Over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you some insights I’ve gained on how to create meaningful customer or market segments that will result in benefits to you and your customers.

Many entrepreneurs start off thinking, Everyone is my customer. In the process of discovery we usually uncover ways they can be strategic, tactics they can employ, and actionable items to make sure they properly address their customers.

First you must understand THIS:

The broader you are, the fewer customers will be interested in you. The more focused you are, the more customers will be interested in you.

In other words: When you are for everyone, no one comes, when you are for someone, everyone comes.

Creating customer segments allows you to focus on the people, their pain points, and the message you wish to relay. Steve Blank talks about buyers, payers, and users.

Consider a hospital. The buyer may be the person within the organization that buys insurance. The payer is the employer paying the premiums, and the user is the actual employee.

It is the same with products. You teenager has a phone, which your parents paid for, but you made the purchase. You are the buyer, your parents are the payer, and your teenager is the user.

Creating the segment allows you to be specific in your message as well as to create an opportunity for each of these segments — buyer, payer, user — whether individuals or organizations to buy your product or service.

You might say, Faris, my product/service is based on b2b or b2government. It doesn’t matter. it’s the same process.

If, in your mind, it doesn’t make sense, I would encourage you to take time to reflect on what I am saying by creating different segments. If you are a B2B business you think about doctors, dentists, lawyers, professionals, retail stores, even restaurants. Is it ethnic food or American food? Is it fast food or fine dining? Each one is a customer segment.

Think about how you can break your market into segments so you can dig deeper into each one to create landing pages and marketing materials that support each segment.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What market segments can you create as you review your customer list?

2. Do you break it into demographics, geographic, or psychological segments?

3. What ways have you already used to segment your market?

4. What other tools have you use to attract and retain customers?

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