Many companies segment their markets based on the available fields within their CRM system, their customers’ purchase histories, or any other digital behaviors identified in their company. Marketing tools may segment their market based on specific methods that factor in different dimensions.
Are you maximizing your market segmentation’s value or wasting money?
Avoid these seven common mistakes when segmenting your market.
Not having clean data
Segmentation is inaccurate if you base your decisions on data with duplicates, outdated data, or data that has not been normalized. It isn’t very comfortable to send two promotions at once!
Ensure that your data is accurate, clean, and well-structured.
Determining a segment of the market by instinct — without supporting it with data
It is not a good idea to segment based on customer profiles or personas based on assumptions, particularly when you’re just starting.
If you define a segment as profitable but bring in less revenue than the other segments, that is a mistake. Only by looking at the actual numbers will you see this is a big mistake. When creating segments, it is essential to analyze customer data.
You should test your segments before finalizing them if you lack data. You could test by sending out email campaigns to see what results you get or running limited digital campaigns to see how much interest they generate.
The goal of the analysis is wrong
Your business’s goals should determine how you define and target the people within each segment. Each segment’s marketing strategy should be tailored to your business goals.
If you have a segment that is due for renewal and you’d like to get rid of it, then you should send them information about renewals and marketing promotions related to renewals. You wouldn’t want to send them info about your latest products or upgrades when the goal is to renew. Once you have closed the renewal, a new segment will be created that may receive that information.
You have based your market segmentation on the limited information you have
You may not have collected enough data to create your ideal segmentation. If you want to sell women’s shoes but don’t have data about your customers’ gender, you can’t send a campaign to only women.
It is essential to constantly evaluate your ideal client profile and segmentation needs and ensure that your data collection gets the information you require from your customers.
When developing market segments, it is sometimes overlooked that channels are essential
Some of your customers may not be interested in what you say through all your channels. It would be best if you used the pipeline that will best connect with your customers based on past experiences.
For example, if you are a travel agent, you might have clients who open emails only sent by their travel agent, even though they receive emails from you. You would be wasting your time if you sent a mass email to these people urging them to book online when they prefer to contact their travel agent. You might consider having their travel agent send them a direct email with your promotional offers.
When engaging prospects and current customers, timing is crucial
Segmenting a segment already defined based on the engagement time is a good idea. This segment can be found on the frequency of purchases, the last purchase date, or the renewal date. However, having an additional feature allows you to get the correct information in front of the client at the appropriate time.
You don’t follow up after launching a campaign for a particular market segment
This failure can be expensive. Many people compare Segment A with Segment B. However, reaching the same segment across multiple campaigns is more beneficial to determine if the drives are suitable for the part.
This will help you track the overall improvements in your marketing efforts for that segment. You can duplicate what’s working if the performance of that particular piece increases. If the version of that segment drops, you can identify what’s wrong and correct it for future campaigns.