"You would be surprised how many times I’ve seen people presented with the same information come up with completely different conclusions about its meaning and the actions to take from it." Leigh Morris, Strategy Director
Alongside the wide variety of formats in which to present your segmentation insight, we would highly recommend that workshops should play a part in your delivery. Workshops help facilitate discussion. They should focus on the picture of where the organisation sits today against the direction you could head. Key talking points should be:
Shared Characteristics
Segmentation should have identified shared characteristics among your target market. Knowing these characteristics and how they apply to your product or service allows you to tailor your message to each segmented audience. It’s important to note that these shared characteristics aren’t relevant if they aren’t related to purchase motivation. The way that the segments are presented should focus on the needs they are looking for brands to fulfil, and the commercial potential that each segment has.
Identify needs, habits & challenges
Discover what each specific segment needs and wants, as well as any pain points and challenges they may face throughout the buying journey. What is each segment trying to find? What problems do they have that your product or service can solve? What other factors influence their purchasing behaviour? While segmentation is normally started with sales enablement in mind, it’s important not to overlook other factors, such as what support a segment may need and how they are most likely to access it. The way that the segments are presented should focus on the needs they are looking for brands to fulfil, and the commercial potential that each segment has.
Start creating a roadmap
Once you’ve got people thinking about these new segments and how it relates to your brand/products/services, you’ll want to start developing both a short and long term roadmap as to how you can improve. You may want to give people a week and have a follow up ‘blue sky’ meeting where all ideas from all departments are welcome, and then work with internal stakeholders to nail this down to a list of actions.
Real-life example
We recently worked with a national Insurer on their segmentation programme. When we first introduced the segments, we asked the team using Miro (a virtual whiteboarding app) to link the segments to existing propositions or products currently in development. We then challenged the team to look at each proposition through the lens of the consumer segment.
This opened their eyes to how to communicate the proposition better, using consumer language, and also how the same proposition can be applied to different business areas. After this, we allowed the team the opportunity to develop new innovations using the segmentation materials. Had we done this step first (as many others often do) we would probably have been met with silence. Instead, we had a whole virtual whiteboard full of comments and new ideas.