CIVISION

Succeed in B2C Customer Segmentation with a Data-Driven Approach

How to target the right prospects in a marketing campaign? Through a data-driven approach, this article aims to provide an action plan to optimize your marketing campaigns through a B2C customer segmentation strategy.

Marketing et analyse de marché
December 20, 2024

One of the key challenges in successfully launching a B2C product is accurately identifying your customer persona. To achieve this, we start by making hypotheses.

For instance, a startup developing more ergonomic cushions once told me their target audience was younger people, as they are more likely to buy cushions compared to the rest of the population. I responded: Is that truly your target audience? Why wouldn’t it be older individuals, who are more prone to experiencing pain over time due to aging? Similarly, if we confirm the hypothesis that the target is younger people, what other characteristics might they have? Are they likely to be from modest backgrounds? Living in rural areas? And so on.

So how do you target the right prospects in a marketing campaign?
This article aims to provide an actionable plan to optimize your marketing campaigns through a B2C customer segmentation strategy using a data-driven approach.

Action Plan to Identify Your Audience Segments

1 – Define Your Customer Persona’s Characteristics

To determine the characteristics of your personas, start by making hypotheses about how your product will be used. Look at your competitors’ customer segments or read online reviews.

2 – Identify Geographic Areas

Next, identify geographic areas with populations that match your persona’s characteristics. Tools like CivGEO can help pinpoint neighborhoods with specific socio-demographic profiles.

The goal here is to eliminate cognitive biases through an objective approach. For example, you might be convinced that your solution will primarily interest younger people, but it might ultimately be more appealing to older individuals.

Ensure your sample size is sufficient. For example, an audience of fewer than 100 people matching the targeted characteristics would not be statistically significant.

You also need to isolate variables that could bias your analysis. For instance, if you want to confirm that your solution appeals more to men than women, ensure your audience is homogeneous in other key criteria, such as income distribution and age distribution. Otherwise, differences in these factors might skew your analysis.

In reality, achieving such precise segmentation can be challenging. However, socio-demographic mapping tools like CivGEO make audience segmentation faster and easier.

3 – Run an Initial Advertising Campaign

After identifying geographic areas to test your hypotheses, launch your advertising campaign. The choice of media is also critical and can introduce biases into your analysis.

For example, if you’re comparing the performance of your campaign among younger and older audiences, using Facebook Ads will inherently introduce bias, as the platform is more popular among people aged 25–35 than those over 65.

Similarly, if you cannot distinguish the performance of multiple campaigns running simultaneously, consider the external context. For instance, comparing a campaign run before Christmas to one after Christmas will likely yield biased results.

4 – Evaluate and Refine Your Customer Segments

After the first advertising campaign, compare the performance of your ads. For example, if you initially wanted to assess your solution’s appeal based on age, you might have run two campaigns—one targeting a younger audience and another targeting an older one.

To refine your results, identify any biases in your campaign execution, such as the geographic zones chosen, the timing of the campaign, or local/national contexts.

Once you’ve validated your first characteristic, refine your customer segment by testing another criterion. For instance, if you’ve confirmed that older people are more likely to buy your solution, now determine whether they are affluent or modest, homeowners or renters, etc.

Conclusion

This method requires several iterations to validate your customer segments, which involves budgeting. However, by targeting highly specific geographic areas, you can significantly reduce the costs associated with identifying your customer segments.

CivGEO: Quickly Segment Your Audience in Canada

A Montreal-based startup selling non-alcoholic beverages wanted to determine whether their product was more appealing to Muslim communities (as they typically avoid alcohol) or to affluent young people.

Using CivGEO, they identified two geographic zones: one in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville neighborhood and another in the Town of Mount Royal.

The persona of the population in Montreal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville neighborhood consists primarily of renters living alone, around 40 years old, with an annual income of approximately $25,000. This area also has a significant immigrant Muslim community (30% of the population).

Conversely, the persona of the population in the municipality of Mount Royal primarily consists of families, homeowners with very high incomes. The immigrant population is quite low (about 15% of the total population).