TARGETING - Bad segmentation is often worse than no segmentation
A world of data, buttons, targeting conjecture and often misinformed assumptions encourages advertisers to sometimes be a bit too clever. But trust me, it is not always the look you think it is...
Firstly, Hello again, how are you?
Excuse a now 2 month absence. I almost want to reintroduce myself again.
When I set out to write Front of Mind, it was with the MO to deliver something of hopeful value on a regular cadence, and systemise all the learning and things I’ve been keen to share as a resource for advertisers, students and more, whilst aiming not to kill myself nor your inbox with daily or weekly drops. I knew I had loads I wanted to write, in a kind of modular way, so pledged to myself I’d send a mid-monther to you.
It’s been great for me, to maintain focus, to keep mindful and disciplined, to encourage me to think critically and share those thoughts on a regular basis. And of course, the most important thing is, based on ad-hoc feedback, that it helps give you some food of thought to take forward into your own endeavours, That’s all I wanted.
The other thing was I wanted to be consistent. Every month without fail. I coach clients on the importance of consistency, showing up, whether it be your assets or your content stream. Well, I failed. I feel however I have 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a busy month and I celebrated my 40th, including a family meal, a trip to South of France, plenty of drinks with friends, as well as a wedding, a christening, another weekend away, a huge client project and general life admin (did an exam, I am Chartered now by the way!), and per the above, exhaustion. So took a back seat.
The 2nd reason follows on from the aforementioned fatigue somewhat. I had a bit of a hiatus from being on the job so intensely. I barely switched off from Archmon since I set up shop 4+ years ago, so I kind of minimised it down to a bit of work, something I go to like an obligation-fulfilling employee, and not something that defined me. Of course, the nature of going self employed, freelance or consulting is of course that, in the early days, you imbue your identity in your commercial pursuits because it requires so much time and mindset adaption; it becomes the norm.
But thankfully, after a 50+ month shift, I felt that despite all the commitments and the frequencies I set, I realised I was being hard on self, and owed me one. I needed a break from my own head. So did what I had to do. The agreed work. Less proactive but slowly reactive. And enjoying the fruits of life I have worked hard for, as we work to live right? That was always my intention when I registered on Companies House.
I digress, but wanted to preface/excuse self, and remind you that we should enjoy our work and not let it take over, and hopefully learn and do some good stuff along the way! Additionally, the down time combined with entering a new decade all leads nicely on to the points I want to make and for you to take away.
So - Let’s get to it - Segmentation & Targeting
However, I also know my audience, I don’t have millions of subscribers and I don’t think hardly any new ones since my last post in July, so I have mentally segmented you into the pool of ‘you know who I am and you’ve likely seen my email before’, hence the ‘Hello again’. So far so good right? That is because I know the audience, for this purpose a segment of one, and the same comms goes to all of you. An example in itself.
Any reasonably trained or experienced marketer will know that segmentation is a key part of the marketing process. To recap, this is basically the process identifying the needs and shared characteristics of your particular target audience or customer base, dividing them up into segments, and in turn targeting them the message and/or product they need. These similar traits which warrant a segment could be demographic, psychographic, behavioural or so on.
Targeting is basically doing something unique when communicating with those segments, giving one segment something different to the other segments. A unique creative message or copy for example, and often more pertinently, the product itself.
However we also know there are steps before this. First of all we need to have understood our market, done our research, orientated ourselves and built a product right for the market. Understand what we are known for. It is important to know this. What we are selling and to who. As generally, on a simplified level, we may be selling one thing to the market in the eyes of the buyer. Category Entry Points (CEPs) are basically places where buyers are/could think about you and start to consider you. Learn them.
Action in one place means none in another
The thing with targeting of course is that you are speaking to one segment with one thing, and as a consequence, likely not speaking to another segment about that thing. So when we serve one thing there we are not elsewhere. Is that really the answer for your brand? Are we assuming the buyers are only those who you think they are?
Below is what I share with clients who think they know their perfect customer profile:
No doubt you have seen something like the above before, but if you haven’t it is an important reminder of the relativity of the addressability. If the above client was only keen on targeting females above a certain income in London for example, they are only reaching 14% of what they potentially could. It is usually wrong to assume the non-females, UK wide and without known/preferred income would not be interested in buying (and gifting, another huge reason to not exclude) your product. Proper segmentation would indeed target the well-heeled capital dwelling women as the core audience, but also cater for (much of) the non-targets. If you speak to more, you sell more. 86% in fact.
