Customer segmentation is a marketing method that divides the customers in sub-groups, that share similar characteristics. Thus, product, marketing and engineering teams can center the strategy from go-to-market to product development and communication around each sub-group. Customer segments can be broken down is several ways, such as demographics, geography, psychographics and more.
Aspect
Explanation
Concept Overview
Customer Segmentation is a marketing strategy that involves dividing a company’s customer base into distinct groups or segments based on shared characteristics such as demographics, behaviors, needs, and preferences. This strategy recognizes that customers are not homogenous and allows businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to different groups, increasing the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and improving customer satisfaction.
Key Objectives
– The primary objectives of Customer Segmentation are: 1. Targeted Marketing: To deliver personalized marketing messages and offers to specific customer segments. 2. Improved Customer Experience: By addressing the unique needs and preferences of each segment. 3. Increased Sales and Retention: By tailoring products, services, and incentives to match customer expectations. 4. Efficient Resource Allocation: By directing marketing resources where they are most effective.
Types of Segmentation
– Customer segmentation can be based on various factors: 1. Demographic: Including age, gender, income, education, and family size. 2. Geographic: Such as location, region, or climate. 3. Psychographic: Considering lifestyle, values, and attitudes. 4. Behavioral: Examining purchase history, usage patterns, loyalty, and engagement. 5. Firmographic: For B2B markets, including industry, company size, and revenue.
Segmentation Process
– The segmentation process typically involves several steps: 1. Data Collection: Gathering customer data through surveys, purchase history, or social media. 2. Data Analysis: Identifying patterns and similarities among customers. 3. Segment Definition: Creating distinct segments based on common traits. 4. Targeting: Designing marketing strategies for each segment. 5. Implementation: Delivering tailored messages and measuring results. 6. Evaluation: Continuously assessing and adjusting the segmentation strategy.
Benefits
– Customer Segmentation offers numerous benefits: 1. Personalization: Allows businesses to offer personalized products and services. 2. Improved Customer Engagement: Increases the relevance of marketing messages. 3. Efficient Resource Allocation: Reduces marketing waste by targeting the right audience. 4. Enhanced Customer Loyalty: Building stronger relationships with customers. 5. Competitive Advantage: Differentiating from competitors.
Challenges
– Challenges in customer segmentation include: 1. Data Quality: Ensuring accurate and reliable customer data. 2. Over-Segmentation: Creating too many segments, which can be impractical. 3. Changing Preferences: Keeping up with evolving customer preferences. 4. Privacy Concerns: Addressing customer privacy and data protection regulations. 5. Integration: Integrating segmentation into broader marketing and business strategies.
Applications
Customer segmentation is applied across various industries, including retail, e-commerce, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, and telecommunications. It helps companies target the right customers with the right products or services and tailor their marketing efforts to specific segments.
Data Analytics and Technology
Advances in data analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) technologies have significantly enhanced the effectiveness of customer segmentation. Businesses now use AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze vast datasets and gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences.
Dynamic Segmentation
Customer segmentation is not static; it should evolve with changing market conditions and customer preferences. Dynamic segmentation involves continuously updating and adapting segments based on real-time data and market trends. It allows businesses to stay agile and responsive.
Ethical Considerations
Businesses must handle customer data with care and adhere to ethical standards and privacy regulations. Respecting customer privacy and obtaining consent for data collection and use is essential in segmentation practices. Building trust with customers is vital for long-term success.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Customer segmentation can help identify high-value customer segments with the potential for long-term relationships. Calculating and optimizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a critical metric that considers both acquisition and retention strategies for different segments.
Global Marketing
In global markets, customer segmentation strategies may need to account for cultural differences, regulatory variations, and market-specific nuances. Effective segmentation in a global context requires a deep understanding of local markets and consumers.
Market segmentation is the process of dividing the market into sub-groups. Market segmentation can be based on characteristics such as age, behaviors, income levels, and more. This process helps to understand what your key customers want, where they are, and how to talk to them effectively.
No matter how niche your brand may be, it is important to keep in mind that every customer is, in fact, an individual. What’s more, they deserve to be treated as such.
