Segmentation & Targeting

MCAworks Approach

Segmentation is a fundamental platform for an organization’s marketing strategy. MCAworks views segmentation as a way to recognize that customers/consumers are different, differentiate marketing to groups of customers/consumers, create a propriety view of the market for building competitive advantage, and drive customer-driven marketing.

Our approach to marketing segmentation provides insight into the 6W’s:

• Who: Who is buying and who should we target?
   
• Which: Which products and services should we sell to make a profit?
   
• What: What is the market opportunity for them?
   
• Why: Why do customers want to buy these products/services? Why do customers use the product or service to perform a certain “job” over another (e.g., eating fast food to save money vs. eat tasty hold-over meal).
   
• Where: Where do we find and market to these customers?
   
• When: When do we know to change what we’ve been doing?

We start off segmentation projects with a review of company objectives—and an assessment of internal issues, existing segmentation schemes, product array and capabilities. Working with a small company steering committee or segmentation task force, we will hypothesize up-front on how customer needs, attitudes and behaviors vary in order to later frame research questions.

We lead with qualitative customer research to understand customer language in describing needs and behaviors. We use qualitative input to design quantitative research that is conducted generally on-line or by phone. With quantitative results in hand, we will work with companies to select the optimal segmentation scheme—one that yields definable, measurable and reachable customer segments. We create marketing plans (overall and by segment) to assist in selecting the right target, channel, message, product/service, media and reward/loyalty programs, where applicable. Our marketing plans also address critical implications for other business functions to reach, retain and grow the target segment.

Contact Dana Langham for more information.