Every day, many brands run incredible marketing campaigns across multiple platforms hoping that they will achieve results such as return-on-investment and brand awareness. However, said campaigns may not always provide the anticipated results.
In some instances, this is because marketing campaigns take a broad approach and don’t target the brand’s target audience or audiences. Audience segmentation can refine this approach and bring in excellent results.
What Is Audience Segmentation?
Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your audience up to target different subgroups or ‘segments’ to ensure that tailored marketing can be delivered.
You can segment your audience into many different categories, such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Income
- Education
- Marital status
By segmenting your audience into different demographics, you can tailor your marketing approach to each one. This can boost your conversion rates and show your customers that you know who they are and what they want.
For instance, your younger audience may not engage with the same content that your older audience does. Here, audience segmentation would enable you to split them up and run campaigns for both younger and older people simultaneously. They would see different, more targeted marketing than if you ran a generic campaign.
Types of Audience Segmentation
As mentioned above, you can use demographics such as age, gender, and income to segment your audience and create more personalised content. However, there are other ways that you can divide up your audience:
- Behaviour – You can analyse when people buy, what they buy, and how much they buy to determine how to engage with them as they shop. Target those who are more likely to choose you. For example, first-time buyers or those looking for another company or brand.
- Level of engagement – Repeat customers won’t interact the same way as those who only shop occasionally. Those with low levels of engagement might interact with an offer to win them back, such as a discount or a special offer.
- Devices – What are your customers browsing on? A mobile phone, tablet, or laptop? Many people browse using smartphones, so tailor your content to them. Here, take advantage of short blog posts and snappy copy. But don’t neglect your desktop users! They engage more with long-form copy and informational posts.
- Buyers journey progress – Another way to target your audience effectively is by examining the stage of the buyer’s journey they are currently at. Consider whether they are at the awareness, consideration, or decision making stage? A great way to target those in the consideration stage is to send targeted emails if they leave something in their basket or linger on a specific page.
These strategies aren’t set in stone, either. You can chop and change and even combine how you want to segment your audience – maybe you want to see who engages the most on their phone or if their behaviour changes depending on their age.
All of these segments can be overwhelming, so narrow them down by asking yourself the following questions:
- What about this segment is relevant to your organisation?
- What is distinct about this segment from others? Segments that are not different enough may not warrant different strategies.
- How large does your potential segment need to be? Essentially, it needs to be a suitable size to be worth tailoring your marketing to.
- How are you going to communicate to your chosen segment? Will it be through social media, emails, or another channel?
Where To Start
To take advantage of audience segmentation, you need to gather data on your audience. You can do this by conducting surveys or utilising tools such as Google Analytics. Data you may want to focus on could include their gender, location, age, and income.
The next step is to review the data gathered and sort it into your segments. Keep in mind that although your segments should be specific, they should not be too narrow. Being too specific will reduce your audience so much that it won’t target enough people.
Now that you have your segments, you can then work on targeting your different audiences. There are various strategies for this:
- Tailor your landing page to your different segments.
- Use different social media channels to reach your different segments. For a slightly older audience, use Facebook. For your younger audience, Instagram and TikTok are the best to use.
- Utilise targeted adverts on search engines.
Using these different approaches thoughtfully and adjusting other elements to your target audience’s needs and wants can offer incredible results. You’ll begin to see increased sales, interest, and gain customer loyalty with consistent marketing.
Conclusion
Although you can’t tailor your content to each person in your audience, audience segmentation will help you create definitions that can tailor your content and drive your conversion rates. People enjoy being treated as individuals, so it is essential to engage with them to get the best results for your brand.
