Will sales of a new protein powder get a push from those who neither exercise nor believe in supplements? No, it can’t. If generation Z belongs to the TikTok generation and is the target group you want to reach, should you spend the same amount of budget on other social channels like Facebook and Instagram to sell your product? No, you shouldn’t. Sometimes it is smart to use communication adapted to the large masses, sometimes not. Spending all the money on reaching the broad target group requires financial muscle and in many cases it is not the broad public that companies wish to reach.

The communication must be relevant

It is old news that people filter all the information that we are exposed to today. I take myself as an example. My first love in life is the sport of basketball and when I hear news about it I listen extra carefully, I see a campaign with a basketball I stop and in social media I stop scrolling when yesterday’s highlights appear in my feed. Not meant to offend anyone now, but when it comes to golf and floorball, not so much. In addition to sports, I am also a statistics geek and find all quantitative data exciting, my eyes are drawn to proportions and percentages and then I simply stop and take it in.

It doesn’t matter what background variables your target group has, it doesn’t matter if the group is super niche. Not everyone listens to the same arguments or has the same needs, not everyone is triggered by the same things. The goal of the communication is to make it relevant to the target group, at Novus we propose a segmentation.

Take the shortest route to customers

Audience segmentation is a marketing and business strategy where a broad audience is divided into smaller, more specific segments based on common characteristics or behaviors. There are several benefits to audience segmentation, and the biggest payoff is that it helps businesses better understand and reach their customers more effectively.

Through a number of questions, we can map different types of groups that give you the opportunity to first and foremost identify the target group, but also to adapt and build your offer around. A loyal customer base of ambassadors only needs to be nurtured, first priority should be the group with the greatest potential for purchase and lower priority is recommended for those who are most expensive for you to reach and convert to loyal customers. Which individuals the customer groups consist of and what their buying behavior looks like today, we help with in our mapping. We do the mapping itself by, among other things, asking questions about the consumers’ experiences, attitude, needs, behaviour, driving forces and obstacles. The questions allow us to link the attributes to the individual’s use and purchase of the product.

Make decisions based on the new knowledge

The segments differ and show clear characteristics and can then be used to optimize the market investments made. For each segment, a separate strategy can be designed and then prioritized. Perhaps there are common driving forces in several segments that can be used for greater effect and profitability. It’s always fun and useful to identify unique characteristics that appeal to a niche audience, but what gives the best effect in the end may be the driving forces that two or three segments have in common. Protein powder advertising can focus broadly on health and wellness and not just muscle gain, to include gym enthusiasts along with health food stores’ best customers. Sports can be comprehensive if you include both basketball, golf and floorball, give me a glimpse and chances are I’m hooked.

So, if you want to create structure in your marketing, segmentation is the way to go. If you want to know more about how to think about segmentation, get in touch!

Lovisa Brunnberg, advisor at Novus and specialized in brand research.

Contact: lovisa.brunnberg@novus.se

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