Audience Segmentation: A Marketing Essential

Many first-time marketers create uniform messaging and distribute it widely to save time. Audience segmentation, however, uses a more refined approach: enabling you to organize contacts into smaller groups so you can give them what they really want.

Why is audience segmentation important?

Seth Godin, a prolific author and marketing expert, defines segmentation in his book, This Is Marketing.

“We worry about disappointing, missing, offending or otherwise leaving behind someone who might become our customer,” he said in an interview with Inc. To avoid this, we try to produce content that will appeal to everyone.

Unfortunately, this can often result in content that’s flat, generic, and “mediocre,” as Godin puts it. In trying to please everyone, we end up pleasing no one.

Audience segmentation avoids mediocrity because it makes your marketing efforts more personalized (or “focused”). It lets you:

• Define your target audiences
• Tailor your message to resonate specifically with them
• Meet a specific need that can help drive up conversion rates
• Build a relationship with your customers and earn their loyalty
• Bring in leads to accelerate your sales cycle

When a customer feels like a message was written just for them, they’re more likely to be receptive to what you have to say. Segmentation makes that kind of personalization possible.

So where do you start? Most marketing efforts begin with the creation of a customer persona, or a mock-up personality meant to represent your ideal customer. That persona can include where that person works, whether they’re married, and what their hobbies are.

Personas help you communicate with your customers on their level, especially when it comes to identifying their pain points—and how you can help alleviate them. Once you create those personas, you can separate them into groups.

Types of audience segmentation

Marketers often sort people according to factors like their demographics, behavior, and where they are in their buyer’s journey. What strategy you use to segment your audience depends on the product or service you’re delivering.

If you run a website that sells skiing equipment, for example, it might not make sense to treat people in different geographical locations as separate segments, because most of them probably have to travel to ski. But it might be practical to segment them according to their behavior and level of engagement. People who have been interested in the sport for years and know the products you sell will probably engage with your business differently than those just starting.

Let’s take a closer look at the different ways you can segment your audience below.

Demographics

This is the most common method of audience segmentation—and usually the easiest one. Age, income level, job type, and geographic location are all demographics you can use to sort your audience. This method is popular for a reason: It works.

One type of location-based segmentation strategy is to approach customers during the time of year they’re most likely to need your product. A farming company might be more apt to purchase equipment during harvesting season, for example. In the American South, that could be almost year round, but in other areas of the country, that might be during the summer or fall.

Behavior

This strategy goes a bit deeper than demographic separation. Analyzing behavior means looking at what people buy, how often they make a purchase, and why they buy the product or service.

Someone who makes small purchases on a regular basis, for example, needs different messaging than someone who only makes a major purchase every once in a while. That’s because those people are looking for different things and likely buying for different reasons.

With behavioral segmentation, your message is tailored to reach customers when they’re more likely to convert. Some examples of these groups include prospective buyers, first-time buyers, regular customers, and defectors who have switched to another brand.

Interests

Everybody has different interests, from the aesthetics they like to the hobbies they enjoy. Targeting customers based on these interests can help you segment your audience so that you can target the right people with the right messaging.

For example, if you have a lot of customers who are into a particular sport or sports team, you can use that information to create personalized, engaging ads for that audience.

You can even segment your audience based on the aesthetic they prefer, whether it’s a clean, modern look or an old-fashioned, traditional style.

Buyer’s journey progress

When you use this strategy, you tailor your messages based on where your customer is in their buyer’s journey. If you’re not familiar with the term, the 3 basic stages of the buyer’s journey are awareness, consideration, and decision.

A buyer at the beginning of their journey could just be finding out they have an issue to solve. One near the end, however, already knows what to buy and is ready to make a choice. Instead of sending them the same message, segmentation can help you tend to each buyer’s different needs and answer questions they may have.

Level of engagement

Contacts that regularly engage with your brand require different marketing than infrequent ones. If you can tell that someone is interested in your business—whether they signed up for your newsletter or made frequent purchases—they’re likely to be more receptive to your messaging than someone who occasionally interacts with your brand.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore or deprioritize users with low levels of engagement. You can send these users campaigns with tailored messaging. Many brands target these customers with “win-back” offers.

Device usage

Not all of your users will browse your website in the same way. There’s a good chance that more than half of your audience will view your website on their mobile devices.

People use desktop and mobile devices differently, and your website needs to accommodate both. Some of the changes you need to make are obvious, like formatting the mobile version of your site for smaller screens. But think about the circumstances under which people will be browsing it, too. Mobile users are more likely to view your site on the go, which means they probably will only have time to read short posts. Save long-form content for your desktop users.

When you optimize a particular message for mobile and structure it so that users can easily tap through a survey or like an image, you increase the chances of retaining your customers’ interest. You can also use this method to let them use their phone to contact you or place an order more efficiently.

Combining audience segmentation strategies

You can use 2 or more of these methods mentioned in the previous section together to expand your reach even further. An example of this is sending an email notification in the summer to a farmer (demographics) who buys tractor parts from you on a regular basis (behavior).

