An Introduction to Personas, User Groups, and Segmentation
What is segmentation in digital marketing?
Segmentation is the process of identifying and categorizing the core segments of your organization’s target audience based on specific characteristics including demographics, geographies, behaviors, and attitudes.
How does digital marketing segmentation work?
In order to determine your segmentation, you first need to get a better understanding of who your audiences are since they each have unique needs, goals, and perspectives. Through UX research, you build personas based on observing these different segments’ behavior. Personas are the identity of a specific user group, in which you outline all of your characteristics, and assign it a name and avatar as a quick reference (usually in a simple, one-page summary). You can also create a customer journey map to catalog each persona’s behavior. You might have 3-5 or more personas that represent the various user groups you are targeting. These groups may include:
- People who you are trying to make aware of your organization’s offerings
- New leads who are considering your products or services
- Existing customers who are actively engaging with you
- Past customers who may have gone silent
- People in your social community
- Job recruits
Why is segmentation important in marketing?
Segmentation is an essential part of a sound marketing strategy. It is vital you know your audience types, where they are entering the marketing funnel, ensure you have identified personalized customer journeys assigned to each segment, and that your messaging language and customer outreach plans are tailored to suit the specific needs in a way that is both inviting, interesting, and engaging.
How will you know if your marketing segmentation is successful?
It is much more impactful to have laser-focused marketing strategies that speak directly to your target audience segments than to have an overly broad, blanket approach that tries to be all things to everyone at once. By establishing KPIs based on goals you set for each segment, you can see the direct impact your marketing efforts are making in real-time, allowing you to fine-tune your messaging to make sure it’s impact is being fully realized and is on target.
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