From the category archives:

Audience Segmentation

Segmentation Exposed: SCU Project Kickoff

March 1, 2010

This is one of a series of posts about a real-life attitudinal audience segmentation project.  See other posts in this series.
This project was undertaken for a small faith-based university in the midwest (I’ll call them “SCU” – Small Christian U – for the purposes of this discussion).  The university offers undergraduate, graduate, [...]

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Segmentation Exposed: Behind The Scenes of an Actual Research Project

February 24, 2010

This is one of a series of posts about a real-life attitudinal audience segmentation project.  See other posts in this series.
I’m a marketing strategist.  I’ve spent the last 25 years (gack!) learning (and then helping other organizations learn) how to get the right message to the right people in order to get those people [...]

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Are You Insulting Your Customers?

January 28, 2010

I am amazed at how many companies have fallen into the habit of regularly insulting their customers.
If I pointed them out, I GUARANTEE that each and every one of them would strenuously object to this accusation, claiming (and, in all likelihood, truly believing) that each and every customer they have is of the utmost value [...]

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Obama’s Audience Segmentation

January 19, 2010

USA TODAY has a fascinating article today about a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll looking at the President’s approval rating and how he’s faring in public opinion.
AMAZING!  It’s attitudinal audience segmentation for the President of the United States!
I’ve conducted audience segmentation for big companies, small companies, business-to-business, business-to-consumer, government and even a faith-based university.  I’ve seen [...]

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The Great Debate

November 2, 2009

I had an interesting experience last week when a client pulled me aside to make me aware that the company’s CRM guru was loudly expressing his concern that this “warm and fuzzy” attitudinal approach to audience segmentation couldn’t hold a candle to good, old-fashioned database analytics.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened.  I often run [...]

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There’s No Crying In Research

September 28, 2009

I am currently finishing up an audience segmentation project for a large multi-channel retailer.  As usual, we’re trying to identify the key motivations for their various customer groups.
I was surprised to hear from my client contact that, when pursuing such a project was discussed in a team meeting, one of the team members was actually [...]

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Use Your Insight to Torpedo Your Marketing Efforts

March 16, 2009

Gail Goodman, writing for Entrepreneur, makes a great point about how audience segmentation can transform your email marketing, making it more relevant, impactful and effective.
Unfortunately, I have to take issue with her recommendations about segmenting your audience in the section titled “Selecting Your Segments”:
“To be effective, most businesses need only two or three segments, and [...]

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Rock Your Recession Marketing

February 25, 2009

Recently I noticed that a former client has been running their old television spots — undoubtedly an effort to take advantage of the recessionary conditions and reduced advertising presence of their competitors, and to do it at a bargain-basement price to boot.
I applaud this company for recognizing that now is a great time to get [...]

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Welcome to Audience Audit

February 7, 2009

For years I have had the privilege of working with organizations — some very large, some very small — in their efforts to effectively market their products or services to potential customers.  While a few of these companies have been able to gain an understanding of what customers seek from them, the overwhelming majority have [...]

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