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Using different types of market segmentation allows you to target customers based on unique characteristics, create more effective marketing campaigns, and find opportunities in your market.

See how you can leverage market segmentation by learning:

• What market segmentation is
• Why market segmentation is important
• The four types of market segmentation
• How to create a market segmentation strategy

What Is Market Segmentation?

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a target market of potential customers into segments with common characteristics. Through audience analysis, segments consist of consumers who respond similarly to marketing strategies and share traits such as similar interests, needs, or locations.

Marketers often measure performance in attracting these market segments with KPIs like share of voice.

Eight Benefits of Market Segmentation

Market segmentation matters because it makes it easier to focus marketing efforts and resources on the most valuable audiences and achieve business goals.

Market segmentation helps you know your customers, identify what your market segment needs, and determine how best to meet those needs with your product or service. This helps you design and execute better marketing strategies from top to bottom.

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1. Create stronger marketing messages

You can develop stronger marketing messages when you know whom you’re talking to. You can avoid generic, vague language that speaks to a broad audience. Instead, you can use direct messaging that speaks to your target audience’s needs, wants, and unique characteristics.

2. Identify the most effective marketing tactics

Knowing what will attract your ideal audience can be difficult with dozens of marketing tactics available. Different types of market segmentation guide you toward the marketing strategies that work best. Once you know your target audience, you can choose the best solutions and methods to reach them.

3. Design hyper-targeted ads

You can target audiences by age, location, purchasing habits, interests, and more on digital ad platforms. When you use market segmentation to define your audience, you understand these details and can use them to create more effective, targeted digital ad campaigns.

4. Attract (and convert) quality leads

Clear, direct, targeted marketing messages attract the right people. You draw in ideal prospects and are more likely to convert potential customers into buyers.

5. Differentiate your brand from competitors

Being more specific about your value propositions and messaging allows you to stand out from competitors. Instead of blending in with other brands, you can differentiate your brand by focusing on specific customer needs and characteristics.

6. Build deeper customer affinity

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When you know what your customers want and need, you can deliver and communicate offerings that uniquely serve and resonate with them. This distinct value and messaging build stronger bonds between brands and customers and create lasting brand affinity.

7. Identify niche market opportunities

Niche marketing means identifying segments of industries and verticals with large audiences that you can serve in new ways. When you segment your target market, you can find underserved niche markets where you can develop new products and services.

8. Stay focused

Targeting in marketing keeps your messaging and marketing objectives on track. It helps you identify new marketing opportunities and avoid distractions that lead you away from your target market.

The Four Types of Market Segmentation

The four bases of market segmentation are:

• Demographic segmentation
• Psychographic segmentation
• Behavioral segmentation
• Geographic segmentation

Within each market segmentation type, multiple sub-categories further classify audiences and customers.

Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation is one of the most popular and commonly used types of market segmentation. It refers to statistical data about a group of people.

Demographic Market Segmentation Examples 

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Location
• Family Situation
• Annual Income
• Education
• Ethnicity

Where the above examples help segment B2C audiences, a business might use the following to classify a B2B audience:

• Company size
• Industry
• Job function

Because demographic information is statistical and factual, it is usually relatively easy to uncover through various market research sites.

A simple example of B2C demographic segmentation is a vehicle manufacturer that sells a luxury car brand (e.g., Maserati). This company would likely target an audience that has a higher income.

Another B2B example might be a brand that sells an enterprise marketing platform. This brand would likely target marketing managers at larger companies (ex. 500+ employees) who have the ability to make purchase decisions for their teams.

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation categorizes audiences and customers by factors related to their personalities and characteristics.

Psychographic Market Segmentation Examples 

• Personality traits
• Values
• Attitudes
• Interests
• Lifestyles
• Psychological influences
• Subconscious and conscious beliefs
• Motivations
• Priorities

Psychographic segmentation factors are slightly more difficult to identify than demographics because they are subjective. They are not data-focused and require research to uncover and understand.

For example, the luxury car brand may focus on customers who value quality and status. While the B2B enterprise marketing platform may target marketing managers motivated to increase productivity and show value to their executive team.

Behavioral Segmentation

While demographic and psychographic segmentation focuses on who a customer is, behavioral segmentation focuses on how the customer acts.

Behavioral Market Segmentation Examples 

• Purchasing habits
• Spending habits
• User status
• Brand interactions

Behavioral segmentation requires you to know about your customer’s actions. These activities may relate to how a customer interacts with your brand or to other activities that happen away from your brand.

A B2C example in this segment is a luxury car brand targeting customers who have purchased a high-end vehicle in the past three years. The B2B marketing platform may focus on leads who have signed up for one of their free webinars.

Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation is the simplest type of market segmentation. It categorizes customers based on geographic borders.

Geographic Market Segmentation Examples   

• ZIP code
• City
• Country
• Radius around a certain location
• Climate
• Urban or rural

Geographic segmentation can refer to a defined geographic boundary (such as a city or ZIP code) or a type of area (such as city size or climate).

