Pico segmentation is an evolution of security segmentation that protects applications and data from modern, multifaceted attacks.
Pico segmentation is an evolution of micro-segmentation where segments are built within a single domain. To thwart attacks, it places further limits on factors such as time of day, traffic volume, packet size, protocols allowed, and the number of ports used.
Pico segmentation may become increasingly important as the number of interconnected IoT devices proliferates.
Aspect
Explanation
Definition
Pico Segmentation, also known as Pico-Marketing, is a hyper-personalized marketing strategy that goes beyond traditional customer segmentation. It involves dividing a target audience into smaller, highly specific segments based on individual preferences, behaviors, and micro-moments. The term “pico” signifies the tiniest units of segmentation, aiming to create extremely tailored marketing experiences for each customer. This strategy leverages data analytics, artificial intelligence, and automation to deliver personalized content and offers, increasing engagement and conversion rates. Pico Segmentation is often associated with enhancing customer experiences and driving customer loyalty.
Key Concepts
– Hyper-Personalization: The central concept of Pico Segmentation is hyper-personalization, where marketing efforts are tailored to the individual level. It recognizes that each customer has unique preferences and needs. – Data-Driven: Pico Segmentation relies heavily on data analytics and advanced technologies to collect, analyze, and interpret customer data. This data is used to understand micro-segments better and create personalized content. – Real-Time Engagement: It emphasizes real-time engagement with customers, delivering personalized messages and offers at the right moment, often leveraging automation and AI. – Customer-Centric: Pico Segmentation places the customer at the center of the marketing strategy, striving to meet their needs and preferences. – Micro-Moments: It recognizes the significance of micro-moments when customers make quick decisions, aiming to capture these moments with relevant content or offers.
Characteristics
– Data-Intensive: Pico Segmentation relies on vast amounts of customer data, including demographics, behaviors, purchase history, and online interactions. – Dynamic: It is a dynamic strategy that can adapt in real-time to changes in customer behavior or preferences. – Automation: Automation plays a crucial role in Pico Segmentation, as it enables real-time engagement and personalization at scale. – Enhanced Engagement: Due to its highly personalized nature, it often leads to increased customer engagement and conversion rates. – Customer Retention: Pico Segmentation is effective in fostering customer loyalty and retention by delivering tailored experiences.
Advantages
– Higher Conversion Rates: Pico Segmentation can lead to significantly higher conversion rates as customers are more likely to engage with personalized content and offers. – Enhanced Customer Experience: It improves the overall customer experience by delivering content and recommendations that align with individual preferences. – Customer Loyalty: By consistently meeting customer needs and expectations, it contributes to higher customer loyalty and retention rates. – Competitive Advantage: Companies implementing Pico Segmentation gain a competitive edge by offering superior personalized experiences compared to competitors. – Effective Marketing Spend: It maximizes the effectiveness of marketing budgets by targeting efforts on customers most likely to convert.
Drawbacks
– Data Privacy Concerns: Gathering and using extensive customer data can raise concerns about privacy and data security. Companies must adhere to strict data protection regulations. – Resource-Intensive: Implementing Pico Segmentation requires substantial resources, including advanced technology, skilled personnel, and data management capabilities. – Complexity: The level of personalization and real-time engagement involved can make Pico Segmentation complex to execute effectively. – Customer Expectations: As customers become accustomed to personalized experiences, their expectations for such experiences continue to rise, placing pressure on companies to maintain high standards.
Applications
– E-commerce: Online retailers use Pico Segmentation to recommend products based on individual browsing and purchase history, increasing sales. – Email Marketing: Marketers personalize email campaigns, sending tailored content and offers to subscribers based on their preferences and behaviors. – Content Recommendations: Content platforms, such as streaming services and news websites, use Pico Segmentation to suggest content that matches users’ interests. – Travel and Hospitality: The travel industry leverages this strategy to offer personalized travel packages, accommodation options, and experiences. – Healthcare: Healthcare providers use Pico Segmentation to deliver personalized health information and treatment plans to patients.
Table of Contents
Understanding pico segmentation
Before we delve into pico segmentation, it may be useful to first explain two other related terms: segmentation and micro-segmentation.
Segmentation, sometimes referred to as network segmentation, controls the flow of traffic from one domain of control to another. Segments are structured in such a way that cross-domain communication cannot be nefariously established.
The internet traffic that flows into a DMZ, for instance, should only be able to communicate with the DMZ and vice versa. But if the security of the DMZ server is somehow comprised, a path can be created to another system in a different domain.
In theory, data from the domain should not be able to move onto the internet since perimeter segmentation rules would forbid it.
On that note, segmentation tends to be found on perimeter security products such as firewalls.
However, it does require a considerable amount of power to manage inbound and outbound states for what can total millions of sessions. As you may have surmised, this process is complex and resource-intensive.