Of course, most businesses will not have the resources to cater to every customer on an individual basis.
They can, however, more broadly assess the needs of their customers according to certain metrics.
Customer segmentation in a nutshell
Customer segmentation is the process of separating your customers into groups according to certain traits (e.g. personality or interests) and factors (age or income level).
So why should customers be segmented? There are several important reasons:
It allows businesses to tailor marketing strategies and ad campaigns according to particular groups of people.
It enables businesses to learn about their consumers on a deeper level. And with this increased understanding, to create better products that resonate with consumer needs.
Enhanced customer support – since businesses with customer segments are better able to predict problems ahead of time.
Conversely, segmentation may also identify groups of consumers previously unknown to the business – allowing marketing resources to be directed toward these untapped groups.
Now that we have a basic understanding of customer segmentation and why it should be implemented, let’s look at some common customer segment types.
Demographics
Demographic data is relatively straightforward and includes information on age, gender, marital status, income, and education level.
It is perhaps the most well-known and well utilized of all customer segments because demographic data is easy to obtain through market research.
A simple example of demographic customer segmentation might involve the marketing of a high-end sports car.
The manufacturer may want to target consumers that are unmarried or divorced, have a high income, and be at or approaching retirement age.
While the above examples deal with business-to-consumer marketing, demographic segmentation can also be used in business-to-business marketing.
In this case, businesses may target the industry, job function, or company size as part of their marketing efforts.
Geography
Geographical segments detail such parameters as climate, zip code, land use (urban or rural), and the radius around a particular point of interest. But it also concerns the scope and extent of potential marketing efforts.
Smaller organizations, for example, may target consumers living in specific towns or cities. Larger organizations may target consumers according to their country or continent of residence.
If we return to the sports car example, let’s assume that the car is marketed primarily as a convertible.
As a result, the manufacturer may choose to target specific countries (or geographic areas) with sunny climates that are conducive to driving with the top down, so to speak.
Public transport operators could also use geographic segments to target commuters living within 15 minutes of a train station.
They could use this information to develop a marketing campaign to convince commuters to leave the car at home and take the train instead.
Psychographics
Psychographic segmentation is a form of market segmentation, that looks at consumers into sub-groups that share specific psychological characterises, that comprise activities, interests, and opinions of customers. The rise of data-driven marketing enabled psychographic segmentation to become a key element of digital marketing activities to personalize those campaigns and reach a micro-audience.
Psychographic segments include such things as socioeconomic class, lifestyle, and personality traits.
They also include factors that are big drivers of buying decisions, such as values, motivations, attitudes, and conscious or subconscious beliefs.
However, psychographic data is more difficult to collect than demographic data. Why? Because it is more subjective and requires deeper research to unearth.
Psychographic segments and the information that comprises them are also more fluid because motivations, beliefs and values can change over time.
The luxury sports car manufacturer may target consumers whose values and motivations relate to status, freedom, and fine craftsmanship.
But if, for example, the consumer who bought a 2-seater convertible suddenly welcomed grandchildren into his life, he may then prioritize safety and reliability over status and freedom.
Of course, marketing departments cannot plan for every contingency. But they must be aware that psychographic customer segmentation is fluid and has the potential to shift over time.
Behavioural
Behavioral segments include a consumer’s direct interactions with a business.
In other words, behavior dictates how they act according to their demographic and psychographic attributes.
The behavioral segment encompasses spending habits, product/service usage, and the perceived or actual benefits of such usage.
Behavioral segments are derived from internal data that is collected by the business itself.
It may include data on how consumers use a product and the frequency with which they do so.
Furthermore, information may also include the specific benefits that the consumer is after, such as a time or money saving or loyalty status.
Perhaps most importantly, behavioral segments clarify a consumer’s willingness to purchase.
If a typical sports-car driver likes to upgrade to the new model every three years, then it is the marketing team’s priority to understand this cycle and market to this segment accordingly.
Similar predictive behavioral learning is also utilized by Netflix, who segment their users according to their content preferences and then recommend content in similar genres.
