Dec 5, 2014 11:20:00 AM
Segment-Based Marketing vs. the Big Data Machine Gun
With so many tools available today to customize your marketing messages, which methods will you use to focus your communication efforts?
Your ideal marketing strategy is an arrow directed toward your target audience. In the past, marketing teams shot 10,000 arrows into the airwaves, hoping they would hit something. While this barrage approach wasn’t very efficient, at the time, it was all that was available.
With the availability of Big Data, the promise has been to personalize these arrows by finding millions of individual targets. However, with so much personalized information being fired at users, most messages bounce off outer rings without leaving a mark. Perhaps a more efficient approach would be to send fewer, stronger arrows with 10,000 tips.
In the age of Big Data, with its promise of progressively individualized results, it’s tempting to think that more is better, and that “splitting” is more effective than “lumping".
Keep in mind, the databases and statistical analyses used in these applications are collected from past customer behaviors; by following their lead we are pursuing what many times amounts to a post hoc campaign. In the race to connect with a receptive respondent, messages that target users selected by engorged automated data analysis systems not only compete with every other sender, but they risk becoming dismissed in the white noise that bombards users daily.
“For many consumers, the rising volume of marketing messages isn’t empowering—it’s overwhelming. Rather than pulling customers into the fold, marketers are pushing them away with relentless and ill-conceived efforts to engage.”- Patrick Spenner, Harvard Business Review analytics specialist
Wait. With all this data accumulated and ready to be sorted into usable results, why step back into conceptual, segmentation-oriented methods?
Although it’s certainly fascinating what we can accomplish through automated analytical methods, its current ability to split customer groups into endlessly diverse criteria is not the most effective way to reach your target audience. Acknowledging that individuals make up those groups is necessary, but remembering the commonality within those groups is crucial. There are underlying needs that unite large populations, and addressing these desires first is key to providing attractive solutions, and conserving your resources.
Your customers are not really as diverse as you may think.
Focusing your brand and informative narratives in personal, intuitive ways will produce fewer groups, but with much higher membership numbers and receptivity.
The groups most receptive and likely to “stick” to your unique offerings are those that are clustered into needs-based segments that specifically reflect the differing value propositions of your solutions.
Needs-based segmentations that spotlight groups of customers with like-minds and similar desires are best formed through intuitive, primary market research that seeks to anticipate, then accommodate both articulated and unarticulated needs.
These significant indicators are frequently dismissed by automated analytical methods; some cannot possibly be detected by them, as customers themselves find these factors difficult to pinpoint. They are only accessed through direct, personal observation of forefront trends and unmet, sometimes unrealized, needs. Automated systems, conversely, conclude based on consumer behaviors which are driven by availability, not necessarily by desire. Accessing needs-based segmentations will communicate deeper knowledge of your customer’s strategic goals and enable your message to address them directly.
Understanding what separates a great product in the mind of your customer from other choices generally available to them is paramount to effective marketing and ensuring brand loyalty.
To distinguish your best needs-based customer segments and deliver to them a message that resonates with their articulated and unarticulated needs, it’s necessary to customize your marketing aims by more efficiently targeting fewer, larger groups who share common life-goals.
Primary marketing research is the most effective way to determine these groups and reveal their most motivating desires.
