{"id":17523,"date":"2016-09-27T14:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T14:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaysky.com\/blog\/segmentation-not-north-star-individualization\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T20:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:21:14","slug":"segmentation-not-north-star-individualization","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/sundaysky.com\/jp\/blog\/segmentation-not-north-star-individualization\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Segmentation is Not the North Star to Individualization"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a marketer, you know how valuable a buyer persona can be. Such personas, which characterize behaviors, motivations, and demographics displayed by your customers, help marketing efforts become more targeted and personal. Therefore, every campaign put together and every loyalty-building email written with a persona in mind can be a game-changer. Yet, today\u2019s empowered consumer recognizes the difference between marketing messages intended to sell a segmented audience and individualized messages,\u00a0intended to solve specific problems in their individual lives.<\/p>\n

When comparing personalization with segmentation, everyone loses\u00a0<\/h4>\n

No doubt personalization\u2019s origins are rooted in segmentation<\/a>. Segmentation\u2014the practice of developing buyer personas, via\u00a0customer data and market research, and marketing directly to them\u2014still results in blanket communications that only resonate with a small portion of recipients though. Your customers are individuals and want to be treated as such, rather than falling into categories determined by generic demographics.<\/p>\n

Too often today we find brands checking the box on personalization when they simply add a consumer\u2019s first name to a communication intended for a customer persona. With today\u2019s technology advances and access to organized and structured data, these messages are quickly becoming trite as they lack contextual relevance and real value to the consumer. In short, they miss the mark on one-to-one individualization.<\/p>\n

A mature personalized marketing approach<\/a>, on the other hand, reaches consumers on an individual level. Rather than a segmented message that simply greets consumers by their first names, true personalized (or individualized) marketing is proactive, responsive, accurate and helpful\u2014predicting and reacting to individuals\u2019 wants and needs, while offering valuable information to engage and educate consumers.<\/p>\n

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Segmentation is one degree-point, not the sole needle, that leads you to the north star\u00a0of true one-to-one personalization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Smart marketing is a puzzle, not a fill-in-the-blank word game. Segmentation and individualization should not be compared together or viewed as one in the same; each is a critical tool for different stages in every buyer\u2019s journey. Deploying each within a holistic strategy relies\u00a0entirely on how customers are already reacting, engaging with, and responding to top-of-funnel marketing efforts. After all, we\u2019ve all had an experience where marketing became too personal, too quickly\u2014and the results were nothing short of creepy. (Remember when Target outed a pregnant teenager<\/a>?)<\/p>\n

Every customer data point collected should serve as an additional degree on your compass, rather than the directional needle itself. One singular customer data point can be misleading; information changes over time, just as customers\u2019 interests and buying habits constantly shift. Segmentation is one degree-point, not the sole needle, that leads you to the north star of true one-to-one personalization.<\/p>\n

Use segmentation as one data layer of many to reach individualization<\/h4>\n

Data defines your audience, so use it wisely: define your customers as individuals made up by collections of data segments. Repeatedly overlaying these data segments shifts your customers away from the wide-ranging buyer personas they once fit into, focusing instead on marketing to an audience of one. Create every message based on your customers\u2019 ever-evolving, dynamic profiles, that can\u2014and should\u2014include layers of multiple data segments, such as:<\/p>\n