Technographic
Technographic segmentation is segmentation according to a consumer’s preferred choice of technology.
Think smartphones, software, operating systems, desktops, and apps.
As technology becomes increasingly prevalent in the lives of consumers, technographic segmentation has never been more important to marketing departments.
Business-to-consumer marketing can also use technographic segmentation to target consumers according to their social media use.
In their Harvard Business School published book Groundswell, authors Li and Bernoff suggest that marketing teams further divide their technographic segments according to social media use.
Each “sub-division” requires a different marketingstrategy. Some of the more common sub-divisions include:
Creators – who maintain a blog or website or upload music or videos.
Critics – who post reviews of products or services or who like to contribute to forums or blog posts.
Joiners – who maintain active social media accounts.
Spectators – who read blogs, listen to podcasts, or watch video content without contributing or participating.
Business to business (B2B) also stands to benefit by technographic segmentation. Specific parameters in the B2B sphere include network and storage capabilities, cloud utilization, and big data technologies.
All B2B interactions should segment businesses according to the prevalence of their technological capabilities before the marketingstrategy is developed.
Target market examples
To recap, a target market is a segment of customers most likely to purchase a company’s products or services.
While the two terms have some overlap, it’s important to first make the distinction between a target market and a target audience.
The target market is the end consumer who will use the product.
The target audience, on the other hand, is the focus of the brand’s promotional efforts.
To illustrate this difference, consider the McDonald’s Happy Meal. The product itself is obviously consumed by children, but it is the parents who control the finances and what the child eats.
As a result, McDonald’s may promote the Happy Meal’s nutritional value or low cost – factors that appeal to the parents but which the child cares very little about.
To solidify the concept of a target market further, read through the following examples.
Nike started out marketing to professional athletes and then expanded its business model to incorporate “everyday” athletes and sports enthusiasts.
As part of its rebranding effort, the company analyzed the benefits of owning its apparel, shoes, equipment, and accessories.
From this, Nike defined a target market of mostly younger consumers who were interested in fitness and possessed the disposal income to invest in equipment and achieve their goals.
Today, most of Nike’s promotional efforts focus on aspiring athletes and runners in a way that is motivational and inclusive.
Vans
Vans is an American shoe manufacturer founded in 1966 that made the bold decision to champion alternative subcultures such as skateboarding and bicycle motocross (BMX).
The brand appealed to so-called “misfits and rebels” who saw these sports as not only a hobby or passion but a lifestyle choice.
Vans is now taking advantage of the athleisure trend target market and has a much broader appeal, but the company’s stores continue their retro, skateboarding vibe.
In a Manhattan store, for example, vintage posters of skateboarders adorn the walls with industry slogans and skateboards from popular brands.
Next to skateboard accessories such as wheels and trucks is apparel more reminiscent of earlier decades with muted colors and oversized logos.
Dior
Dior is a French luxury fashion house founded by Christian Dior in 1946.
The company primarily targets the so-called “Chardonnay Girls” target market which consists of confident, optimistic, fashion-conscious women in the 18-32 age bracket.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this target market tends to live in world cities such as Moscow, New York, and Milan with above-average salaries and career prospects.
They have also a propensity to shop offline, but having said that, Chardonnay Girls are consumers that are more likely to become advocates for a brand and share their experiences with friends.
Thus, reducing marketing costs through efficient, customer-focused communication.
Customer segmentation examples
In this section, we’ll delve into some additional customer segmentation examples.
In India, for example, ads show McSpicy Paneer alongside Green Chili Naan-Aloo.
Another region and culture-specific advertisement promotes the Maharaja Mac – better known as the Big Mac – which is “made with handpicked ingredients from across India” and features the #TrulyIndianBurger hashtag.
Weather
Customer segmentation based on the forecast weather conditions enables the company to predict the moods, needs, and purchase behavior of its customers.
This is usually achieved via the integration of real-time weather data into an existing personalization platform.
Segmentation based on the weather is especially important for retail brands whose products are highly seasonal.
A clothing brand based in the United States, for example, can segment its users based on location and direct those living in the colder northern states to a page promoting scarves, jackets, and gloves.
