Segmenting the Zoo

Photo by E.G. Bucknell

Let’s say you sell wild animal food and you have a new line of vitamin-enriched foods to announce. Your target market includes all the animals in zoos.

Obviously you wouldn’t send the same announcement out to the whole database. Lions will be interested in learning about the benefits that pertain to them, while flamingos will be interested in relevant benefits to them.

So while you could send a completely different message to each of the 1,857 different animals, is this practical? How do you decide which segments are worth creating and targeting?

 Segmentation Best Practices:

Does your segment meet all of the following criteria?

• Is this segment possible to produce? Do I have (or can I get) the implicit/explicit data to even capture them?
• Is this segment accessible? Do I have their contact information?
• Is this segment worthy of a different message than others?
• Is this segment fairly stable? Do the members move in and out of this segment quickly or do they remain fairly dormant?
• Is the segment substantial enough to be profitable?

If the answer is NO for any of the above, targeting your message to this group is probably not worth it.

Updated 5-8-12
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Steve Kellogg

-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant
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