What is User Segmentation?
User segmentation is the practice of dividing a user base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests and spending habits. User or customer segmentation, also called consumer segmentation or client segmentation, procedures include:
- Collecting data and integrating data from various sources
- Deciding what data will be collected and how it will be gathered
- Developing methods of data analysis for segmentation
- Implementing applications to effectively deal with the data and respond to the information it provides
- Establishing effective communication among relevant business units (such as marketing and customer service) about the segmentation
Simply put, user segmentation involves arranging your users into smaller groups according to their similarities. Segmentation does not need to be complicated.
The segments should show similarities in certain areas that have meaning to your app but also allow you to communicate to the masses but in a much more tailored, personal way.
Customer segmentation can have a great effect on customer management. Dividing customers into different groups that share similar needs, the company can market to each group differently and focus on what each kind of customer needs.
For example in B2B marketing, companies are concerned with decision-makers’ job titles, the industry sector, whether the company is public or private, its size, location, buying patterns and their technology at their disposal.
How do you build a segment?
Segmenting gives you focus so that you can develop meaningful messaging and campaigns that effectively guide user actions toward your goals.
Based on your analytics, your CRM should allow you to build segments or automatically populate lists based upon one or more criteria. Two broad categories of data you can use are user attributes (gender, age, language, etc.) or events (sessions, last used app/site, etc.).
General user segments
Users in any service can be divided into four categories:
- Active purchasers – users who visit you website/ use the app on a regular basis and recently made a purchase, or who made multiple purchases.
- Active non-purchasers – users who interact with your website/app on a regular basis but have never made a purchase.
- Lapsed purchasers – users made a purchase a long time ago, but they have either stopped visiting website/ using the app, or they use it occasionally without paying for anything.
- Inactive non-purchasers – users how have done almost nothing.
For sure each industry have different segmentation. To help you to understand better what should you do, we have for you some customer segmentation tips:
1. Have clear goals
Be very clear about what you’re trying to achieve. This will drive the segments you build and the strategies you use to manage them. Review your product and business goals to see how groups of people might fit into your ideal lifecycles.
2. Analyze and test
Analyze, analyze and analyze again. In that way you can discover key segments and monitor performance over time. If particular campaigns have a good performance for a particular segment, dive into your data to inform your future tactics. A/B testing can help you to determine what works best for each group.
3. Focuse on the customer journey
Developing campaigns to re-engage lapsed users or reward your biggest fans can be great approaches to building stronger engagement.
4. Don’t over-segment
If your goal is to keep track of general activity, you don’t need a segment for every individual action. Being more generic will help you target more users and draw more meaningful conclusions from your data.