An undisclosed football club – but one of the largest in England – used weather targeting to recommend merchandise to fans based on their location which is positioned on a Google Maps image in the background.
Some airlines are also using the approach to promote destinations with warmer or sunnier weather than the customer’s home conditions.
Profession
Home Chef is a food delivery company that segments its customers based on their profession.
In one email campaign aimed at the healthcare and education industries, the company referenced the upcoming National Teachers and Nurses Day and took the opportunity to thank these individuals for their service.
For those that could verify their teaching or nursing credentials, Home Chef offered 50% off the cost of their first box of food.
This represents a major source of lost income that can at least be partly recovered with laser-focused customer segmentation.
To encourage users to complete their purchases, companies can create a series of drip campaigns or emails based on metrics such as product type or customer activity level.
Google’s approach for abandoned items in its Google Store is to send users an email with personalization, excellent copywriting, and a clear call to action.
This is normally accompanied by a message that creates urgency such as “Our popular items sell fast” and “Going, going, (almost) gone”.
Politics
Politics is a divisive issue that can easily result in negative publicity for a brand. But rather than shy away from the topic, some brave companies use it as a tool for advanced and highly targeted customer segmentation.
Ben & Jerry’s is one brand that uses political segmentation to sell different flavors of ice cream across the United States.
In the democratic state of Vermont, for example, it released an “Empower Mint” ice cream with a slogan that read “Democracy is in your hands”.
Key takeaways
Customer segmentation is a crucial part of any marketing strategy, but some businesses may be daunted by the initial investment of time and money.
However, customer segmentation concerns serving customers and serving them well. Those who do not invest in segmentation run the risk of losing their customers to a competitor.
Accurate and detailed segmentation allows businesses to understand their customers on a deeper level and increases the probability of retaining them.
For the business, this increases conversion rates and drives down costs.
In essence, a target market is a segment of customers most likely to purchase a company’s products or services. A target market should not be confused with a target audience, which is the focus of the brand’s promotional efforts.
Nike’s target market consists of younger consumers who are interested in fitness and possess the disposable income to invest in equipment and achieve their goals.
Vans once appealed to smaller alternative subcultures such as skateboarding and BMX. Today, the company’s target market has broadened to include athleisure wearers.
Key Highlights:
Customer Segmentation Overview: Customer segmentation is a marketing technique that divides customers into sub-groups based on similar characteristics. This allows businesses to tailor their strategies to specific groups and understand customer needs better.
Importance of Customer Segmentation: Market segmentation helps businesses understand customer preferences, locations, and communication preferences. Treating each customer as an individual is essential, even if catering to every customer individually isn’t feasible.
Segmentation Types:
Demographics: Segmenting by age, gender, income, education, etc., allows businesses to target specific customer groups effectively.
Geography: Targeting customers based on location, climate, and proximity to certain points of interest.
Psychographics: Segmenting based on lifestyle, values, motivations, attitudes, and beliefs.
Behavioral: Segmenting by customer behavior, including spending habits, product usage, and benefits sought.
Technographic: Segmenting based on preferred technology, such as devices, software, and social media usage.
Target Market vs. Target Audience: A target market is the end consumer of a product, while the target audience is the focus of promotional efforts. For example, McDonald’s targets parents as the target audience for Happy Meals, even though children consume the product.
Examples of Target Markets:
Nike: Initially targeting professional athletes, expanded to include everyday athletes with a focus on fitness enthusiasts.
Vans: Initially targeted skateboarding and BMX subcultures, now appealing to athleisure wearers.
Dior: Targets confident, fashion-conscious women aged 18-32 with above-average salaries.
Examples of Customer Segmentation:
Region and Culture: McDonald’s tailors ads and menu items based on cultural preferences in different countries.
Weather: Brands use real-time weather data to personalize offers based on weather conditions.
Profession: Home Chef offers discounts to customers in specific professions, like teachers and nurses.
Cart Abandonment: Brands send targeted emails to customers who abandon their shopping carts.
Politics: Ben & Jerry’s uses political segmentation to offer ice cream flavors tied to political messages.
