Why Audience Segmentation is Important
When cleaning out promotional emails from your inbox, have you ever wondered why you were receiving an email from a company about a product you have no interest in? These emails quickly find their way to the trash folder, and you continue about your day. Somewhere there is a marketer wondering why that same email didn’t get better engagement.
Identifying your target audience is pivotal in developing relevant messaging that will resonate with your ideal consumer. Many savvy marketers will dissect their target audience a step further through audience segmentation. Audience segmentation is the identification of subgroups of your targeted audience – this can be done through four categories: demographics, behavioral data, geographics, and psychographics.
You might ask yourself why this is important – you already know who you’re targeting. Here are the top reasons why you should investigate segmentation:
Customized Messaging
The more granular you know your audience, the more specific you can become in your messaging. For instance, let’s say a women’s online boutique knows their target audience is women in the mid-twenties to early forties. While that’s a great starting point, that's a wide age range of women in all different areas of their lives.
Through segmentation, you can learn more about your audience and message to them accordingly. Maybe the younger end of that audience is into the latest fashion trends – 90s and early 2000s style. You can use that information to send targeted ads promoting baggy mom jeans, and other on-trend fashion. On the opposite side, you can target another segment by promoting the economic deals your boutique is offering, as well as highlighting stylish, age-appropriate fashion.
Essentially, the more you can tailor your messaging to be reflective of the different personalities within your audience, the higher the likelihood of successfully converting them to customers.
Increased engagement
Naturally, if your messaging is resonating with your segments, you will see higher engagement rates on your marketing efforts. The working strategy is that marketing to a large, undefined audience results in fewer sales. This is true and the idea of “throwing something at the wall” and seeing what sticks just isn’t effective or a good use of resources.
Knowing precisely who to target and narrowing in on that segment increases overall success. You can track the efficacy of your marketing to your segments through KPIs like email click-through rate, promotional sales, SEO performance and more. If you’re not tracking performance, here are some reasons why you should start.
Brand awareness
At a minimum, segmenting your audience builds awareness for your brand within your target. This may seem like a small thing, but is crucial for the vitality and success of your business. Awareness is the backbone of converting a prospect into a client. After all, they cannot purchase your goods or service if they’re not aware it exists in the first place. This awareness within your segmentation will drive sales and develop brand loyalty.