Cookie cutters should only be used for baking, NOT as your approach to marketing and customer communication!
To get the most out of your strategy, you must really get to know your audience and send them the right campaigns or messages based on their situation.
That’s where segmentation comes into play. You’ll sell more and give value to your audience through content and solutions that are tailored to their specific needs, goals and preferences.
And the best part? You can segment your audience automatically with a quiz!
Depending on your type of business and goals, you might want to focus on different types of groups and categories.
So, I’ll walk you through the best strategies to segment your audience (and how to do that with a quiz).
1. Demographic-Based Segmentation
This is the most common and easiest type of audience segmentation. It means dividing your customers into groups based on objective and outward-facing factors like age, gender, location, job role, industry, income and so on.
So, use your quiz to uncover the ones that matter the most to you (psst: drop-down questions tend to be particularly helpful!). For example:
- “What’s your annual turnover?” Under £50,000 / £50,000 – £100,000 / Over £100,000
- “In what industry do you work?” with a handful of popular answers and an “Other” option
You can then send more tailored messages, marketing campaigns and offers to each segment.
For example, let’s say you’re a recruitment agency. Once you find out someone works in an industry that’s affected by seasonal fluctuations (like retail around Christmas), you can contact them in preparation for them.
2. Behavioural Segmentation
Behavioural segmentation means dividing your customers into groups based on how they interact with your brand and competitors. It’s mainly about what they buy, how often and why.
So, get clear on what behaviours would be useful to you. Then, work your way backwards to come up with the right quiz questions, and send more targeted content and offers to each segment.
For example, do you sell deodorant? Your quiz can help you find out if this person only buys a new pack once they run out or if they’d rather rely on a subscription (so that they never have to think about it).
Once you know that, you can send a marketing campaign about your deodorant bundle to the first segment and your monthly subscription to the latter. Smart, right?
3. Psychographic Segmentation
Psychographic segmentation divides your customers into groups based on more subjective and personal traits that influence their buying behaviours. Think personality traits, values, lifestyle choices and attitudes.
By understanding someone’s psychographics? You can form a deeper connection and craft messaging or campaigns that resonate with their mindset.
To uncover their psychographics and segment your audience with a quiz, you could:
- Focus on personality quizzes – For example, “What type of entrepreneur are you?”
- Ask strategic questions – If you sell organic cotton t-shirts, your quiz can show you why this person is interested in organic cotton clothing in the first place. What motivates them the most: doing something good for the planet or for their own health?
4. Engagement-Based Segmentation
This type of segmentation divides your customers into groups based on how and how often they engage with your brand.
When it comes to engagement, there are four main types of customers:
- Active – They buy from you and interact with your content regularly. They’re loyal and might even recommend you to friends and family
- Passive – They’re clearly interested in your products or services, but they don’t buy or interact with you very often
- Disengaged – These used to be active customers but are now losing interest in your brand, products or services
- Inactive – These might have been customers in the past but they just haven’t engaged with you in a long time. Unfortunately, they’re no longer interested in buying from or staying in touch with you (e.g. they unfollowed you on social media or unsubscribed from your email list)
So, use your quiz to determine each customer’s level of engagement by asking questions like “How often do you read our newsletter?” and “When you need a new [type of product], who comes to mind first: [your brand or competitors]?”
For example, Baiju Solanki, founder of EnSpirit Global Ltd, used a ScoreApp quiz to get clear on where each prospect stood as soon as they engaged with his book. This allowed him to enrich his leads database with highly motivated and interested individuals!
And if you want to get hyper-strategic with your segments? Connect your quiz with your CRM and external tools, and use their data, too (like how much time someone spent on your website, whether or not they’ve been opening your emails and so on).
5. Product/Service Preference Segmentation
You can save time, make your life easier and sell more by recommending the right product or service to each customer – based on their situation.
So, for example, you can use your quiz to find out:
- What problem is this person experiencing?
- What are they hoping to achieve?
- What have they already done to try and solve their issue?
- Have they got any concerns stopping them from taking action right now?
- What’s their budget?
- What are their values and beliefs?
Then, instead of just directing them to your website or a generic range of products, send them a specific and relevant offer or recommendation.
Or if you rely on sales calls? No more starting from scratch and wasting time asking all those questions during your conversation. Thanks to your quiz, you’ll already know exactly what to recommend and why (before you’ve even spoken to them).
