How to use Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP) to develop marketing strategies

Today, the STP marketing model (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) is a familiar strategic approach in modern marketing. It is one of the most commonly applied marketing models in practice, with marketing leaders crediting it for efficient, streamlined communications practice. STP marketing focuses on commercial effectiveness, selecting the most valuable segments for a business and then developing a marketing mix and product positioning strategy for each customer group. As Martech continues to develop, so do opportunities for segmentation, targeting, and positioning. So whether you're brand new to STP or a seasoned veteran, it can be useful to take stock and double-check you're utilizing every chance you get to reach, interact with, convert, and engage customers.

But, how do you know which customer segments to focus on? We recommend using personas to identify your…

Practical AMB guidance for putting together your account-based marketing target list to get results, fast

Account-based marketing starts with a clear picture of who to target. Sounds simple enough. But with account-based marketing (ABM) being such a new thing for so many marketers, building the right focus list is often not as easy as it first sounds. I’ve found with so many clients, they end up getting steamrolled by the ‘Who should we target’ question. When you keep hearing the same query time after time, you realize there’s clearly an education piece that’s needed. So here we are! It’s worth pointing out at this stage that this guidance is based on best practices gathered from being involved in a number of account-based marketing deployments. There are no hard and fast rules to any of this, so feel free to tweak depending on the individual circumstances of your business. Anyway, now we’ve got that out…

When an advertisement is specially curated for a specific audience segment based on their behaviors or needs, it is going to be more effective and incur a higher conversion rate

Just about every business is looking for better ways to connect with their customers. Customer engagement is the key to conversions and loyalty. According to one report by Super Office, businesses with higher engagement rates had an average retention rate of 89%. One of the best ways to capture your customer’s attention and build engagement is by connecting them with the content that matches their preferences. This is why targeted marketing campaigns work so well. When an advertisement is specially curated for a specific audience segment based on their behaviors or needs, it is going to be more effective and incur a higher conversion rate. [si_guide_block id="71497" title="Download our Free Resource – Google Analytics Fast…

A combination of data types allows marketers to identify and build out the segment of ideal and high-value customers

Segmentation helps boost the value that marketing teams bring to an organization. I am a big fan of the trusted segmentation toolkit, but for most companies, it can do with a much-needed upgrade. Growing your current database with high-value customer acquisition seems just the way to get there. A new form of segmentation and targeting can be found with the use of  Customer Data Platforms (CDP). A combination of data types allows marketers to identify and build out the segment of ideal, high-value customers.

Moving away from "blunderbuss marketing" from the start

Look at the Pillars of Segmentation marketing segmentation framework for a minute and you will realize that your data is at the heart of all segmentation efforts. Purchase data is a good starting point to identify interesting groups. What your a good…

Bridge the generation gap when it comes to customer communication by serving all generations, on all channels, with one contact centre platform

Marketers have long known that each generation communicates differently from the previous one. It's wisdom that has been passed down from marketer to marketer for, well, generations. But it's not enough to just consider how to tailor your message to audiences of different ages, you also need to think about the different ways you'll communicate that message. Communications technologies and new channels appear all the time, forcing marketers to rethink their customer communications strategy every few years. While many current communications strategies were designed with older consumers in mind, a refresh is in order. As of 2019, Millennials and Generation Z make up the largest percentage of the general population, according…

How to target your customers at the very moment they want your products

Does your data tell you when and why your customers are most in need of your products and services? Can it deliver that insight right at the time the need arises? We explain how marketers can use data and insight to target home movers, ensuring they reach them at the time they’re most likely to engage. Marketers are always looking for better ways to acquire prospects, retain and engage their existing customers. Each year, UK companies lose over 20 per cent of their customers, according to our research with nearly 200 of the UK’s leading marketers. The research also highlights the fact that 45 per cent of UK marketers say replacing these losses with new customers is their biggest challenge. For the remaining 55 per…

How well do businesses really know their customers?

As consumer expectations for relevant content and offers grow as they experience top retailers such as Amazon, companies need to focus even more on customer experience through relevant communications. When completing our Managing Digital Marketing in 2015 research we were interested to see how well companies do understand their customers since many respondents said that improving use of CRM and applying Big Data concepts was a priority for this year. We asked businesses which of the classic segmentation and targeting techniques they used to target their customers using online marketing, for example targeted emails or web-based personalisation. The results show that, overall businesses are long way from the 360 degree customer view and personalised customer lifecycle marketing that many have discussed for a long time. As marketers we see a lot of examples about how we should improve…

Customers have similar traits but are not all alike and should not be spoken to with a single message in the same manner and tone. This was initially looked at in an earlier article ‘Talk to your customers or talk to your customer?’, but once the need to communicate with and not at all your customers is understood, providing different messages/offer/content using surface level details is a tempting approach, for example splitting the message by gender and/or age group.

This approach assumes that the surface level details represent the best groups of customers which will not always be the case. Looking at the sand in the first image at first glance all the grains seems to be identical with some obvious differences becoming apparent when a more detailed…

A briefing on the new Experian UK Mosaic customer profiling

I recently attended the re-launch of Experian’s UK 2014 Mosaic Segmentation. I thought it would be useful to share a summary which I hope will be useful for marketers, who have been working with it and those who are new to what I have found is a fabulous segmentation tool. If you don't know it, Mosaic is a consumer classification tool that benchmarks the UK population on over 450 data variables. According to Experian, "Mosaic is our most comprehensive cross-channel consumer classification, built for today’s hyper-connected world. Using new data and analytical methods, organisations get deeper insights on consumer lifestyles and behaviour to help you make more informed marketing decisions". They go on to explain that they see Mosaic as more than a socio-demographic segmentation and they believe it is even more relevant today than when first created over 30 years ago.…

Review the quality of your audience segments with this checklist

This blog post first appeared in the Arts Marketing Association’s, Journal of Arts Marketing, and we are now sharing it with Smartinsight's readers. For more free resources, case studies, research and toolkits to promote art, culture and heritage visit culturalhive website. 

In an ideal world we would treat everyone as an individual and tailor and promote our offer accordingly. But this is impractical. Treating everyone as an homogenous mass however is ineffective - one size does not fit all. Segmentation provides us with a happy medium.

Segmentation is a fantastic way of reaching different people with different messages and can vastly improve how you cater for people. It means you can be strategic about audience growth and development of audience relationships.

Get it right and segmentation should provide true market insight that will lead to tangible results in audience development,…