Risk of Not Segmenting: Businesses that don’t invest in customer segmentation risk losing customers to competitors and missing out on opportunities to connect on a deeper level.
Bottom Line: Accurate customer segmentation leads to higher retention rates, improved conversion rates, reduced costs, and overall business success. It’s a crucial part of any effective marketing strategy.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Demographic Segmentation
– Dividing the market into segments based on demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income, education, occupation, and family status. Demographic Segmentation helps target marketing efforts to specific demographic groups with similar needs and preferences.
– When targeting customers based on demographic characteristics. – Employing Demographic Segmentation to tailor marketing messages, product offerings, and advertising campaigns to different demographic segments effectively.
Psychographic Segmentation
– Categorizing consumers based on psychological attributes, values, attitudes, lifestyles, interests, and personality traits. Psychographic Segmentation identifies unique customer motivations and behaviors for targeted marketing.
– When understanding consumer motivations and lifestyle preferences. – Utilizing Psychographic Segmentation to create buyer personas, personalize messaging, and develop products or services that resonate with specific psychographic segments effectively.
Behavioral Segmentation
– Segmenting customers based on their behaviors, usage patterns, purchasing habits, and interactions with products or services. Behavioral Segmentation enables personalized marketing and product recommendations.
– When analyzing customer behaviors and purchase patterns. – Implementing Behavioral Segmentation to identify high-value customers, tailor promotions, and improve customer engagement and retention effectively.
Geographic Segmentation
– Dividing the market into segments based on geographic factors such as location, region, climate, urban/rural areas, or population density. Geographic Segmentation targets customers with localized marketing and distribution strategies.
– When targeting customers in specific geographic regions or markets. – Applying Geographic Segmentation to adapt marketing messages, pricing strategies, and product assortments to regional preferences and market conditions effectively.
Firmographic Segmentation
– Segmenting businesses or organizations based on firmographic attributes such as industry, company size, revenue, location, or organizational structure. Firmographic Segmentation helps B2B marketers target and prioritize business customers.
– When identifying and targeting business customers based on organizational characteristics. – Employing Firmographic Segmentation to tailor marketing communications, sales strategies, and product offerings to different types of businesses or industries effectively.
Life Stage Segmentation
– Categorizing consumers based on their life stages, transitions, or milestones such as marriage, childbirth, empty nesters, retirement, or career changes. Life Stage Segmentation identifies changing needs and priorities.
– When targeting customers experiencing specific life events or transitions. – Leveraging Life Stage Segmentation to offer personalized products, services, or support that align with customers’ current life stages and needs effectively.
Value-Based Segmentation
– Segmenting customers based on their perceived value or profitability to the business. Value-Based Segmentation prioritizes high-value customers for targeted marketing and retention efforts.
– When identifying and nurturing high-value customer relationships. – Implementing Value-Based Segmentation to segment customers by their lifetime value, purchase frequency, or loyalty level and tailor marketing strategies and rewards to maximize customer lifetime value and retention effectively.
Occasion-Based Segmentation
– Segmenting customers based on specific occasions, events, or timing of purchases such as holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or seasonal trends. Occasion-Based Segmentation targets customers with relevant promotions and offers.
– When capitalizing on seasonal or event-driven sales opportunities. – Utilizing Occasion-Based Segmentation to create targeted promotions, discounts, and campaigns that resonate with customers during specific occasions or buying seasons effectively.
Channel Preference Segmentation
– Segmenting customers based on their preferred communication channels, media consumption habits, or shopping channels such as online, offline, mobile, social media, or email. Channel Preference Segmentation tailors marketing messages and distribution channels.
– When reaching customers through their preferred communication channels. – Adapting Channel Preference Segmentation to deliver personalized messaging and seamless experiences across preferred channels, enhancing engagement and conversion effectively.
Needs-Based Segmentation
– Segmenting customers based on their specific needs, problems, or pain points that drive their purchase decisions. Needs-Based Segmentation identifies distinct customer segments with unique needs and preferences.
