It may seem complex and difficult to do when marketing your brand.
But it can turn out to be a much simpler path to follow if you want greater results from your marketing efforts.
Many small business owners shy away from market segmentation and one reason is the fear of missing out. This is especially so when they start up and need customers to get some income happening.
But is does come back to bite you as it is too time consuming and wastes money going after groups of potential customers that will never buy what you offer.
Market Segmentation
Market segmentation has been around for a long time. It is simplify dividing up a total market and identifying the different groups of people with common characteristics. In fact I have developed a market segmentation program to help you.
Unless you learn which segments are worth targeting you end up with hit and miss results.
Take an example from your personal life. You have a number of people who you connect with, from your immediate family to your neighbours to the people you work with.
If you were trying to work out how to communicate certain news you wouldn’t send the same message in the same way to everyone. In fact you may even ignore one group because it isn’t relevant to them.
The same goes for a celebration dinner where you have to bring a dish. Knowing who will be attending, the type of celebration it is and what their preferences are all helps you decide what to bring.
This is the same thing in marketing and it pays to ignore certain segments as it is just not profitable to try and attract and retain everyone.
Working out the customer segments and build a customer profile simplifies your decisions regarding your marketing strategies:
Marketing Decisions
There have always been 4 and some now like to include people, however whatever the number your decisions will always revolve around your customer relationships.
Some of the advantages of market segmentation are:
Products/Services – you are able to refine what you offer based on their preferences and needs rather than being generic.
Price – the guesswork is taken out these decisions and you be able to identify the pricing limits that for your market segments.
Marketing tactics – understanding the needs and desires of your market segments means you can develop your communication that you know will have work.
It also means that you don’t have to follow the latest ‘should’ as you have reference points and know what marketing activities are the most appropriate.
It is easy to fall into the trap of complexity however taking small steps to embracing simplicity is far more rewarding in the long run.
Marketing Simplicity Tip:
Start looking at the common characteristics of your repeat customers and if you are interested in seeing what the market segmentation program looks like Click Here.
Now over to you, have you used market segmentation for your business?