The Lived experience - Turning 40 as a lesson on bad targeting
The big issue I have with demographic targeting; it is lazy at best, offensive at worst.
I had been in my 40s for 10 days and it was clear I had entered many an advertiser’s 40+ segment on platforms! I was now getting served pictures of what could only be described as Suave Santas for modelling, and hair loss treatments. Oh and not pictured, new front doors, for no apparent reason.
Now I’m not a model, however I can confirm one of my saving graces as I get older is my full head of thick (mainly still brown) hair. I’m 15 years away (hopefully) from the debonair St. Nicholas yet!
These examples are just lazy targeting. Age and gender arbitrary clearly, but a lack of enrichment and justification of me being in the segments. You’d likely get away with it more if the creative wasn’t so stock imagey too.
Just to be clear marketing and planners - the UK census 2 years ago confirms that 50.7% of our population our over 40 (in other words over 30 million individuals, who also have more cash than the other younger half). To homogenise that slab with age related content, products, cruises and life assurance is just so short sighted. A 40 year old does not look or feel like a 65 year old. My dad loves Dad Rock but is always on the lookout for new Adidas trainers. My mum gets her mail order Ambrose Wilson stuff, but also scrolls Pinterest and shops at Boohoo & Asos. We’re different generations but they’re definitely not age regressive in their preferences. (Read what I wrote about parents as a focus group a couple of years ago in NewDigitalAge, where I enjoyed a hilarious chat with Mum & Dad).
The above serves as another reminder that yes, segmentation is important for your audience and part of proper marketing strategy, but only if you actually do it properly. As in have a well researched and tailored message, proposition, creative that you’ve identified that particular audience segment need or want to hear! Otherwise you’re better off just Broad reaching more often than not, and discovering where the audience is.
What really pissed me off here was the noticeable gear change as a consumer receiving it. For example, if I’d always been served Suave Santa and hair maintenance products a couple of weeks earlier as a 39 year old, I wouldn’t have even noticed, and probably just assumed it was broad and slightly off; most consumers know if an advert doesn’t apply to them and let off as we call it, ‘wastage’ but then trust me they notice the gear change for being served High Top Nikes to comfortable Orthopaedic shoes. Or in my case, cool baseball caps to hair thinning products. It’s just off.
To close this Segment
I’ve always been of the opinion the league table is as follows:
1st - Good Segmentation - knowing your audience, serving them accordingly.
2nd - Mass Marketing - Get it out there, not perfect but learn and adapt.
Far 3rd - Bad Segmentation - Lazy, discriminatory, crap personalisation. Alienating.
We all need to do better and gun for first place, many default to the mass, not always by design but lack of insight, which at times can work and builds addressable audience. 3rd is the worst. You are trying to segment but you are 2-0 down. Losing scale and getting it wrong to your segment. Bad effort to reward ratio there.
Next time you’re setting up a campaign, really really make an effort to understand your customer, where they are coming from, and don’t be lazy on the creative. If in doubt, go broader and learn. e.g. Have one creative of family; younger people might want to aspire to adulthood and the elders still feel young. Commercially, it’s more addressable, makes sense and includes fundamental tenets of brand advertising.
Segmentation and targeting are very different. Many marketers, experienced or not, sadly conflate segmentation with targeting, and conflate targeting with absolution hyper-precision, and go for the left-handed jugglers in the Outer Hebrides to the expense of wider addressability.
Remember - marketing’s job is a commercial one, to grow sales and to increase penetration of a category. You want to do that by learning about yourselves, the types of buyers and the entry points, you won’t do that by thwarting yourselves. You can still mass target with segmentation.
To close, think of it all as a pizza. The whole pizza is your potential mass audience. Segmentation is that whole pizza with each slice with a different topping. Targeting means you may only want half that pizza, but Hyper-targeting is problematic and starves you, and would the one slice of that pizza to the expense of the rest of the pizza. Don’t starve them or yourselves.
Unless there’s pineapple, nobody wants that. Don’t be the Hawaiian. Do it properly.
SA
P.S. I really hope you are getting a semblance of value out of this. If so, and you think any other marketer or business owner would, feel free to share/forward this to them. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter or even my company page. If you want to discuss working together, or simply something I’ve said, drop me a line. Thanks and happy reading/marketing!