Segmentation

By Patrice Bendon, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Experian's Marketing Services division

Communicating the right message to your customers is key. But the more diverse your customers’ needs, the more pressing your need to diversify that message according those needs.

You may be lucky enough to have 80 per cent of your customers and prospects fit a particular set of characteristics. But what about the remaining 20 per cent? You don’t want to neglect them, particularly as it could just be that what makes them distinct is related to what makes them potentially the most profitable.

The ability to segment your customers is in many instances vital, the more accurately and flexibly the better. Splitting them into category A and category B may not be good enough. This could mask the fact that that they actually split into five clusters, to each of which belongs a different message about your product line. Unless you have some way of spotting niches wherever they may lie, you’ll probably be missing huge opportunities.

You can do more than apply this principle to the customers you’ve got, by applying it also to those you want to acquire. Ideally you’ll be able to look at the five segments we’ve imagined above and map their attributes onto as yet untapped areas of potential.

By better segmenting your customers and prospects, you can actually target fewer people yet get a better response. For starters, you can pick out those least likely to respond before targeting anyone.

Segmentation is a science, and not always an easy one to get to grips with. But it’s worth while if it helps you make important marketing decisions better.