Customer Segmentation Information

You know that we're firm believers in the power of customer segmentation. We've even written a game-plan that we're happy to share with you. If you can target your segment with the absolute right-on message, creative that resonates with them and an irresistible offer, your direct marketing campaign results will reflect this extra work.

Sometimes segments are based on the products a customer purchases from you. Sometimes they are more related to what's going on in the customers' life. As a marketer, you rarely have significant insight into your customers' and prospects' personal life. Luckily for us, there is a wealth of external data and experts who know how to mine that external data to make the job of really understanding our customer segments a heck of a lot easier.

Check out this article from DM News. Four data experts have each focused on a niche segment that they have experience in. They provide some pretty valuable insight into how to best message to each group. Here are the groups discussed in the article:

• Bob Stein of Trinity Direct talks about nuances in targeting the Catholic market (hint--they are older, highly mail-responsive and like to donate).
• Amy Benicewicz of ListBargains: "Marketers seeking a target audi­ence of luxury lifestyles and frequent travelers fare very well with prospecting to Double Income No Kids (DINK) families." Caveat--this group is hard to target (based on available data), but if you sell luxury goods, or are in the travel/tourism industry, you need to reach the DINKs.
• Sandy Ostrander of ListSolutions shares her perspective on marketing to military families. It's a growing group that is under-served and may just represent an untapped opportunity.
• Rob Odri of ALC talks about marketing to gay and lesbian consumers. The key takeaway here is that this is a large group of people (they command $1 billion in spending power) who also tend to be early-adopters AND they share their views with their friends and family. The opportunity: many mainstream marketers tend to ignore this group.

Altogether some interesting information on four discreet segments, and some good food for thought. If you'd like more info on Segmentation, and specifically, an overview of the approach that we take, we'd be happy to share our White Paper, called: Advanced Segmentation Game-Plan.