Segmentation

Everyone who takes a course on Marketing will be familiar with the STP model covering Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. It’s universally taught.

But like any form of learning, it’s how you apply it that really counts.

And the application of segmentation by marketeers has a lot to answer for in this respect.

Gen Z, Millennials and Boomers are referred to way beyond just marketing circles. But as Sir John Hegarty rightly said in a recent post, these descriptors are just generalisations based on people’s birth dates. Millions of people within each ‘segment’ can’t all be the same.

John describes this all as astrology, rather than social science, leading to insights. For sure, it’s a lazy form of segmentation, which needs to be much more precise.

When engaging employees within organisations, laziness needs to be avoided too when grouping recipients into segments. All too often segmentation simply involves grouping employees into different levels of seniority or into functions.

It’s far more effective to segment employees according to their attitudes towards whatever the engagement campaign is aiming to achieve. Culture change is the prime example here. And there needs to be a reality check on the gaps between current culture and the one which is desired.

Here’s a way to segment employees according to their attitudes towards culture building activities:

- Champions. Those who are always up for it, whatever needs to be done. They genuinely do what they say.

- Supporters. They have the champions’ backs but may be less vociferous. But the quiet ones can still become Champions.

- Agnostics. Those that tend to keep their heads down. They wait to see which way things go before supporting anything.

- Cynics. Their classic attitude is ‘I’ve seen it all before and it didn’t work last time either.  Don’t worry it’ll just blow away’.

- Antagonists. A classic phrase from them is ‘only over my dead body will this happen’. As vocal objectors, they can have a strong influence over others.

Going back to the STP model, what’s then the best way to target these groups and position what you’re engaging them around?

It involves creating a groundswell of change. Imagine all these segments as a ladder, with Champions on the top rung and Antagonists on the bottom one.

Champions should be encouraged and provided with ways to haul others up the ladder, so that Supporters step up to become Champions and Agnostics become Supporters etc.

Looking at Cynics and Antagonists though, their negative attitudes should still be respected. They may have good reasons to object. And any positioning should anticipate this so pre-emptive ways can be developed to deal with objections. The difficult questions will always need to be answered and addressed.

Here’s an encouraging point about Antagonists. Because they influence others so much, once they become converted, they can go straight to the top of the ladder and will be extremely effective Champions.