There’s been a lot of thinking and writing done on market segmentation. Companies have spent small fortunes with consulting companies to help them identify the key segments that they want to target, so they can uniquely deal with each of them. I have seen this done to the point that each segment has a descriptive personality associated with it. The following are actual excerpts from one such study that I’ve come across:
People falling into the X segment would share the following traits:
- Is likely to bowl in a Saturday morning league
- Is likely to eat at the same three restaurants repeatedly
- Cares about the way they look and dress, but never want to stand out from the crowd
- Does not speak a second language
- Drives an American car, that was bought used
- Will cry at movies, but will not speak openly about it
- and many more…
Keep in mind, these characteristics reflect only one segment of the five that were identified for the company. Each of the other four had their own descriptors. While this paints a vivid picture of different consumer groups, I have to ask the question, “So What?“. When I see such reports, I always wonder why I don’t personally seem to fit into any single group, but rather share traits across many of them. Does that mean I’m not a consumer? Granted, not all segmentation studies are as graphic as the one I’ve cited above, but I do feel that most share many of the same absurdity as this one does.
The above study was done for a multi-billion dollar company that sells products under several different brand names. So to some degree it makes sense to understand the “personality” of each brand that you are offering. The problem is that many smaller companies want to emulate this process and do similar segmentation for their own customers. That is where this methodology ceases to make sense. The way I see it, it can and should be much simpler. For my own company, I take the following approach. As I consider the universe of potential customers that we could serve, I first recognize that there are those companies that have heard of us, and those that have not. For those unfamiliar with our services, my goal is to create an awareness that we exist. But as I consider this macro segment, I know that this group can be divided into two sub-segments, those that currently need the services we offer, and those that don’t. My goal is to approach these two sub-segments differently. For those that currently need our services, we utilize a “pull-marketing” approach. In essence, our goal is to provide this group first with an awareness that we exist, then entice them to contact us through a variety of ways. Making it simple to get ahold of us, and learn more information is critical to being successful here. For the group that is not currently in the market for our services, my goal is again to create awareness of our existence, but to also show how our services can benefit them when they find themselves in need. In this case I use a “push-marketing” approach, where we send information (via post, email, or social media) that hopefully catches their attention and helps them to remember us when the time comes.
For those prospects that have an awareness of us, we essentially follow a similar approach. Push/Pull. Educate those that don’t have a need yet, and entice those with a need to give us a call. For our purposes, that is effective segmentation. It’s not perfect, but it seems to be effective. Now, if I could only figure out which prospects are most likely to cry at a movie…
Shower Musings 