Segmentation & Personas
Transformative needs-based segmentation that supports human-centred strategy.
Our Needs-based approach to Segmentation helps brands create competitive advantage by aligning product and marketing strategies with the priorities of valuable target audiences.
We provide strategic direction and inspiration by segmenting markets and customers based on their common underlying needs, and bringing these to life with actionable, empathy-building Personas.
This blend delivers a view of the market that focuses on audiences’ desired outcomes and highlighting the opportunities for brands to create value, acquire customers and build loyalty.
Too often brands base product and marketing segmentations on current demographics, behaviours or attitudes. An approach that all to often fails to be the catalyst for growth.
In contrast, a needs-based approach to segmentation creates clear and lasting value for brands. This focused and systematic approach delivers the data, direction and inspiration needed to identify, connect with, and deliver value for the audiences that matter.
By categorising people based on what they are looking to achieve, rather than who they are or what they currently do, brands can tailor their products, services, and marketing efforts more effectively. Ultimately building stronger relationships with the audiences they want to reach and enhancing their competitive edge.
Read on to discover more about our needs-based segmentation approach
Our approach.
Our segmentations are rooted in Jobs-to-be-Done theory and a systematic process of dividing markets and customers into opportunity groups based around shared needs. We enhance this mix with rich empathy building deliverables that inspire value creation.
1. Surfacing needs
Define the audiences’ overall Jobs (goals) and the related needs as they progress towards it
2. Prioritise & Segment
Identify the relative importance of audience needs & cluster the market based on common priorities
3. Build empathy
Create representations of you segments that bring to life their needs and related context
1. Surfacing needs
Explorative and generative research to systematically unearth and define understand audiences’ aspirations and goals (Jobs-to-be-Done).
We map the steps they take as they make progress towards these goals, capturing their desired outcomes, unmet needs and pain points at each stage.
We take a systematic approach to turn abstract needs into concrete units of measurement with which we can segment markets and customers.
Jobs-to-be-done
We help brands unearth the goals of an audience when they will need to engage with a product or service - what is their ‘Job’ and how do they complete it in its entirety.
Desired outcomes
We map the stages people go through as they progress towards their goals, identifying the needs of users along the journey.
Pain points
We build understanding of the points of friction and the needs that are underserved by current product, service and content solutions.
Emotional context
We help brands understand how audiences want to feel and be perceived and the influence of these emotions on their needs.
Research solutions used:
Insight communities
Ethnographic diaries
Jobs-to-be-Done interviews
2. Prioritising & segmenting
Survey and segmentation analytics to establish a hierarchy of needs based on their relative importance to the market, and how well these needs are currently served by existing solutions.
This insight is used to identify clusters of opportunity in the market that are defined by a common set of priority needs. The resulting segmentation model can help brands understand, who to target, what needs to be built and how it needs to be marketed in order to engage specific audiences.
Prioritising needs
Utilising prioritisation techniques we define a hierarchy of needs based on their perceived importance and whether they are over or underserved.
Identifying segments
We identify distinct groups within a market that are defined by common priority needs that can be addressed by products, services or content.
Prioritising segments
We define the opportunity that each segment represents? What is their size, value and the ease of addressing via a current or future value proposition?
Segment connection
We help brands to understand which segments offer most value and how to target each with the messages, experience and via channels that will resonate most.
Research solutions used:
Market & customer surveys
Prioritisation analytics
Segmentation modelling
3. Personas to build empathy
A collective view of your different user and target audience groups; blending user stories, needs, journeys and emotions. We use Personas to generate empathy and actionable product and market insights that increase the pull factor for your brand.
Based on research, not instinct. Our approach uses ethnographic diary methods, mobile tech and video to build authentic and rich pictures of your target segments. We get closer to audiences’ lives, motivations, mindset and behaviour. We distil this into clear and engaging insights.
Profiled for empathy
We go beyond superficial profiles to bring to life the goals, needs, pain-points, context, behavioural bias and personalities of users.
The Jobs-to-be-Done
We uncover each persona’s functional, emotional and social jobs that they are looking to achieve and the relative importance of each.
Market context
We identify the platforms, products and brands each Persona currently uses. We highlight relative strengths, weaknesses & opportunities.
Persona-Product-Fit
We establish how good a fit the persona is for the core proposition of your brand and identify strategies to increase the pull factor.
Research solutions used:
Moderated ethnographic diaries
Segment interviews
Profiling surveys
Delivered for impact.
Our segmentations are delivered to be transformative: built to amplify opportunities, inspire new ideas and help brands connect with the people behind the screens.
Collaborative
We work iteratively with our clients to deliver segmentations aligned to the unique needs of their brand
Outcome-focused
We deliver lean, focused segmentations that have a clear purpose & can be landed quickly
Rich empathy
More than cuts of data, we bring segments to life and inspire with rich ethnographic Personas
Engaging delivery
We mix strategic insights with great data visualisation and a clear narrative to create impact
Ready to amplify the value of your brand.
Have a project to discuss? Want to know more about our services? We’d love to hear from you.