The evolution of segmentation
Micro-segmentation is considered to be an evolution of network segmentation.
Instead of allowing traffic to be unmanaged once inside the domain, micro-segmentation manages traffic within a single domain of control such that only approved services, destinations, and sources can communicate with each other
Pico segmentation builds segments within a single domain, but places further limits on factors such as time of day, traffic volume, packet size, protocols allowed, and the number of ports used.
It also incorporates other heuristics that can tell the difference between authorized and unauthorized traffic sources. In this way, pico-segmentation affords security and risk managers more granular control over their infrastructure.
Pico segmentation and IoT
While many games and social media applications may only require standard network segmentation to maintain service levels and availability, the IoT systems and devices that support them will benefit from pico-segmentation to minimize risk and liability in the case of a security incursion.
In truth, IoT devices are proliferating at a rapid speed and many of them are released by the vendor with limited security capabilities. Many believe there is a real and immediate need for a more robust security solution that considers the increasing interconnectedness of devices.
Pico segmentation products
Avocado is one of the companies leading the way in pico segmentation services. The patented Avocado Security Platform (ASP) utilizes innovative pico segmentation to prevent the lateral movement of security threats across cloud and data center environments.
The ASP protects applications deterministically in real-time and enables clients to meet payment card industry (PCI), personally identifiable information (PII), and personal health information (PHI) standards. It also utilizes a policy-free approach that makes it a more resource-efficient option when compared to traditional segmentation.
Examples
Security Enhancement: Pico segmentation is primarily used to enhance security measures. By adding granular controls within a single domain, it restricts unauthorized access, making it extremely difficult for attackers to breach critical systems and applications.
IoT Device Protection: As mentioned, Pico segmentation is particularly crucial in the context of IoT (Internet of Things) devices. With the proliferation of interconnected devices, ensuring their security is a significant challenge. Pico segmentation adds an extra layer of protection to these devices by controlling their communication and minimizing the risk of breaches.
Risk Management: Businesses and organizations use Pico segmentation as part of their risk management strategy. By implementing stricter controls over factors like traffic volume, packet size, and protocols, they can proactively reduce the risk of security incidents and data breaches.
Compliance Requirements: In highly regulated industries like healthcare (HIPAA) and finance (PCI-DSS), Pico segmentation can help companies meet compliance requirements. It provides the necessary security controls and auditing capabilities to ensure data protection and regulatory compliance.
Resource Efficiency: Unlike traditional segmentation methods, Pico segmentation is often more resource-efficient. It achieves this by using a policy-free approach and making intelligent distinctions between authorized and unauthorized traffic sources. This efficiency is particularly valuable in large-scale cloud and data center environments.
Real-time Protection: Pico segmentation, especially when implemented using advanced tools like the Avocado Security Platform (ASP), offers real-time protection. This means that it can actively prevent security threats from spreading within a network, minimizing the potential damage from attacks.
Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance: For businesses that handle credit card data, compliance with PCI standards is essential. Pico segmentation solutions like ASP can assist in meeting these standards by ensuring that sensitive cardholder data is adequately protected.
Personal Health Information (PHI) Protection: In healthcare settings, protecting personal health information (PHI) is critical. Pico segmentation can be configured to safeguard PHI, helping healthcare organizations maintain compliance with regulations like HIPAA.
Privacy and Data Protection: Pico segmentation aligns with the broader goals of privacy and data protection. It ensures that only authorized users and systems have access to sensitive data, reducing the risk of data breaches and privacy violations.
Future-Proofing Security: Given the evolving nature of cybersecurity threats, Pico segmentation offers a way to future-proof security measures. It allows organizations to adapt and refine their security strategies to address new and emerging threats effectively.
Key Highlights about Pico Segmentation:
Pico Segmentation: Pico segmentation is an advanced security strategy that aims to protect applications and data from complex, modern attacks by creating granular security segments within a single domain.
Segmentation and Micro-Segmentation: Segmentation controls traffic flow between different domains, while micro-segmentation manages traffic within a single domain, allowing only approved services to communicate. Pico segmentation builds upon micro-segmentation by adding further restrictions on factors like time, traffic volume, packet size, protocols, and ports.
Evolution of Segmentation: Pico segmentation is considered an evolution of micro-segmentation, enabling more granular control over infrastructure security. It distinguishes between authorized and unauthorized traffic sources and offers enhanced protection.
Benefits of Pico Segmentation: Pico segmentation is particularly beneficial for IoT systems and devices due to their interconnected nature. It minimizes risks and liabilities in case of security breaches and offers robust security solutions for the increasing number of interconnected devices.
Pico Segmentation Products: Companies like Avocado offer pico segmentation services. Avocado’s Security Platform (ASP) utilizes innovative pico segmentation to prevent security threats from spreading across cloud and data center environments. It protects applications in real-time, meets industry standards, and employs a policy-free approach for efficiency.
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.
