How Behavioural Segmentation Data Impacts Business Progression

Behaviour segmentation is a powerful strategy that marketers and brands can use to improve conversions and increase sales. In this article, you’ll learn what behavioural segmentation is and how it can help you improve your results.

What Is Behavioural Segmentation?

Behaviour segmentation divides your targeted audience based on a few essential factors that govern their purchase decisions:

• Their behaviour online and in-store (i.e. how and where they shop and when)
• Their response to your brand, product, and marketing
• Whether they use or need a specific type of product

It’s important to remember that consumer behaviour includes personal, psychological, and social factors. It is the interplay of all of these that determines how a customer responds to a product.

Behaviour Segmentation in Action: Some Examples

Benefits Sought Behaviour Segmentation

There are many toothpaste brands out there, but many of them cater to specific customers. Here are some examples:

• Sensodyne targets people with sensitive teeth.
• Aquafresh focuses more on providing a fresh breath.
• Pepsodent promises to fight germs all through the day.
• Colgate often focuses on complete protection (though it sells other benefits also).

As you can see, all of these brands focus on specific benefits. This approach helps to differentiate them in a competitive market that was worth $49,6 billion in 2018.

A lot of the content marketing carried out today focuses on the benefits of a product or service, and for a good reason. Consumers actively seek products whose benefits solve their daily problems.

No wonder then that benefits-oriented content marketing is one of the darlings of the online publishing world.

Occasion-Based Behaviour Segmentation

Consumers buy certain products for specific occasions.

• They buy cakes for anniversaries, events, and weddings.
• They buy travel bags, sunscreen, and beachwear before they go on vacation.
• They buy costumes before Halloween.

It’s only natural then for brands and marketers to use behaviour segmentation to associate specific products with specific occasions.

Using both inbound and outbound marketing, you can create informative content such as event guides, travel-packing guides, and how-to on choosing the right Halloween costume.

In this way, you can use occasion-based targeting to maximise results.

Usage-Based Behaviour Segmentation

In the fashion industry, companies have three types of customers.

• Those who buy and use a few products.
• Those who buy and use a lot of products.
• Those who fall somewhere in between.

This differentiation holds for many industries, including retail, beauty, or personal care, and it forms the basis for usage-based behaviour segmentation.

Often, brands who target users by usage provide products in multiple sizes. This practice is especially true in the foods, drinks, or beauty markets.

On a higher level, the same concept applies to dealers and distributors – large retailers often get the best discounts from manufacturers.

Loyalty-Based Behaviour Segmentation

Healthy businesses tend to retain existing customers while they acquire new ones. And this takes us to loyalty-based behaviour segmentation.

Car rental firms, hotels, or airlines all value loyal customers, and often use this type of segmentation to highlight discounts, vouchers, and loyalty points. Loyalty tends to be a key factor in all sectors where the quality of the service provided is important.

Online, marketers can target loyal customers with useful and engaging content that keeps them up-to-date with the latest developments of a brand they like.

At the same time, they can publish tips and advice that enable loyal customers to get the best experience possible out of a product or service they enjoy.

Applying Behavioural Segmentation This Holiday Season

As the examples above illustrate, most companies rely on some form of behavioural segmentation to reach the right audience at the right time. Often, this segmentation is crucial for the brand’s positioning in the market.

Take, for example, the winter holiday season, which is when many brands channel their marketing efforts into compelling online marketing campaigns. We’re talking here about the time of year when many people go on shopping sprees, that is, from the December 1st to January 7th.

This period illustrates how different companies target different segments at different times:

• A chocolate retailer can target customers based on loyalty or usage throughout the holiday season.
• A hotel or resort may focus on occasion-based behaviour segmentation. That’s because many people like to spend Christmas at home with their families but celebrate the new year outdoors, in a beautiful location.
• Gift shops or toy stores start their marketing at the beginning of the season, but they focus on Christmas Day. After the 25th, their marketing efforts begin to wane.
• Large retailers like Amazon can use benefits-based behaviour segmentation to increase product sales across categories throughout the holiday season.

Effectively Analysing Behavioural Segmentation Trends

In the end, companies and marketers can use the same behaviour segmentation approach in their creation and distribution of online content.

Depending on the segment they target, they can focus on crafting content that focuses on benefits, loyalty, usage, or the special value of a product on a particular occasion.

How the content is distributed will likely affect the entire segmentation process. Hence, it’s crucial for you to choose the right distribution medium and the most effective channels.