With each of these segmentations, each one has the ability to break down even further – and this is not to say to slice and dice 20 ways to Sunday but rather to explore what is possible for your brand. Take a look at each one and see how you can possibly apply it to your organization.. And suddenly, you’re doing what you thought was impossible.