6. Buying Cycle Segmentation
Segment your audience based on where they are right now in relation to the buyer’s journey.
You can use your quiz questions to find out their current stage, like “What have you already done to try and solve this problem?” or “Have you worked with a business coach before?”
Then, nurture and communicate with each segment accordingly (for example, by sending them relevant sales enablement content or helping them move to the next stage).
The main phases of the buyer’s journey are:
- Awareness – These people have only just realised they have a problem that needs solving. So, send them content that helps them get to the bottom of it: what’s causing it? What’s its ripple effect? What happens if they don’t solve it?
- Consideration – These consumers are in the research phase. They’re trying to find the best solution to their problem, looking for and comparing different ones. So, send them content that makes their life easier (e.g. “How to find the best business coach for you”) or that compares your brand against others (like “[Your product] vs [competitor]: what’s right for you?”)
- Decision – By now, these people are fairly sure YOU are the one for them: they just need a final nudge! So, impress them with client testimonials and case studies, or invite them on a call to discuss their quiz results
7. Segmentation by Problem/Solution Identification
Deep down, people don’t buy products or services: they invest in a solution to their problem. So, you can also segment your customers accordingly.
Of course, a quiz is the perfect way of doing this because you get to ask them lots of strategic questions, like “What’s making it difficult to run your business right now?” or “When it comes to camping gear, which of these issues annoys you the most?”
Then, depending on your business model and strategy, you can:
- Send them an email with the best product/service recommendation to solve their problem
- Invite them on a call to discuss their problem and find the right solution for them
- Nurture them with automated email sequences that answer their most common questions and concerns
This type of audience segmentation will also help you pre-qualify your leads and only spend time with those who’d be the right fit!
8. Customised Customer Journey Mapping
A customer journey map is like a visual storyline of when and how someone engages with your brand (or a specific service or product).
A quiz can help you map out the ideal sequence of phases and touchpoints for each segment!
For example, you can ask them questions to understand their past and current situation, like “Have you ever bought from [brand name] before?” or “What’s your opinion of [brand name]?”
Then, integrate their answers with your existing data and CRM, and use them to nurture each prospect strategically.
For instance, have they still got a few doubts before buying your most expensive offer? Then, your customer journey map for these segments should include additional sales enablement content or calls.
Did someone buy from you in the past but stopped receiving your newsletter? Then, they haven’t heard about that new offer that would be perfect for them! So, consider emailing them about it and including a personalised discount.
9. Lifecycle Segmentation
This type of segmentation is about dividing customers into groups based on their current stage in the customer lifecycle. The goal is to help them move to the next while strengthening your relationship with them.
The five main stages of the customer lifecycle are:
- Reach – Someone discovers your brand or products for the first time
- Acquisition – They start engaging with them (for example, by looking at your website, booking a call with you or opting for a free trial)
- Conversion – They make their first purchase (hurray!)
- Retention – Now, you must do whatever you can to retain that customer and get them to keep engaging with your brand
- Loyalty – With the right research and tailored strategy? You can turn one-off purchases into repeat customers and virtual brand ambassadors
So, use your quiz to understand where each person is in relation to this lifecycle, as well as what you can do to move them to the next stage.
For example, “How likely are you to choose us next time you need a [type of product]?”, “What have you enjoyed the most about our experience?” or “What can we do better to support you in the future?”
10. Feedback and Improvement Segmentation
Just because someone has bought from you, it doesn’t mean your job is done!
Without data and feedback, you’d be relying on guesswork. You could also miss out on new sales, both from your past/existing customers and the rest of your audience.
So, use a different quiz to gather feedback on your products, services and overall user experience.
For example, “Is there anything that would make the buying process even easier for you?” or “Were you happy with your wait time?”
Then, you can use your data to:
- Improve your offers and customer experience
- Send automated nurturing sequences to each segment (for example, if someone didn’t sound too enthusiastic, you could offer them a discount or a free call to get to the bottom of it)
Segment your audience easily with a ScoreApp quiz
Once you start segmenting your audience, you will:
- Save time
- Smoothen your sales and onboarding process
- Nurture your audience
- Send them more personalised content and communication
- Boost your sales
With ScoreApp, you can segment your audience with a quiz and automate the entire process, including different email sequences for each category.
So, stop wasting time and money with a generic cookie-cutter approach! Create a ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE, and start segmenting your audience effectively.
