Your customers’ buying behaviors are as different as the businesses doing the buying. But many customers are similar in what they need. This is when your MSP marketing team can segment them into groups.
After creating the groups, you can develop marketing strategies targeting each segment. The key is to segment your customers according to their needs, behaviors, and wants.
What is Marketing Segmentation?
Customer segmentation is grouping your clients into what they need from your products and services. When you do that, you’ll improve the effectiveness of your MSP marketing, communication, and customer service. The challenge is identifying the basis for the different segments.
No two customers are similar in every way so none of your groups will be exactly alike. The trick is to identify their similarities and categorize them based on their behaviors, value, needs, and motivations.
Why is Customer Segmentation Important?
Customer segment analysis lets you implement targeted promotions and pricing optimization. This can increase your profitability.
In fact, Bain & Company conducted a study with results that said 81% of business found that customer segmentation was essential for increasing profits. They also found that 25% of businesses don’t use segmentation correctly.
By targeting your segments, you strengthen your competitive positioning. You can also concentrate your marketing strategies on specific groups to increase your leads and return customers.
Tips on Marketing Segmentation
There’s no one way to segment customers. You can differentiate them based on demographics, location, attitudes, interests, values, and buying behaviors.
Some segmentation tactics are complicated, using advanced statistics and analysis. That doesn’t mean you have to use these methods. You need to figure out what makes the most sense for your business.
So, which variables should you use to segment your customers? There’s no answer that applies to every business. The answer depends on your business, your target market, and your customers.
Conduct studies of your specific market, analyze them and narrow down the list until you have a segmented list that’s most useful to your needs. Once you’ve established your customer segments, you can decide which ones to target and which ones to drop.
Identify your strong group by the following criteria:
- Strong sales and growth potential
- Easily reached with marketing strategies
- Have needs that your services can satisfy
- Aren’t loyal to a competitor
The groups you choose should be measurable, reachable and stable.
Questions to Consider When Targeting Segmented Customers
You have to target your message to your segmented groups. Each of them will have different types of relationships with you, so the answers to these questions will vary.
- How do you engage your customer and establish a trusting relationship?
- What degree of value do you provide each segmented group?
- How much detail do you provide about your products and services?
- What are your actionable plans for each customer segmentation?
Segmenting, targeting, and positioning will increase your MSP marketing success. You’ll have a strategic advantage over your competitors by segmenting your customers and identifying which groups can help you reach your goals. Targeting these groups will allow you to better meet their needs, which helps retain customers and develops high-quality leads.
