How to Effectively Segment your Market
Market segmentation is a crucial aspect of your marketing strategy. When you deliver a “one size fits all” or undifferentiated marketing strategy, you are investing your money in delivering messages to consumers who may not be interested in that message. To get the best return on investment, you need to make sure you are sending differentiated or concentrated messages that the specific consumer is interested in. You can send these differentiated messages by segmenting your desired market.
What is market segmentation?
Market segmentation is the practice of dividing your customers or leads into defined categories and delivering targeted messages to those individuals. This is a key part of a modern digital marketing strategy.
How do you segment a market?
Market segmentation is accomplished through identifying your unique value propositions for your unique sets of customers. It is important to know who you are marketing to, what they like, and how you can attract them to your organization and mission. This process is incredibly organization specific, however every organization can use the same key thought process when working on how to segment their market.
1. Make the mission of your company clear
Clearly define your mission statement and core objectives in your marketing strategy. Put this mission statement up in your office, on a sticky note on your computer, or anywhere that it is highly visible to your entire team. Refer to this mission statement for everything you do!
2. Develop a strong positioning strategy
Based on your mission statement and purpose, decide how you want your consumers to view your product(s) in the market. Make sure to highlight your product’s benefits or differentiation here!
3. Research your market
Investigate your market, who are the consumers in your market? How are these people similar and different to one another? Create lists of identifiers that are similar within your entire market and identifiers that are specific to a particular group.
4. Make a list of your value propositions
What value does your company provide to your customers? Generate a list of all your value propositions. Be sure to refer to your overarching mission statement!
5. Create a customer persona
Under each value proposition, identify target consumers for this proposition. Think critically, which consumers will see this as valuable and want to purchase my product, service, etc.? Target consumers can be divided into may categories, including the following:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Behaviors
- Location
6. Reverse
Try this process again, by first identifying target consumers and then identifying value propositions for those consumers.
After you have your list of target customers and value propositions to those target customers, engage in some further market research. Are your target customers interested in what you expected? How can you adjust this strategy to fit your results?
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