– When addressing customer needs and pain points with targeted solutions. – Applying Needs-Based Segmentation to develop customized products, services, or solutions that address specific customer needs and deliver value effectively.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy where the marketing and sales departments come together to create personalized buying experiences for high-value accounts. Account-based marketing is a business-to-business (B2B) approach in which marketing and sales teams work together to target high-value accounts and turn them into customers.
Ad Ops – also known as Digital Ad Operations – refers to systems and processes that support digital advertisements’ delivery and management. The concept describes any process that helps a marketing team manage, run, or optimize ad campaigns, making them an integrating part of the business operations.
Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.
Affinity marketing involves a partnership between two or more businesses to sell more products. Note that this is a mutually beneficial arrangement where one brand can extend its reach and enhance its credibility in association with the other.
As the name suggests, ambush marketing raises awareness for brands at events in a covert and unexpected fashion. Ambush marketing takes many forms, one common element, the brand advertising their products or services has not paid for the right to do so. Thus, the business doing the ambushing attempts to capitalize on the efforts made by the business sponsoring the event.
Affiliate marketing describes the process whereby an affiliate earns a commission for selling the products of another person or company. Here, the affiliate is simply an individual who is motivated to promote a particular product through incentivization. The business whose product is being promoted will gain in terms of sales and marketing from affiliates.
The bullseye framework is a simple method that enables you to prioritize the marketing channels that will make your company gain traction. The main logic of the bullseye framework is to find the marketing channels that work and prioritize them.
Brand building is the set of activities that help companies to build an identity that can be recognized by its audience. Thus, it works as a mechanism of identification through core values that signal trust and that help build long-term relationships between the brand and its key stakeholders.
According to inbound marketing platform HubSpot, brand dilution occurs “when a company’s brand equity diminishes due to an unsuccessful brand extension, which is a new product the company develops in an industry that they don’t have any market share in.” Brand dilution, therefore, occurs when a brand decreases in value after the company releases a product that does not align with its vision, mission, or skillset.
The brand essence wheel is a templated approach businesses can use to better understand their brand. The brand essence wheel has obvious implications for external brand strategy. However, it is equally important in simplifying brand strategy for employees without a strong marketing background. Although many variations of the brand essence wheel exist, a comprehensive wheel incorporates information from five categories: attributes, benefits, values, personality, brand essence.
The brand equity is the premium that a customer is willing to pay for a product that has all the objective characteristics of existing alternatives, thus, making it different in terms of perception. The premium on seemingly equal products and quality is attributable to its brand equity.
Brand positioning is about creating a mental real estate in the mind of the target market. If successful, brand positioning allows a business to gain a competitive advantage. And it also works as a switching cost in favor of the brand. Consumers recognizing a brand might be less prone to switch to another brand.
Business storytelling is a critical part of developing a business model. Indeed, the way you frame the story of your organization will influence its brand in the long-term. That’s because your brand story is tied to your brand identity, and it enables people to identify with a company.
Content marketing is one of the most powerful commercial activities which focuses on leveraging content production (text, audio, video, or other formats) to attract a targeted audience. Content marketing focuses on building a strong brand, but also to convert part of that targeted audience into potential customers.
One of the first mentions of customer lifetime value was in the 1988 book Database Marketing: Strategy and Implementation written by Robert Shaw and Merlin Stone. Customer lifetime value (CLV) represents the value of a customer to a company over a period of time. It represents a critical business metric, especially for SaaS or recurring revenue-based businesses.
Customer segmentation is a marketing method that divides the customers in sub-groups, that share similar characteristics. Thus, product, marketing and engineering teams can center the strategy from go-to-market to product development and communication around each sub-group. Customer segments can be broken down is several ways, such as demographics, geography, psychographics and more.
Developer marketing encompasses tactics designed to grow awareness and adopt software tools, solutions, and SaaS platforms. Developer marketing has become the standard among software companies with a platform component, where developers can build applications on top of the core software or open software. Therefore, engaging developer communities has become a key element of marketing for many digital businesses.
A digital channel is a marketing channel, part of a distribution strategy, helping an organization to reach its potential customers via electronic means. There are several digital marketing channels, usually divided into organic and paid channels. Some organic channels are SEO, SMO, email marketing. And some paid channels comprise SEM, SMM, and display advertising.
