Your clients and customers are unique individuals, of course. But often, they have common traits that make them feel drawn to your product or service. These common factors include age, income, profession, education and location. Values, beliefs and lifestyle differences can influence a person’s buying choices. And whether they’re first-time, repeat or long-term customers is important too. Rather than aiming the same message at everyone, audience segmentation helps you group your customers into categories to craft a more specific message for each.
Sounds simple, right? But there are aspects to it some businesses might not even think of. For example, how do you write content for mobile users instead of those browsing your site on the web? How do you put together a segmentation strategy plan to make sure you’re capturing the attention of the right people? And how do you use the data you collect on your customers to really take your strategy to the next level?
As one of Brisbane and South East Queensland’s marketing and digital agencies, Anchor Digital has the skills and experience to craft your audience segmentation plan. We’ll help you cast your net further and wider, showing your value to those who will benefit from it the most.
What is Audience Segmentation and its Benefits?
Audience segmentation is closely related to the concept of knowing your target market. Trying to appeal to everyone can actually backfire, leading to content that’s too generic and doesn’t resonate in the way you want it to. Simply put, you know you have an excellent service or product. You just need to ensure you’re reaching the right people with it. There are many methods you can use to define the target audience: collect data on your existing customers, analyse competitors, use tools like Google Analytics and think about who your service isn’t meant for. Discovering and defining who your audience actually makes it easier to target your advertising and marketing to them.
Benefits of audience segmentation include:
- Higher conversion rates due to showing more relevant information to customers
- Increased savings due to not spending money advertising in the wrong places
- Higher response rates
- Fewer complaints and negative comments
- More efficient use of company time
What Does Audience Segmentation Look Like?
When breaking down your audience into segments, you can start by defining your primary audience. This is the main group of people you want to reach, and they’re usually the decision-makers. They’re the people who are in a direct position to respond to your message. For example, if you’re selling software, your primary audience is likely to be I.T professionals.
It’s important to also consider your secondary audience: the people who won’t be purchasing your product directly but are in a position to influence those who do. If your product would make a great birthday gift, your secondary audience might be the primary audience member’s spouse or children. Another category is the tertiary audience; these people fall outside the above two categories but may share common interests with each of them – and may still benefit from what you offer. You can also segment audiences by
Location
You can group customers by the area they live and/or work in, to take into account factors like climate, customs, culture, dialect and time zones.
Gender
Sometimes, you may want to use different language or images to appeal to women than you would use for men, and vice versa. Likewise, some products are only used by women or men, although there may be an opposite-sex partner who’s a secondary decision-maker.
Purchasing behaviour
Customers fall into different categories based on how much or how little they’ve purchased with you. You have your first-time buyers, your repeat customers and your regulars. The content you need to attract first-time buyers to your product will differ from the content you use to keep existing customers coming back for more.
Relationship
Single, de facto, married; your customers will have different needs and priorities based on relationship status. You’ll use different selling points for a single, high-income professional than you will for a person who’s married with children.
Why Does Audience Segmentation Matter?
The simple answer is that having a clearly defined target market in mind makes it easier to optimise your marketing efforts. It allows you to get the message in front of the people who are most likely to buy your product. It stops wasting time and resources and means your content has more personality than a watered-down, one-size-fits-all approach would give it.
Audience segmentation isn’t using generalisations or stereotypes about your customers to sell products. It’s a customer-focused approach that helps you stand out from the pack, especially when your competitors rely on cookie-cutter content.A study by Hubspot showed that 30% of the marketers who participated used audience segmentation techniques, and those who did it before campaigning saw their revenue increase by up to 760%. Organisations using consumer data see 85% more sales growth than their competitors. So what are the best ways to collect data, and how do you use that data to enhance your audience segmentation strategy?
Collecting Demographic and Geographic Data
Methods for collecting location data include surveys and market research. But an easy start is looking at your website’s traffic and conversions. Find out where your web traffic is coming from and where your sales are being made.When you’re clear about the origins of your traffic, you can think like a local company, targeting different content to different regions. Many websites do this by having different landing pages for different states and territories, showing the unique services they offer there. You can put together a content strategy that considers climate, time zone and population density when visitors from different regions land on your page.
Collecting Behavioural Data
Behavioural data charts how customers – and potential customers – engage with your products and services. Typically this is on the web and mobile, but there are other sources, including chatbots and e-mails. You can use tools such as Google Analytics (which has its own ‘Behaviour’ tab) or a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
Segment Your Audience and Improve Your Marketing Performance
Find out what your customers want, create custom content to meet the needs of different demographics and vary your approach across various channels. Focus on meeting your customers' needs in whichever way works best for them, and you’ll see your reach and results increase.
Get in Touch with Anchor Digital
Wondering where to start when it comes to your audience segmentation strategy? The best place is to get in touch with Anchor Digital.
Our experienced marketing professionals will guarantee your data is put to the best possible use when sharing your products and services with the country – and even the world. We’re experts in all things digital with solutions to all your marketing strategy inquiries.For an audience segmentation strategy that works, drop us a line.
