Nine New Customer Segments

I love it when advertisers get involved in understanding and defining consumer segments. They normally package the data nicely to really bring segments to life (something all of us Direct Marketers and analytical folks could learn from).

See this Ad Age article, The Latest Consumers You Need to Get to Know.

"Consumer Eyes, a New York-based marketing firm, recently released its first collection of data on the subject in a book titled "Karma Queens, Geek Gods, and Innerpreneurs." After culling thousands of brand insights -- S.C. Johnson & Son, Motorola, PepsiCo, and P&G are on its client roster -- using the consultancy's Consumer Immersion process, founder Ron Rentel and his team selected nine C-Types of true-to-life consumers who they believe should be on every marketer's radar."

In an attempt to coin the next Metrosexual or Soccer Mom classification (ones we all are now very familiar with), Consumer Eyes has identified nine new customer segments, all complete with their celebrity representative. Here is a flavor of the nine: "Culture Crossers" represented by Gwen Stefani, "Innerpreneurs" represented by Rachael Ray and "E-Litists" as personified by Al Gore.

It's a really interesting way to approach customer segmentation and the article also provides a nice PDF of the 9 groups, complete with pictures.

We love it when attention is focussed on customer segmentation--a topic near and dear to our hearts. Typically, when we approach the task of identifying discreet customer segments within an overall customer portfolio, we don't rely on off-the-shelf, pre-determined customer segments. Instead, we let statistical techniques do their job of finding clusters. If a marketer has the bandwidth to personalize offers and messages, segmentation is a super way to boost response rates and sales results.

It's always great to speak to your customers and prospects with a message that resonates with them. We've found that customized segmentation is the best way to go. We've put together a paper, called "Advanced Segmentation Game Plan". Click on that button on our website and we'll gladly send it to you.