Sometimes audience segments can intersect in interesting and unexpected ways. Many millennials are mobile-only internet users who use their tablets and smartphones the way other people use their laptops and desktop computers. As mentioned, in general, mobile users are more likely to view your website on the go. But this pattern doesn’t necessarily hold true for mobile-only users. That means that your millennial customers might be interested in reading long-form content after all.

Regardless of which segmentation strategies you apply, it’s important to test them frequently to ensure your campaigns are performing well.

How to use audience segments

Now that you know the answer to “what is audience segmentation?” and the different types of segments available, you can begin using those groupings to inform your marketing plan. For example, you can use targeted email campaigns or targeted social media ads to reach a specific audience. Targeted marketing campaigns are often more effective, which means you get more bang for your buck in terms of advertising. Combined with effective lead generation, learning how to segment audiences and utilize targeted advertising is essential to marketing.

Just like it’s important to understand your general target audience, understanding the different segments of your audience is key. Different demographics respond to different marketing techniques, and you don’t want to neglect demographics that may be important to your business. At the very least, you should use audience segments to get a better understanding of the groups you’re marketing to.

Audience segmentation tips

Once you’ve decided which segmentation strategies to go with, you can put the rest of your plan together. How are you going to target those people? Will it be via email, social, or personalized landing pages? Here are a few tips for marketing smarter.

Keep your segments more widely defined.

Although the point of audience segmentation is to aim for specificity, it’s possible to segment your audience too far. It’s essential to have a smaller market with a defined need. If your market is so narrowly defined that it barely contains anyone, however, that’s a problem. You’ll either reach too few people, or you’ll end up spending time and energy writing messages for too many different audiences.

Focus on a few groups, but keep those groups broad enough to encompass relatively wide swaths of your customer base. Instead of “middle-aged customers that buy at Christmastime, pay with Discover, and live in Minnesota,” try defining your audience as “Midwestern customers that make more purchases during the holidays.” The latter audience segment allows for much more wiggle room.

Aim for constant improvement.

If the combination of audience segmentation tools you used didn’t work, experiment with another mix until you find the most effective way to reach your potential customers and existing audience. Measure the data to see where people are landing on your site, how long they’re staying, and what’s making them leave. Then incorporate that data into your next effort and into the day-to-day operations of your marketing.

A good way to determine if an audience segment you’ve created will be useful is to see if it meets 4 criteria:

1. Is it relevant and likely to take action? Can your company solve their problem?
2. Is it distinguishable from other segments? Does it have unique characteristics that set it apart?
3. Is it sizable enough to be worth targeting?
4. Is it locatable? Are you able to find out where this group spends their time and communicate with them?

Set goals, then measure them.

Marketing goals are important. If your objective is to “reach more people,” for example, define what you’re looking to see from each of your segments. That can include adding 500 more subscribers to your email newsletter, increasing the total number of products you sell by 20%, or doubling your email campaign’s click-through rate.

You should also make sure that your audience segment’s goals align with the overall goals of your company. Once you’ve set those objectives, track them. If you met them, great!

If not, some tweaking is necessary. Setting goals and measuring them is simple—and it can provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of a marketing plan.

Use different channels.

While email lists are absolutely key to communicating directly with your customers, there are more channels you can explore when it comes to building better relationships. Here are a few examples:

• Reach out to your customers with posts on social media on the platforms you know they’re most likely to use. What social media platforms you begin engaging with depends on your industry and customers. Does your company sell ethically made makeup products? See about working with a beauty influencer on Instagram. Do you run a digital marketing agency? Try building a strong presence on Twitter and LinkedIn.
• You can also reach and provide value to your audiences through blogging, whether it’s through your own site or someone else’s. Write an article that details something useful and position yourself as an authority on your product. If you’re selling cameras, for example, a guest post on a review site or an article on how to clean your own camera sensor could get your company in front of the right eyes.
• If you’ve got the skills or budget for it, try creating YouTube videos that are relevant to your target audience. Include links in the videos’ descriptions to get more subscribers to your email list or blog.

When you use different channels thoughtfully, you’ll see a return on that effort in the form of increased interest, increased sales, and repeat customers.

How to segment your audience in Mailchimp

Now that you’ve got the basic audience segmentation definition down, you might be wondering how you can use Mailchimp for audience segmentation. To create an audience segment in Mailchimp, navigate to the “Audience” section, then click on “Segments.” From here, you can click the “Create segment” button to build different audience groupings.

Mailchimp allows you to create simple segments if you’re a beginner, or you can create more complex segments with more specific parameters. More complex audience segments can allow you to further target your audience in unique and engaging ways with content they’re actually interested in.

Organize your contacts in meaningful ways

Though you might not know every individual’s name, your audience is made up of many distinct groups that will respond to your product or service in different ways.

If you create your content with this in mind, you’ll draw in more viewers, and your viewers will be more likely to convert. In the long term, it also makes them more likely to think well of you and your business. After all, nobody wants to feel like they’re being lumped in with thousands of other faceless consumers. People want to be treated like people.

Take some time to segment your audience and create customized messages for them. It’s worth it—and your audience will appreciate it.

Audience segmentation is an important part of growing your audience. If you need help creating audience segments and using them in your marketing plan, check out the suite of marketing tools we have to offer today.