Audience segmentation is a marketing technique that identifies subgroups within your audience. Many marketers attempt to reach too wide an audience. With audience segmentation, you divide your audience into different subgroups based on several defining factors, such as age, level of education, location, and online behaviour. Audiences can also be divided by psychographics – insight into their personality types, values, and lifestyles.
The Importance of Audience Segmentation
It can be hard to reach everyone. Audience segmentation offers an effective solution. Instead of trying to reach and resonate with everybody – a near-impossible task – audience segmentation allows you to target specific groups with a particular message. It may seem like audience segmentation would take a lot of time, but the effort is worth it. Once you can effectively target different subgroups within your audience, you have a much higher chance of making an impact with each individual audience member.
A high volume of traffic is a desirable goal, but it does not always equal success. Success is better measured by performance metrics such as engagement rate, CTR, conversion rate, and ROI. With audience segmentation, your content, ads, and emails have a narrow but clear but target, increasing the likelihood of better engagement, higher conversion rates, more clicks, and a greater ROI.
Benefits of Audience Segmentation
Audience segmentation allows you to make your overall marketing campaign more personal – a key ingredient in fulfilling your audience’s wants, needs, and user preferences. With audience segmentation, you can:
- Clearly identify your target audience and subgroups
- Create personalised content for each subgroup
- Meet the needs of a specific group, thus improving your conversion rate
- Create a loyal, trusting relationship with your audience and customers
- Generate more high-quality leads
As customers, we want to know that the content we read was written with an understanding of our wants and needs. With segmentation, you show your target market that you care enough to take the time to get to know them.
It might seem like a big deal, but personalisation can drastically improve your campaign, regardless of the type of product or service you offer. In the context of consumer psychology, personalisation works because it makes the prospective customer more receptive to your message.
How to Segment Your Audience
If your audience was made up of 10 people, all of those people would, ideally, need what you have to offer. However, many might not know exactly why they need you. To show them how you can help, you might identify a problem they experience, then offer a solution.
Ten people need your service. Though they share the same need, they all have their own lives and countless personal factors that influence their buying decisions. In order to effectively reach each audience member, it would help to know more about them as people; their wants, needs, lifestyles, and customer preferences.
Audiences can be divided by buyer personas, such as:
- Demographics (age, location, career)
- Behaviour (social media preferences, online activity)
- Position on the buyer’s journey (a beginner will need different messaging to someone near the end of your marketing funnel)
- User preferences (desktop or device, personalisation)
- Engagement level (existing customer, lead, prospect)
All of the above segments need different messaging to be reached effectively. Bear in mind that your message is not simply your content; it is also how you deliver your content and what considerations you have taken before reaching out to a certain person, or segment. For example, if a customer has been loyal to your business for a long time, the way you communicate with them would be different to someone having their first interaction with your business. The way you approach each segment reflects your brand values and beliefs.
How to Reach Your Segments
Use Multiple Channels
Use different channels to reach your audience. Depending on your type of service, different channels will be more appropriate than others. For example, social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are excellent channels for clothing companies due to their image-based layout.
You can use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics or SEMrush to determine the online habits of each audience segment.. Some will use Facebook or Twitter at a certain time of day. Some will be more active on mobile than on desktop. Knowing these differences lets you target audience segments at the right time.
Personalise
Emails are a common way to reach your existing customers. Consider personalising your emails so that they speak to the rider as directly as possible. This involves using the right, most relevant keywords based on that person’s wants and needs. You can personalise more aspects of your campaign, such as blogs, ads, website design.
Listen
Customer feedback is an invaluable tool for optimising our overall campaign. If you listen to the customer, it becomes much easier to deliver what they want. You can gain insight into your customers’ opinions and experiences by looking at online reviews, social media comments, and analysing their level of engagement.
In Conclusion
It is generally better to reach a narrow, refined audience than a wide but irrelevant one. By segmenting your audience, you can focus on your efforts on meeting the specific needs of each segment. This improves the customer experience and creates a greater likelihood of attaining loyal customers who spread your brand awareness for you.