Field marketing is a general term that encompasses face-to-face marketing activities carried out in the field. These activities may include street promotions, conferences, sales, and various forms of experiential marketing. Field marketing, therefore, refers to any marketing activity that is performed in the field.
interaction with a brand until they become a paid customer and beyond.
Funnel marketing is modeled after the marketing funnel, a concept that tells the company how it should market to consumers based on their position in the funnel itself. The notion of a customer embarking on a journey when interacting with a brand was first proposed by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898.
Funnel marketing typically considers three stages of a non-linear marketing funnel. These are top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Particular marketing strategies at each stage are adapted to the level of familiarity the consumer has with a brand.
A go-to-market strategy represents how companies market their new products to reach target customers in a scalable and repeatable way. It starts with how new products/services get developed to how these organizations target potential customers (via sales and marketing models) to enable their value proposition to be delivered to create a competitive advantage.
The term “greenwashing” was first coined by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986 at a time when most consumers received their news from television, radio, and print media. Some companies took advantage of limited public access to information by portraying themselves as environmental stewards – even when their actions proved otherwise. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice where a company makes unsubstantiated claims about an environmentally-friendly product or service.
Grassroots marketing involves a brand creating highly targeted content for a particular niche or audience. When an organization engages in grassroots marketing, it focuses on a small group of people with the hope that its marketing message is shared with a progressively larger audience.
Growth marketing is a process of rapid experimentation, which in a way has to be “scientific” by keeping in mind that it is used by startups to grow, quickly. Thus, the “scientific” here is not meant in the academic sense. Growth marketing is expected to unlock growth, quickly and with an often limited budget.
Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy that seeks to utilize low-cost and sometimes unconventional tactics that are high impact. First coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book of the same title, guerrilla marketing works best on existing customers who are familiar with a brand or product and its particular characteristics.
Hunger marketing is a marketing strategy focused on manipulating consumer emotions. By bringing products to market with an attractive price point and restricted supply, consumers have a stronger desire to make a purchase.
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an approach used by businesses to coordinate and brand their communication strategies. Integrated marketing communication takes separate marketing functions and combines them into one, interconnected approach with a core brand message that is consistent across various channels. These encompass owned, earned, and paid media. Integrated marketing communication has been used to great effect by companies such as Snapchat, Snickers, and Domino’s.
Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy designed to attract customers to a brand with content and experiences that they derive value from. Inbound marketing utilizes blogs, events, SEO, and social media to create brand awareness and attract targeted consumers. By attracting or “drawing in” a targeted audience, inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing which actively pushes a brand onto consumers who may have no interest in what is being offered.
Integrated marketing describes the process of delivering consistent and relevant content to a target audience across all marketing channels. It is a cohesive, unified, and immersive marketing strategy that is cost-effective and relies on brand identity and storytelling to amplify the brand to a wider and wider audience.
The marketing mix is a term to describe the multi-faceted approach to a complete and effective marketing plan. Traditionally, this plan included the four Ps of marketing: price, product, promotion, and place. But the exact makeup of a marketing mix has undergone various changes in response to new technologies and ways of thinking. Additions to the four Ps include physical evidence, people, process, and even politics.
Marketing myopia is the nearsighted focus on selling goods and services at the expense of consumer needs. Marketing myopia was coined by Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt in 1960. Originally, Levitt described the concept in the context of organizations in high-growth industries that become complacent in their belief that such industries never fail.
Marketing personas give businesses a general overview of key segments of their target audience and how these segments interact with their brand. Marketing personas are based on the data of an ideal, fictional customer whose characteristics, needs, and motivations are representative of a broader market segment.
Meme marketing is any marketing strategy that uses memes to promote a brand. The term “meme” itself was popularized by author Richard Dawkins over 50 years later in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In the book, Dawkins described how ideas evolved and were shared across different cultures. The internet has enabled this exchange to occur at an exponential rate, with the first modern memes emerging in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Microtargeting is a marketing strategy that utilizes consumer demographic data to identify the interests of a very specific group of individuals. Like most marketing strategies, the goal of microtargeting is to positively influence consumer behavior.