An example of geographic segmentation is a luxury car company targeting customers who live in warm climates where vehicles don’t need to be equipped for snowy weather. The marketing platform might focus its marketing efforts around urban city centers where its target customer is likely to work.

How to Create a Market Segmentation Strategy

Now, you know what market segmentation is, why it’s important, and the four types of market segmentation. It’s time to put this information into practice.

Use the following market segmentation process to learn about your audience and find new marketing and product opportunities.

1. Analyze your existing customers

If you have existing customers, start your market segmentation by performing an audience analysis. An audience analysis helps you learn about your customers and identify trends within your current customer base.  Use these market research questions to guide your research.

Interview your customers.

Go straight to the source and interview existing customers, past customers, ideal customers, prospects, and leads. Ask questions that help you fill in the details of all four types of market segmentation.

Interview your sales team.

If your sales team spends a lot of time working with customers, use them as a resource. Interview them to find commonalities or trends they often see while working with your customers.

Refer to your business data.

Your business likely has loads of data that can help you get to know your customers. Use your customer relationship management tools and point-of-sale systems to find trends related to behavioral segmentation. Pull data showing how much customers spend, how often they visit your store, and what products and services they buy.

Use your website analytics.

Your website also has data that can help you learn about your audience. Use Google Analytics to find details related to all four types of market segmentation. For example, you can learn about customer behavior by seeing what pages users visit, how long they stay on the site, and what referral sites led them to your site.

Research audience geography.

Get details for graphic segmentation and find out where your audience lives using tools like Google Analytics or websites you don’t control (for instance, your competitors) you can use Semrush and Ahrefs.

Navigate to Google Analytics \ Geo \ Location to overview the visitors’ countries in a given period. You can also research the audience by city, Continent, Sub-continent, or Language.

On the other hand, if you don’t have access to the website’s traffic analytics, you can use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs. Enter your site URL, and the report shows you where your website visitors are located across the world.

Research audience interests.

Knowing your audience’s interests can help you identify psychographic segments within your customer base. Use Alexa’s Audience Interest tool to find topics and categories your audience cares about. Enter your site URL to produce a report of categories that your audience is interested in

See what your customers search for.

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Knowing what your customers search for is a great way to get inside their minds and see what they want and need. To see what terms your audience searches for, use Alexa’s Audience Overlap tool and Competitor Keyword Matrix tool.

Start by using the Audience Overlap tool to create a list of sites your audience visits. Then, toggle to the list view, select up to 10 sites, and run the sites through Alexa’s Competitor Keyword Matrix.

2. Create a buyer persona for your ideal customer

Once you complete an audience analysis, you’ll know who your current customers are. In the next step, take your data and create a buyer persona that describes the exact type of customer you’d like to attract.

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer. It allows you to visualize the person your brand is trying to attract. Knowing who you want to work with makes it easier to find the right market segment opportunities.

If you need help creating a persona, use this free downloadable buyer persona template to walk you through the process.

3. Identify market segment opportunities.

Once you have a buyer persona that describes your ideal customer, start looking for market segment opportunities.

A market segment opportunity is a trend that can drive new marketing tactics or offerings. To find them, first, ask questions about your brand.

• What problems does your brand solve?
• What problems can you solve better than your competitors?
• What do you know a lot about or excel at?
• Who do you and your team like to serve?

Then, refer to your audience analysis and buyer persona and ask questions that uncover opportunities.

• What large segments stick out?
• What customer characteristics or qualities are most common?
• What segments are currently not being served?
• What segments is your brand uniquely qualified to serve?

Identify a few potential market segment opportunities, and then research to confirm they are viable.

4. Research your potential segment.

Before you launch a marketing campaign for a new market segment, verify it is a good option. Research what competition exists and whether audiences are interested in your new market.

Gauge search interest.

Perform keyword research to ensure audiences search for terms related to your new market segment. Look for popular phrases with low competition to find a sweet spot.

Research the competition.

If there is interest in your market, research to see what competition is already in the space. Use Alexa’s Keyword Share of Voice tool to find brands already in the market. Enter a search phrase to create a report with brands that own the top share-of-voice for the phrase.

Share of voice represents the traffic a website receives for a specific keyword. It helps you identify brands already in the market, so you can see if you can compete with them and how you can differentiate your brand from their existing offerings.

5. Test and iterate

Once you find a new market you want to explore, don’t go all in just yet. Create a few campaigns to test your idea.

Try new markets and track your results to find a sweet spot that resonates with audiences. Small market tweaks can lead to big results, so continue going through this process, testing, and iterating based on what you learn.

Use Market Segmentation to Build Better Marketing Campaigns

Market segmentation helps your brand clarify your audience and goals. You can get to know your audience, see how to serve them better and reach them, and find new markets to grow into.