Start Customer Segmentation Right
The marketing department at a large firm (with a strong sales-driven culture) was trying to get sales' support to launch a customer segmentation effort. In one meeting, the consultant hired to do market research presented her psychographic analysis of consumers, outlining seven segments -- and recommended, based on the company's "brand positioning", that the firm disregard three of the segments and focus their advertising efforts on the other four.
At this point, one of the sales execs piped up and said "if the purpose of our segmentation effort is to exclude potentially profitable prospects, I can't support this." The consultant (and marketing) was dead in her tracks.
What mistake did marketing make? They didn't start by clearly defining WHY the firm needed a new customer segmentation approach. "Understanding differences in consumer behaviors and attitudes" isn't good enough. That's simply an academic exercise. Successful segmentation efforts start with a definition of what the firm needs to do a better job of (e.g., targeting, offer development, product design) -- and how a customer segmentation scheme will help the company improve those areas.
For more on this topic, please go to Marketing ROI: Whims From Ron Shevlin
0 Comments:
Post a Comment