Segmentation Market Research

Securing active loyalty from customers comes from developing relationships with customers that truly fit their needs.  However, different customers often want different things, and needs can be driven by a variety of things including attitudes, demographics or product/service needs. Segmentation market research can help companies and organisations to understand how needs, attitudes or wants differ, and which segments of customers are the most profitable.  Therefore, segmentation market research can be used to target needs, wants and attitudes more effectively, maximize profits and increase customer loyalty. Understanding such issues allows the creation of a differentiated marketing plan and helps you to take critical decisions about your business.

At DJS Research we have conducted segmentation market research exercises and advised clients in this area using a number of techniques, including:

• Segmentations based on needs
• Segmentations based on demographics
• Segmentations based on attitudes

There are advantages and disadvantages of each – demographic segmentations can be easy to use, but can be blunt. Attitudinal segmentations can be hard to implement. In reality, this means that many of the segmentations that we have undertaken on behalf of clients have included a combination of needs, demographics and attitudes.

Clear principles drive any segmentation work that we undertake, and we will often conduct a number of segmentations and work with our client to see which looks the best. In short, any segmentation must be:

• Measurable – so that we can tell you which are the most profitable
• Accessible – so that we can tell you how to find those who fall into each segment
• Manageable – so that you can easily manage those who fall into each segment
• Sensible – make sense to you, the client

When conducting this type of research, we typically conduct qualitative research to develop hypotheses to test quantitatively. This helps you to understand what the segments might look like. We then follow this up with a piece of quantitative research to test this and help understand who falls into which segments. By conducting further statistical analysis we can also help you to predict which segments new customers are likely to fall into.

We have worked with clients in a range of sectors on segmentation market research.