What is a "customer segment?"
| Answer: Segmentation has been used to signify many things, not all of which are accurate. Typically, you'll find the term segmentation applied to demographics and lifestyles in consumer markets, and to size, industry, and geography in business markets. On the Internet, people use age, gender, etc. for segmentation. Worst of all, many confuse segmentation with terms like one-to-one marketing, as though people share little commonality. There is a way to make this clearer, and this is the way marketing academics have found it makes the most sense. The answer lies in the work of Russell Haley (Journal of Marketing, July 1968), who first used the term "benefit segmentation." Also known as needs-based segmentation, benefit segmentation is essentially the idea that customers should be segmented on the basis of their needs. Simply put, customers in different benefit segments have different needs. This is confusing to some people because they think that benefit segmentation is just one of many ways to segment a market. But it is the only way that is correct, since it is simply based on the idea that people differ only to the extent that the money they give you for your product is based on the benefits your product provides. No other way of segmenting the market does this. For a more concrete example of segmentation, see our tutorial on the subject. |
More resources related to Marketing Analysis
-
Despite being little known in the North America and Europe, Chance Discovery has groundbreaking implications for Western marketing analytics. It endeavors to solve a longstanding paradox of standard quantitative marketing analysis: how to find new opportunities in our data that have yet to be realized. In other words, Chance Discovery moves our analysis of marketing data from standard description or modeling into a formal approach for seeking inspiration from within these data.
-
Marketers always have to adapt to changing consumer demands, consumer tastes, shifting customer priorities, economic downturns, economic upturns, savvy consumers and buyers just looking for something new. But before marketing can affect a change with either a new product offering, or reinvigorate a new brand, there's one constant that remains. In marketing it's the "Four Ps."
-
Do your online marketing efforts consider the cultural context of your target market? Learn why cultural understanding is critical to online marketing—and how to implement cultural qualification in your strategies.
-
The Web analytics space is hot, customers are engaged, consultants busy, vendors optimistic. There's no question this is a healthy "industry." But intense competition among the top vendors has somewhat killed product innovation. Unfortunately, that's happening at a time when the next generation of the Internet—what some call Web 2.0—needs a totally different kind of Web analytics.
-
From rules such as think big but start small and with the basics, to take an action-based approach, pick your battles, and beware of small sample sizes... in this article you'll get sound advice about data-driven marketing.
-
Data analytics love for their data points to be fixed and objective, but in the modern marketing world, that's not always the case. It's vital that your marketing mix model also incorporate what this article refers to as "squishy" data.
-
Don't Be Fooled by Data: How to Make Data Analysis in Mobile Marketing Plain and Simple
Sponsored ArticleAnalyzing mobile marketing campaign data is a complex process. One wrong number leads to misinterpretation of the entire campaign. How can you avoid pitfalls and analyze data correctly? Here are some guidelines.
-
The typical pre-post measurement is not accurate enough to support major marketing decisions; moreover, if it is not managed correctly and improved, Marketing can take a significant hit on credibility.
-
Today's marketing environment is noisy and crowded. We have so many new techniques to promote our products and services that the chaos and clutter are getting worse. How do you get heard above all the noise?
-
You can't carry on launching marketing campaigns, creating content, and paying your team just because you think marketing efforts are affecting your sales in some positive way. You need data that tells you what's working and what isn't. Marketing analytics tools to the rescue.
-
The Trouble with Segmentation
ArticleSegmentation is supposed to be the cornerstone of CRM. The problem is...it doesn't go far enough.
-
Suppose you learned that most of your brand's buyers are switchers: that only 15% of your customers are highly loyal to your brand and account for maybe half of sales. The harsh reality is that that's a typical pattern for many grocery brands. So how do you build a marketing plan to support the other half of your sales—the half that comes from buyers who are not really loyal to your brand?
-
Over the last 50 years, marketers have been working overtime to legitimize our craft; we have even gone so far as to refer to marketing as a science. Without question we have made great strides. But at the same time, we have lost some of the magic. And a little magic can make a good marketing plan quantifiably better, and in many cases great!
-
As a B2B brand, the last thing you need is to miss the post-pandemic rebound of the economy when it happens. These five marketing strategies can help you come out of the recession as strong as before—or even better positioned.
-
Companies are often not true to themselves when they establish their brand. So where do you start? Following are some guidelines to help you establish and grow a believable brand that’s consistent with your company’s “true self.”
-
To garner full value from their social intelligence strategies, CPG companies should be mindful of incorporating these three initiatives into their social plans.
-
You’ve spent weeks “negotiating” the marketing budget and you have finally received approval. But then -- business is not going as planned and cuts have to be made. Again. What now?
-
For those of us who were brought up e-marketing, e-shopping, e-dating, e-gossiping—and all things e—we may feel smug that we are truly paperless (are we really?), and thus we are so green in our behavior that who would dare cast a stone at us? Well, it's time to wake up. Direct mailers can actually be very responsible environmentally—and perhaps e-marketers need to pay closer attention to the environmental life cycle of digital commerce.
-
Part 2 covers customer-experience-driven comparative advantages and targeted deployment—the tactical execution of communicating a brand's value proposition and unlocking competitive advantages.
-
Partnerships are a powerful way for brands to expand globally, offering cost-effective solutions, local expertise, and audience reach. Learn more.
