Innovation Quote #004

“The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress.”

– Irving...

How To Do Strategic Segmentation – Step 3: Identify Unmet Needs

Strategic segmentation is a process for developing strategies that appealing to specific customer groups, increasing you effectiveness in serving that group in a way that is both profitable and sustainable. The first two steps in the strategic segmentation process are to identify key audience characteristics that define subgroups and to understand the core motivations that influence how those subgroups will engage with your organization.

The next step in the strategic segmentation process is to identify any unmet needs that represent an opportunity (or a threat) for you to serve those customers. Unmet needs are important because they are the source of discontent (whether known or not) that will cause someone to want to change. If that person is already a customer, then unmet needs can be a threat because it may be their relationship with you that they change.

But the other side of...

Church Social Media Strategy – Researching Your Audience

When churches begin thinking about how they can use social media and the internet to do ministry online, it can be hard to know where to turn for valuable advice.

There are plenty of resources that talk about the ins and out of social media, how to use tools like Twitter and Facebook. I honestly think that more people go hungry in this country than those who go without hearing about social media. But it’s hard to know if you can trust the advice you’re getting from so-called social media experts.

And even if it comes from a reputable source, it’s hard to know how to...

How To Do Strategic Segmentation – Step 2: Understand Customer Motivations

We’ve covered how strategic segmentation can help you develop effective strategies for appealing to specific customer groups in a way that is both profitable and sustainable. At this point you’ve identified key audience characteristics that allow you to both classify subgroups of your audience and inform ways that you can relate to those groups with your products and services.

The next step in the strategic segmentation process is to understand the different motivations that lie behind their decisions and behaviors.

Understanding Customer Motivations

In Strategic Market Management...

How To Do Strategic Segmentation – Step 1: Segment The Market

Strategic segmentation is a technique for analyzing your customers/audience in order to develop unique strategies for serving customer groups that share common characteristics. The value of segmentation is it provides clarity about how you can best appeal to specific customers and what it will take to develop and maintain valuable relationships with them.

So how do you go about strategic segmentation?

Like all things strategy, you can do a little or you can do a lot depending on your needs, sophistication and available resources. What I’m going to present is a general outline for performing a segmentation, you can do as much or as little in each step as is appropriate for your needs.