What's the best way of segmenting an audience? By...

Jana Cagorovic
27 replies
I'm curious to know which data is most important to you for segmenting the audience you are presenting your product to? Add in the comment section why ;)

Replies

Ha Dao
I think it depends on your product. For example, if your product is a restaurant, so the answer should be geo location. If it's a dating site, it would be age...so on
Kate Middle
I think it does. But segmentation can continue in a certain product itself. Taking as an example dating sites, there are more segments inside the niche, like age, sex preferences, nationality, geo location, etc. That's why separate senior dating sites canada are so popular. Cause ppl know where they "come" and don't have unnecessary waste of their time.
Jana Cagorovic
@ha_dao_thi_thu I totally agree that it depends on the product. I was more interested in knowing whether the usual choice of segmentation really works. Thanks for answering :)
Alex Devero
In general, when you are not focused on specific segment, interests are a good place to start. When you are focused on specific segment, then it depends on the type of product you have. Is it physical? Then, geo location and/or demographic will be very like good choices. If it is a digital product, and you have wide spectrum of users, age and/or technographics will work better. However, it is very hard to say which one is the best way. It is like asking what type of doctor is the best? Well, it depends on your problem.
Jana Cagorovic
@alexdevero I agree that is very hard to say that's why I asked. In the last period the usual choice of segment for a specific product type doesn't work as expected for me, that's why I asked. Maybe I formed the question a bit more generic - my fault there. :) For example, I expected the age segment for a digital product would be the first segment I would take into consideration, the results turned out to be quite opposite of what we were targeting, so technographics were our go-to for the segmentation and we saw quite some results. Thanks for your thoughts on this, much appreciated. :D
Monika Ben
Email behaviour and product usage are also solid options to consider. How active is the user? What kind of emails do they click?
Jana Cagorovic
@monika_ben good aspect! have you noticed good conversion by the email behavior? are the emails cold emails or nurture emails? :)
Thom Malone
I think the answer should actually be all of the above. I'm working on a product right now that gives you data driven user personas factoring in all of those things and more (product lifecycle stage, industry, advertising platform, etc.). It's one thing to target an audience by interests, but the way you communicate to them is equally as important. If you target the right interests but don't speak their language it will fall on deaf ears.
Jana Cagorovic
@thomasmalone what's the project you are working on? I would love to check it out. :)
Thom Malone
@jana_c It's still in beta stage but we're gathering a lot of really great initial data to help improve data sets. You can find it here https://www.producthunt.com/upco... You can use the code INDIE on the form to get a free user persona right now too :)
Jana Cagorovic
@thomasmalone thanks looks interesting! I'll check it out.
Abinash Mohanty
Interest is the best options from the list @jana_c however, sometimes it varies from one product to another. For an example, making a financial product requires to get more insights via demographics as well especially if you're targeting for a global set of users.
Jana Cagorovic
@abinashmohanty I believe interest is actually one of the most important ones, but also one of the hardest ones to gather information for.
Felipe Otálora
I think that it depends, the book The Lean Product Playbook talks about this on detail on CH3, I absolutely recommend you take a look at it. It all comes down to try to identify your customer needs and any additional segmentation is almost incidental.
Jana Cagorovic
@felipe_otalora thanks! is there a link where I can find it?
Satish Gaire
As much data points you have the better it is. You will get their IP then cookie them in to track information.
Jana Cagorovic
@satishgaire IP tracking is definitely game changer now a days :)
Cody B. Gaskin
Regardless of the product, I believe you should always use a combination of data points. One data point does not give you enough insight on your customer. It will always depend on the product, but more than one data point should be used, especially in the early stages of growth - this helps you zone in on your early adopters to help validate your leanings with the right segmentation and in turn get to product/market fit.
Jana Cagorovic
@cody_gaskin1 have all data points would be ideal! I agree on that. What's the tools you are using for gathering all of the data points? :)
Cody B. Gaskin
@jana_c Hi Jana, We use a few tools for gathering insights. Analytics, Qualaroo, Hot Jar. But we are moving towards using our own tool for understanding our customers better.
Jana Cagorovic
@cody_gaskin1 Hot Jar was trending couple of months ago here on PH. How is your experience with it?
Jana Cagorovic
@cody_gaskin1 I've been using a similar product, but it doesn't catch all the website sessions in the recordings... have you noticed in Hotjar something similar or is working as it should?
Cody B. Gaskin
@jana_c Yeah, hotjar doesn't catch all the sessions. But it can be overlooked, the goal is to look for patterns which you would only really get with many sessions. Missing one or two a day won't necessarily impact the overall results.
Patrick Loonstra
Depends on what want to achieve.