+13236381128
+15199002991
+61480040096
Book a Demo
TRY A SAMPLE SURVEY
en_US Englishfr_FR French
en_US Englishfr_FR French
+13236381128
+15199002991
+61480040096
en_US Englishfr_FR French
Micro-Segmentation: to refine target marketing Micro-segmentation

Micro-Segmentation: to refine target marketing

SHARE THE ARTICLE ON

Table of Contents

When you plan to buy a cell phone you consider a lot of factors – Is the mobile within my budget? Would the battery last longer? How is the camera? Does it come in other colors? Is it Bluetooth enabled? While your focus is on the mobile phone, marketers apply the same focus on customers. 

Micro-segmentation is a marketer’s way of clubbing customers who share similar characteristics and behavior into the same micro-segment. A single male in his 30’s who is interested in the latest tech and often buys gadgets online– is a customer who belongs to a niche.

Transform your insight generation process

Create an actionable feedback collection process.

Download Now
online survey
Read More

What is Micro-segmentation?

Let’s first address segmentation. Customer segmentation refers to the subdivision of the customers into distinct groups based on shared characteristics. Companies use their knowledge about these segmented groups to personalize their offerings and boost revenue. 

Micro-segmentation involves refining the broad categories into smaller and more niche-based groups. As Craig Teich, from Connexity, Inc. explains, micro-segmentation is the process of layering numerous data points to identify and cluster individuals in a granular level. 

Micro-segmenting customers

Customer segmentation in practice includes four categories in general – Geography, Demographic, Psychographic, and Behavioral. When you further segment each group you are micro-segmenting the market. 

  • Geography can be broken into the country, state, city, or neighborhood. You can further segment customers based on climate, terrain, rural or urban area. 
  • Demographic can be further categorized based on age, life cycles, job, sex, income, education level, religion, and many more to create a persona. 
  • For Psychographic one can use attributes such as values, lifestyle, personality, etc. You can also micro-segment Lifestyle into tech-savvy, fashionista, traveler, etc. 
  • Behavioral segmentation can take into account purchase intent, purchase history, frequent purchases, window-shoppers, and different types of customers. 

Micro-segmentation involves combining different attributes from the four categories mentioned above to build a more targeted buyer persona. For example, a female between the age of 25 and 35 who likes to travel and makes seasonal-purchase at a sports store. Such will be the micro-segment targeted by a shop selling sporting items. 

Start collecting insights at scale!
Uncover high quality insights with Voxco

How can you benefit from Micro-segmentation?

Micro-Segmentation: to refine target marketing Micro-segmentation

Micro-segmentation helps a brand deliver a more personalized and better digital experience. Identifying customers at a niche level helps marketers get a clear picture of their needs, values, intent, behavior, and many more variables that impact their purchase decision. You can use cross-channel insights and data from all sources (internal and external) to refine and restructure your audience. This enables you to offer a highly personalized experience. 

Micro-segmentation also helps marketers to monitor and observe how customers shift among the segments. For example, you can see a man changing his shopping behavior from when he is a bachelor to married. The man shifts from being a luxury spender to buying goods for the family. 

Tracking micro-segmentation can also help you to optimize your marketing efforts. It can help you identify a customer’s lifetime value, predicting the profit the customer may generate for your brand in the future. You can determine the highly profitable customer segment of your business. This will enable you to create targeted marketing efforts to increase revenue from those customers. 

According to Infosys, 78% of customers claim that they are more likely to purchase from a company that provides them with more targeted offers. 

By micro-segmenting customers based on personal and behavioral data, marketers can strategize specific marketing efforts to maximize their effectiveness on customers. You can recommend products that resonate with a small, targeted group of customers specifically. With detailed information on your prospects and existing customers, you will learn what kind of content will have more impact on them. 

There is a 26% increase in open rates for email campaigns that are personalized to the customers. 

Download Market Research Toolkit

Get market research trends guide, Online Surveys guide, Agile Market Research Guide & 5 Market research Template

Download Now
Making the most of your B2B market research in 2021 PDF 3 s 1.png

How can you create Micro-Segments in marketing?

Micro-Segmentation: to refine target marketing Micro-segmentation

The basic concept of micro-segmenting the market is to start from the broad categories of segmentations, and then narrow it down from thereon. It is done using a combination of technology like algorithms, data mining, and AI. 

To create a more targeted persona of your customers these technologies assist to monitor and evaluate their shopping behavior, pattern in the purchase, returns, abandoned carts, re-purchase, and more. 

For example, you own an e-commerce site and want to promote new anime-character-themed sneakers. You will begin by making a list of customers who have purchased from similar product categories (anime) before from your website. Then you will segment the customers based on age, say, 20 to 30. Then you will further narrow down your list into people who have recently searched for character-themed shoes in the past 4 to 6 months. 

In the end, you will have a small list of customers who qualify for your micro-segment. This way you can target them with personalized content. 

We have mentioned some more ways you can segment your customers for effective and targeted marketing efforts. 

Use social media to sort people into smaller segments:

Social media is where most people are. And, almost every social media platform allows you to divide your network into separate groups. From Google+ circles to Twitter, Facebook, even Instagram lets you create a list of close friends. 

As a brand, you can use social media segmentation to define people based on demographics and lifestyle as they share on their accounts. You can monitor patterns in how and what they post to narrow them down into niche segments. This way you will understand what type of customers you are observing. As a result, you can develop more targeted marketing messages that reflect the differences in the customer’s personality and thus increase the relevancy of the message. 

See Voxco survey software in action with a Free demo.

Book a Free Demo

Value-based segmentation: 

As you begin to gather data on your audience you will see a pattern based on an attribute that is value. Creating marketing efforts that target the value which the customer demonstrates can increase the effectiveness and impact of the effort. 

For example, weather although is a geographic segmentation is also a value-based micro-segmentation. A brand that sells clothing or essential items for specific weather can adjust it’s messaging based on the location and its season. 

Segmentation based on email engagement:

Not all your subscribers will engage equally with your emails. While some will open and click on every single link you send on your message, others won’t open your emails even after months. 

You can target your audience better when you look into the engagement pattern of individual subscribers. You can create a message that is relevant to a specific type of subscriber. 

For example, if you send a newsletter every month you can identify who opens your email and goes through each of the content. You can use this knowledge to specifically target them for upsell or product recommendations. Or, you can send emails that target those who don’t open or click on your email or content with incentives and offers to lure them to engage with your content. 

Here are some additional tips to ease the process of micro-segmentation of your market.

  • Track behavioral attributes such as – buying stage, purchase frequency and pattern, purchase history – of individual customers. 
  • Customers react differently to price, quality, delivery service, and other factors. Segment customers based on these variables to offer a more personalized experience and service. 
  • In the case of existing customers, consider factors like –lifetime value, growth profile, previously purchased products, etc. 

Conclusion

Micro-segmentation is a simple and direct way to show your customers you care about their preferences and you know them as a friend. It allows for hyper-personalized and targeted marketing campaigns and increases conversion as well. Customers only care for those experiences which are relevant and add value to their lives. 

Micro-segmentation allows brands to create an experience that resonates with their customers by increasing the use of relevant data.

Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

Explore all the survey question types
possible on Voxco

Try a Sample Survey

Explore Voxco Survey Software

Online page new product image3 02.png 1

+ Omnichannel Survey Software 

+ Online Survey Software 

+ CATI Survey Software 

+ IVR Survey Software 

+ Market Research Tool

+ Customer Experience Tool 

+ Product Experience Software 

+ Enterprise Survey Software 

Get a Free Demo

Read more