Multichannel marketing executes a marketing strategy across multiple platforms to reach as many consumers as possible. Here, a platform may refer to product packaging, word-of-mouth advertising, mobile apps, email, websites, or promotional events, and all the other channels that can help amplify the brand to reach as many consumers as possible.
Multi-level marketing (MLM), otherwise known as network or referral marketing, is a strategy in which businesses sell their products through person-to-person sales. When consumers join MLM programs, they act as distributors. Distributors make money by selling the product directly to other consumers. They earn a small percentage of sales from those that they recruit to do the same – often referred to as their “downline”.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of the ability of a product or service to attract word-of-mouth advertising. NPS is a crucial part of any marketing strategy since attracting and then retaining customers means they are more likely to recommend a business to others.
Neuromarketing information is collected by measuring brain activity related to specific brain functions using sophisticated and expensive technology such as MRI machines. Some businesses also choose to make inferences of neurological responses by analyzing biometric and heart-rate data.
Neuromarketing is the domain of large companies with similarly large budgets or subsidies. These include Frito-Lay, Google, and The Weather Channel.
Newsjacking as a marketing strategy was popularised by David Meerman Scott in his book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage. Newsjacking describes the practice of aligning a brand with a current event to generate media attention and increase brand exposure.
A microniche is a subset of potential customers within a niche. In the era of dominating digital super-platforms, identifying a microniche can kick off the strategy of digital businesses to prevent competition against large platforms. As the microniche becomes a niche, then a market, scale becomes an option.
We can define pull and push marketing from the perspective of the target audience or customers. In push marketing, as the name suggests, you’re promoting a product so that consumers can see it. In a pull strategy, consumers might look for your product or service drawn by its brand.
Real-time marketing is as exactly as it sounds. It involves in-the-moment marketing to customers across any channel based on how that customer is interacting with the brand.
Relationship marketing involves businesses and their brands forming long-term relationships with customers. The focus of relationship marketing is to increase customer loyalty and engagement through high-quality products and services. It differs from short-term processes focused solely on customer acquisition and individual sales.
Reverse marketing describes any marketing strategy that encourages consumers to seek out a product or company on their own. This approach differs from a traditional marketing strategy where marketers seek out the consumer.
Remarketing involves the creation of personalized and targeted ads for consumers who have already visited a company’s website. The process works in this way: as users visit a brand’s website, they are tagged with cookies that follow the users, and as they land on advertising platforms where retargeting is an option (like social media platforms) they get served ads based on their navigation.
Sensory marketing describes any marketing campaign designed to appeal to the five human senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are enabling marketers to design fun, interactive, and immersive sensory marketing brand experiences. Long term, businesses must develop sensory marketing campaigns that are relevant and effective in eCommerce.
Services marketing originated as a separate field of study during the 1980s. Researchers realized that the unique characteristics of services required different marketing strategies to those used in the promotion of physical goods. Services marketing is a specialized branch of marketing that promotes the intangible benefits delivered by a company to create customer value.
Sustainable marketing describes how a business will invest in social and environmental initiatives as part of its marketing strategy. Also known as green marketing, it is often used to counteract public criticism around wastage, misleading advertising, and poor quality or unsafe products.
Word-of-mouth marketing is a marketing strategy skewed toward offering a great experience to existing customers and incentivizing them to share it with other potential customers. That is one of the most effective forms of marketing as it enables a company to gain traction based on existing customers’ referrals. When repeat customers become a key enabler for the brand this is one of the best organic and sustainable growth marketing strategies.
360 marketing is a marketing campaign that utilizes all available mediums, channels, and consumer touchpoints. 360 marketing requires the business to maintain a consistent presence across multiple online and offline channels. This ensures it does not miss potentially lucrative customer segments. By its very nature, 360 marketing describes any number of different marketing strategies. However, a broad and holistic marketing strategy should incorporate a website, SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, public relations, in-store relations, and traditional forms of advertising such as television.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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