3 Tips On How to Segment Your Audience

Segmenting your customers is one of the most important aspects of marketing, but it can often be quite difficult for small businesses to know how to segment their customer base. Marketing at large can be laborious for many small businesses, and effective segmentation is usually quite difficult for most businesses. That’s a shame because segmenting your customers into distinct subgroups is a proven way to increase your revenue and make an impact on your customer base.

Marketing, at the end of the day, is about reaching the right people at the right time with the right message. Without effectively segmenting your target audience into distinct subgroups, you’re likely missing opportunities. Most business owners know this but still continue to market their target audience as if they were all the same. This is a huge mistake and one that is wasting your marketing budget.

Luckily, it’s not all that difficult to segment your customers if you know what to look for. The marketing experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design put together some thoughts on how to guide the way you segment your customer base.

By Behavior

Consider, for example, customers who have added items to their checkout cart from your e-commerce site but have not completed their purchase. Sending promotional emails with reminders and discounted rates is a great way to incentivize purchases. Other behavioral triggers will depend on your business use case but can also be useful ways to segment. Select which triggers make the most sense for your business, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, visiting your site, or talking to a rep at a community event. The more you can specifically tailor your marketing to specific actions taken by your customer, the more impactful you will be.

By Stage

Segmenting your customer base by the stage they are within the marketing funnel is a great option as well. The reason why is fairly simple. The concerns of a customer who is considering your business are quite different from the concerns of a business who has not heard of your business. Segmenting your customer base by stage helps you understand how you should message during each different stage.

Generally speaking, we often recommend pairing marketing tactics with various stages within the funnel.

• Top of Funnel: paid advertising, SEO
• Mid Funnel: web content, written assets, video marketing, video advertising
• Bottom of Funnel: Google Ads, e-commerce pages
• Current Customers: email marketing
• Advocacy Stage: written and video testimonials, public reviews

By Persona

Marketing personas are an interesting way to divide your target audience. There are different ways of utilizing this marketing research tool, but the general premise is pretty simple. Make a fictitious person who represents your target audience and work to describe their pain points, motivations, and goals as best you can.

For example, if you’re a small vineyard and you want to break up your audience into three distinct personas, you might end up with three different people.

Susan: The Conneiouser

• Attributes: middle-aged, even split between male and female, upper middle class.

• Values: Quality at mid-price points. Has an experienced palate and prefers dryer reds over other styles.

• One Word For Approach To Wine: ‘Savor’

• Goal: Obtaining highly-rated bottles without premium price points, although interested in paying more for tasty wine.

• Bottles: Winemakers Own Blend Series, Heritage Cab

Becky: The Bargain Hunter

• Attributes: below 35, skews female, middle-class

• Values: approachable wine at bargain price points. Not a wine aficionado and likes a sweeter and drinkable wine.

• One Word For Approach to Wine: ‘Fun’

• Goal: Finding quality wine at entry-level price points.

• Bottles: Vineyard Red Blend, Vineyard Chardonnay, Vineyard Sparkling Wine

Greg: The Local Lover

• Attributes: 21-35.

• Values: local craft wines.

• One Word For Approach To Wine: ‘Find’

• Goal: enjoying local wares. Will pay more for local, organic wine.

• Bottles: Organic Series

The goal with these personas is not to know every piece of information you possibly can about your audience. It is, however, to recognize the differences between the different groups and take action accordingly.

For instance, you might be sure to include wine ratings and awards in any promotional materials or messaging around the Winemakers Own Blend Series since you know that the target audience of this wine appreciates highly reviewed bottles. The keywords you employ in your content, web pages, and Google Ad campaigns will vary from persona to persona as well.

For example, if you’re promoting the Organic Series, you might discover that “local wine” and “local vineyards” are great keywords for reaching your fictitious ‘Greg’ persona. Again, you don’t need to get it all perfect. However, we do recommend using personas to see the differences between subsets of your audience and use them to your advantage!

Consult With JSL Marketing & Web Design

If you’re looking for a marketing partner to help you take your business to new heights, turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design! We’re an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in Dallas, TX. We like to think we do great work, but don’t just take our word for it; take the word of our customers!

“They’ve been wonderful to work with. They’re always on top of any task…no matter how small.” – Melissa W, healthcare industry. 

“It was a quick and easy process, and we couldn’t be happier with our end product.” – Carter H, Grand Rapids, MI. 

The reason for our success is simple. We don’t offer cookie-cutter solutions or one-size fits all strategies. We take the time to discuss your unique situation with you and work to design a marketing strategy that aligns with your needs. Marketing is all about messaging to the correct segments, and we want to ensure that your business is being promoted in a unique and strategic way.

We offer…

• Email Marketing
• SEO
• Web Design
• Paid Media
• Video Marketing & Branding
• Social Media Management
• & More

Book Your Free Consultation Today!