August 3, 2012 2 Comments

Getting Into the Social Habit

A few of my friends are putting together a fascinating new piece of research called The Social Habit, providing a wide range of insights into how consumers use social media. I’m really jazzed about their work, for a number of reasons.

1.  Hero Worship

Look, let’s just get this out of the way first — these guys are da bomb. But you may be surprised to learn that the greatest share of my adoration goes not to the top-notch social media experts involved in the project — Jay Baer (my buddy and fellow airport layover drunkard), Jason Falls and Mark Schaefer — but to smartypants Tom Webster and his team at Edison Research.

Trust me on this — there are plenty of folks out there doing shoddy research, and plenty of businesses basing major strategic decisions on the insights of eight people in a stuffy room. The folks at Edison are a shining beacon for all of us striving to do research the best way it can be done. (OK, that sounds a little florid, but I get all heated up about good practice.) I’m thrilled about the rigor that will apply to this project as it does to all of Edison’s work.

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Filed Under: Audience Segmentation, Marketing, Marketing Strategy
August 1, 2012 Leave a Comment

Why Companies Aren’t Segmenting, Even Though They Admit They Should Be

stephendepolo – Flickr

The evidence is in – segmented emails work better.  A recent HubSpot article by Pamela Vaughn does a great job of detailing WHY segmentation is so important, and she cites data from Lyris and HubSpot showing that companies segmenting their email efforts experience higher open rates, lower unsubscribe rates and higher revenue from email efforts.

Pamela also does what many writers don’t — she refers to the significant gap between companies saying they want to segment their email campaigns, and those who actually do.  According to MarketingSherpa, a majority of companies say they need to do a better job in regards to segmentation.  So what’s holding them back?

As Pamela correctly points out, it’s not easy.  Additional expense (eight emails a month cost more than one), time (developing content for all those emails) and a lack of tools to support the effort (marketing automation software and performance tracking technologies) are common excuses.

But I know a bigger one.

Companies don’t have any idea what their segments are.

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Filed Under: Audience Segmentation, Marketing Strategy
May 7, 2012 1 Comment

Segmentation for Smaller Budgets – W00T!

Every company deserves good data. Ever since I started doing audience segmentation research, I’ve been trying to find a way to make it more easily accessible for smaller organizations. Research of this kind often costs $60,000 or more. While our fee for a fully customized research project is much lower (typically between $20,000 and $30,000), even these rates put quality segmentation research out of reach for many companies. Every agency I’ve ever worked with has asked for a segmentation option that will work within smaller budgets.

Our challenge has always been to figure out how to offer a lower-fee option without compromising the quality of our research design, the exacting statistical standards of our analytics, or the statistically reliable nature of our work. In short, we won’t do crappy research.

Finally, I’ve cracked the code and am very proud to announce two new Audience Audit segmentation options, in addition to our flagship full-custom approach. These products provide customized, quantitative, statistically reliable attitudinal segmentation for as little as $5,000.

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Filed Under: Audience Segmentation
October 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

B-to-B Audience Segmentation: A Case Study

Often I’m asked if attitudinal audience segmentation can benefit B-to-B companies as well.  While B-to-B projects carry some unique challenges compared to B-to-C initiatives — finding enough respondents can be tricky, and often they can’t be incented to provide their feedback, for example —  I’ve conducted some fascinating B-to-B projects.

As an example I can offer this case study of a B-to-B audience segmentation initiative I conducted for the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (shared with permission).  Enjoy!

Filed Under: Audience Segmentation
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