Not all prospects are created equal. Unfortunately, novice and seasoned business owners alike regularly make the common mistake of treating all prospects alike when designing and executing their marketing campaigns. The failure to differentiate among prospects in terms of their potential value leads to inefficient marketing campaigns that waste resources on targeting the wrong prospects. Or, it can lead to targeting the right prospects with the wrong messaging.

MindEcology takes a unique approach to helping our clients differentiate among their most desirable prospects from all the rest. It all starts with our best customer profiling services. To understand the value of MindEcology’s best customer profiling process, it is important to first understand the importance of market segmentation (a.k.a., customer segmentation).

• What is Market Segmentation?

  The first step toward running a more efficient, more targeted marketing campaign is to engage in customer segmentation. Segmentation involves dividing the individuals, households or companies/organizations in your target market into distinct categories based upon relevant distinguishing factors. Leveraging the results of this type of segmentation work, the marketer can target some segments while skipping over others completely. The marketer can also choose to adjust the message and marketing channel based upon the segment they are targeting.

  • The Pitfalls of Traditional Segmentation

    Companies that implement customer segmentation strategies are already ahead of the game versus those companies that do not. They will almost certainly achieve a higher return on their marketing dollar investment since they are increasing the response rate of their customers.

    However, most companies who engage in segmentation still face two common pitfalls of traditional segmentation:

    1. They base their segmentation methodology on guesses rather than upon hard data.

    2. They conduct segmentation based upon simple demographic dimensions of their customers – such as age, income, and marital status – rather than electing to gain a more complete, subtle and potentially powerful set of insights into their customers.

    • Best Customer Profiling

      MindEcology’s best customer profiling process transcends traditional customer segmentation by building a more robust, accurate and sophisticated profile – or model – of your customers. We leverage your existing. historical customer data and order history data to divide your customers into segments.

      For our clients who sell directly to households and individuals (B2C companies), we create segments based upon the following types of factors:

      • Demographic
      • Psychographic
      • Population density/urbanicity
      • Geographic
      • Buying behavioral
      • Attitudes and opinions
      • Purchasing history vis-à-vis your company or organization

      For our clients who sell directly to other companies (B2B companies), we create segments based upon factors such as:

      • Company size, by revenue or employee count
      • Concentration of competitors in the area
      • Population density/urbanicity (in some cases)
      • Proximity to other types of companies
      • Industry (SIC or NAICS code)
      • Purchasing history vis-à-vis your company or organization

      Once we have divided your customers into segments, we then assign each segment an index score that expresses the value of each segment to your company or organization. We rank the segments and isolate the top 10-15% of segments, calling them your “top segmentation clusters.”

      Your top segmentation clusters are the tell-tale markers identifying those prospects who are not only more likely to buy from you (i.e., who have high propensity to buy) but also are likely to spend more money with you when they do (i.e., who have high buying power). These companies represent a customer DNA profile that is unique to your company.

      Individuals, households, or companies that match your best customer profile are 3-5 or more times likely to respond to your marketing and sales outreach efforts.

      Once your best customers have been identified, we can help you design and execute a marketing campaign that reaches directly out to them.

      • MatchPoint™

        Our flagship best customer profiling product is called MatchPoint™. This is a set of methodologies and techniques that analyze data from multiple sources to build a model or profile of the type of customer most likely to buy from you or to respond to your marketing materials.

      Typically, the Best Customer Profiling starts with the Data Discovery phase. Results are implemented via our Marketing Services. Contact MindEcology today to get started.