Segmentation and Buyer Personas

It’s tough for marketers when it comes to:

• The contacts in your database
• How they differ
• How to market to them

To solve this, you will have to start by:

• Putting these contacts into groups based on similar characteristics
• Then build your strategy for each of these groups

This is called segmentation.

So in this blog post, we will learn how using personas and lifecycle stages builds an effective segmentation strategy.

Let’s get started. 

What is Segmentation?

Segmentation is dividing your audience into groups based on similarities.

A few examples of different ways segmentation can be used includes:

• Setting the topics and tone of emails, which is different based on industry
• Content strategy planning, like creating content for under-represented segments
• Personalising messaging on your website with call-to-action for each segment

These are just a few ways out of many of how segmentation can drive better results.

What is a Buyer Persona?

Buyer personas are profiles that represent the different types of buyer in your target audience based on:

• Demographic
• Attitude
• Behavior

These are the types of buyers that engage with your:

• Website
• Brand
• Product

And you and your team would have come across these types of buyers during the marketing and sales process.

Also different factors define your buyer persona, a few examples include:

•  Industry
• Company size
• Location

But what is most important depends on your business and the industry its in.

What is a Lifecycle Stage?

Lifecycle stage is where the contact or lead is positioned in your business’s buying process.

This should be where you start when it comes to segmenting your audience.

And the lifecycle stage your potential customers are at will determine your communication to them.

For example, the conversation with a new lead is different from the conversation with a warm lead considering buying in the future.

So, when starting segmentation, use the information you have on your lead’s lifecyle stage. 

Combining Buyer Persona & Lifecycle Stage to Define Your Segments

The most effective way to segment your audience is to combine:

• Buyer personas
• Lifecycle stage

So to segment your audience based on their lifecycle stage and persona, look at who your lead is, based on their:

• Goals
• Interests
• Demographics

And how your leads interact with your business, based on their lifecycle stage.

Keep Segmentation on a Database

Build your buyer personas and segment them on your database.

This can be done using a simple spreadsheet.

But before segmenting your database, start by:

• Defining personas
• Building persona profiles
• Classify your database by personas

After setting up your personas and label each contact based on these persona, which gives you an overview of your database.

Then over time, you can go into each segment and see it grow over time.

Put Your Personas to Use

When you personas are set up and your leads are grouped in them, start putting your segmentation to use.

A few examples of different ways you can use your personas include:

• Create workflows to nurture certain persona leads
• Create CTAs or content visible to certain personas and lifecycle stages on your website
• Write blog content for different personas and lifecycle stages
• Use social media to track contacts with certain personas and lifecycle stages

Remember, your personas can also be used to set your marketing strategy.

Because when your personas are set up, you’ll get an overview of your entire contact database.

Which will help you see:

• Which persona most your leads fall into
• Which lifecycle stages most your leads fall into

Then you can use this information to prioritise your marketing efforts.

For example, if you have alot of early stage potential leads, nurture them so they become qualified leads.

And if you have a lot of qualified leads and less early stage leads, make more blog content and educational offers.

Conclusion

Now you know how to use both your buyer personas and lifecycle stages to better segement your audiences.

So now its over to you.

Tell me the criteria you use to segment your audience?

Let me know in the comment section below.