Market Segmentation Research
Market Segmentation Research
The way you treat your customers matters, but while treating them all the same way can be impersonal, the expense of one-to-one marketing is far too high to yield sustainable ROI. Neither approach delivers optimal results.
However, there is a way to get the best of both worlds and create interactions that are both customized and cost-effective. How? Through sophisticated market segmentation research. While some market positioning research firms simply divvy up groups by demographics, the best ones specialize in helping you recognize different types of customers, understand which products or services your different types of customers need, and identify the kinds of customers most attracted to your product or brand.
Visit Maritz Research to learn more about how out sophisticated market segmentation research can help you identify key groups among your customer base.
Market segmentation research is the best way to hone in on distinct segments among your customers. Through market segmentation research, you’ll leverage commonalities in the way specific groups of customers think, communicate, and make decisions.
And effective market positioning research firms don’t stop with helping you identify segments. They also guide you as you develop messages that target specific segments – messages that reflect each segment’s preferences and speak the right language to those customers. In fact, this research can even help you recognize which segments are your best investments. Thus, market segmentation research is a powerful way to optimize customer interactions and get the best possible results from every customer encounter.
How Marketing Segmentation Research Works.
Market segmentation research begins by looking at ”basis” variables – questionnaire items, data elements or attributes – that will be used to divide your customers into segments.
The most common of these variables are demographics (age, geographic location, education, household size/composition, income, life stage, etc.). While demographics are more useful in some markets, like the automotive industry, they often fail to yield differences that are useful or relevant when it comes to marketing. Similarly, behavioral variables have limited usefulness because, though they have proven somewhat successful in pharmaceutical markets, for example, they still tell marketers more about what individuals do than about why they do it.
Some market positioning research firms eschew demographics and behavior and instead consider psychographic or attitudinal variables. This approach employs a rating scale and asks category-relevant questions to help define segments that show marked and useful differentiation in purchasing behavior or preferences. Unfortunately, these variables have limitations, too. Respondents may use rating scales in biased ways, for example, making results far less definitive than is desirable.
Needs-based or benefits segmentation is another marketing segmentation research approach. Here, researchers look at the specific needs of individuals in terms of products, product attributes, features or benefits. Like psychographics, benefits segmentation sometimes fails to effectively target segments, but it can be quite useful as a guide to product or communications development.
Multi-basic segmentation uses two or more of these types of variables. This approach can be compelling, but these segmentations need to be constructed carefully, as including too many basis variables can be as problematic as including too few, and differences between segments can erode if the wrong levers are applied.
When considering potential market positioning research firms, it’s important that you choose a market segmentation research partner that offers not only the capabilities to approach your segmentation from several different directions, but also the expertise to advise you on the right segmentation strategy for your specific industry and your unique business.
Maritz: Your Marketing Segmentation Research Expert.
Market segmentation research is an art and a science. Market positioning research firms must make all the right moves, and only a proven research partner will do. That’s why our customers choose Maritz. They know we’ve been conducting research and providing solutions to businesses across a wide spectrum of industries for decades.
Our market segmentation research for the automotive industry has directly affected more than two thirds of new car and light truck sales in the United States. We can customize our market segmentation research to fit the needs of any business; in fact, we provide marketing segmentation research services for Fortune 1000 clients in industries such as financial services, hospitality, information technology, retail and telecom.
Our research professionals conduct phone surveys, online surveys, and postal surveys that number in the millions each year. You’ll find our research teams working across 80 countries and six continents. In fact, we rank 14th in size among research firms worldwide.
At Maritz, we offer multiple tools to our market segmentation research customers, like Maritz Concept Research, Maritz CustomerConnect, Maritz CustomerExperienceAdvantagesm and Maritz LoyaltyMaximizersm. Our marketing segmentation research offers a holistic, multidimensional approach to identify key factors affecting your bottom line. As a world leader in customer satisfaction research, Maritz holds the key to understanding your market and moving your customers.
Marketing segmentation research offers the best of both worlds to you and your customers. To learn more, contact Maritz, the world leader among market positioning research firms, today.
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