It’s not about being everything to everyone, but about finding opportunities for meaningful impact
One size does not fit all.
Segmentation research is foundational for cultivating a deeper understanding of customers and target audiences. By representing consumers as whole people—uncovering what drives them, what makes them tick, and what they want and need—you can unlock more meaningful insights and business opportunities.
Done well, segmentation can inform every aspect of your business, including:
- Identifying new markets
- Shaping marketing strategy and tactics
- Guiding product and service development
- Enhancing customer service
- Improving employee training
- And more—the possibilities are endless.
segmentation that is radically collaborative and transparent
Bellomy does not produce “black box” segmentations. Our process involves close collaboration with our clients and their extended stakeholder teams from beginning to end, discovery through activation. We are diligent about ensuring that your segmentation solution is meaningful and actionable—not doomed to sit on a digital shelf collecting dust.
Collaboration is Key.
Working hand in hand with our clients is built into our segmentation process. Specifically, we bake in the following key touchpoints to ensure that the solution is successful.
Stakeholder Discovery
We begin with stakeholder interviews to gain a deeper understanding of business objectives, collect hypotheses, understand what has changed over time, and define what success looks like.
Questionnaire Design
The core client team is involved in crafting, reviewing, and approving the segmentation questionnaire – reflecting on what was uncovered in both stakeholder and consumer interviews and infusing their industry knowledge into the survey instrument.
Solution Selection
After data collection and initial analysis, our team inserts a meaningful pause to review the top segmentation solutions, provide our recommendation for the solution that best addresses client needs and strategic priorities, and align on the final model.
Activation Workshops
Activation workshops help stakeholders understand research outcomes and apply them to their roles. Facilitated sessions include brainstorming activities to engage participants, leverage their expertise, and foster ownership of ideas.
What makes a strong segmentation solution?
Bellomy employs strict criteria to assess the quality of potential segmentation solutions. Any solution options that are shared or recommended by our team will meet the five criteria below:
interpretable
meaningful, intuitive, and manageable enough to internalize
differentiated
distinguished enough to influence strategy based on shared attitudes, behaviors, and needs
reproducible
to ensure stability for the solution
actionable
accessible, targetable, and likely to respond differently to products, services, and marketing efforts
sizable
large enough to present an opportunity
Using Segmentation to Identify Opportunities
Not every segmentation is focused on people’s characteristics, attitudes and preferences.
Occasion-based need state segmentation is another approach that illuminates whitespace and provides clear guidance on how to capitalize on opportunities. This technique is often applied in retail and CPG around types of shopping trips, meals, and occasion-based purchasing.
Opportunity mapping builds further on this approach by applying a market landscape lens to identify and prioritize the most valuable opportunities within each segment. This process also outlines effective strategies for pursuing each opportunity across segments.
What opportunities for your brand are waiting to be uncovered?
A Solution that Lives On
Our goal is for clients to realize the full value of their investment in a segmentation. A successful segmentation is actively used by teams across the organization and impacts business decisions for years to come. Our deliverables make that a reality.
Typing Tool
For each segmentation study we conduct, Bellomy provides a typing tool that can be used to type future respondents into the defined segments. Typing tools are developed to be balanced - providing the most accurate classification, while being as concise as possible.
Database Typing
In cases where clients have a large amount of operational customer data, it is often possible to create a typing tool based solely on database variables—meaning that the entire customer database can be typed without additional surveying and the segmentation can be immediately applied to day-to-day operations.
Microsites
Developed in partnership with the Bellomy Digital Marketing + Strategy team, a web-based microsite that can be accessed by internal teams is a great way to develop and socialize segmentation research. Microsites keep segments top of mind, allow for quick reference when developing messaging and customer communications, and accommodate different learning styles within your organization.
Digital Twinning
Harnessing the power of AI, we can create synthetic versions of real survey respondents who represent your segments, then train them to mimic specific answer patterns. You can engage individual and filtered groups of twins in additional research long after the segmentation has been completed, extending the value of your data.
Lookalike Audience Identification
Building lookalike audiences for target segments for digital marketing is a natural extension of segmentation that allows for quick-turn targeted marketing activation. With key audiences identified, clients can confidently create and implement more precise marketing and communication strategies.
Throughout our collaboration, the Bellomy team has truly integrated into our organization's way of working. They bring deep research expertise, provide thoughtful guidance, and have become a trusted extension of our internal team. Their commitment to understanding our business and our customers has been invaluable helping us not just collect data but truly interpret and act on it.
—Bellomy Segmentation Client
A Natural Connection: Segmentation + Community
One of the most impactful methodological marriages is the joining of a segmentation with an online community or panel.
When members are typed (or sometimes screened) into segments prior to joining, clients gain valuable insights into each segment’s characteristics and perspectives with every engagement.
Need to understand what resonates with segment A? Just ask. Want to develop a product targeted to the unmet need of Segment B? Work with them to co-create it! The opportunities are endless.
How can a community enhance your segmentation solution?
Segmentation + Innovation: Getting ahead of the Curve
Adoption of new products travels across the adoption curve over time, starting with Innovators and ending with Laggards. Each segment has different attitudes and behaviors towards new products. Bellomy’s proprietary IntelAdopt™ algorithm allows clients to assess key metrics based on respondents’ adoption curve group classification.
With Adoption Curve Intelligence™, you can:
Talk to the right people at the right time.
Drive more adoption, faster.
Accelerate, maintain, and recover share.
Gain competitive advantage in a crowded market.
Bellomy’s Adoption Curve Intelligence solutions include:
- Adoption Curve Landscape: Partitions and analyzes the market by adoption curve group, pinpointing where and how to focus marketing efforts to accelerate adoption
- Adoption Pulse: Track changes to the landscape for your brand and category
- Adoption Curve Testing: Identify the best concepts, pricing, and messaging to fit the unique drivers and barriers of your target adoption curve groups
- Adoption Curve Digital Activation: Ensure you target ads to those who are most likely to drive adoption of your product
case study: utility segmentation
To achieve best-in-class customer experience and future-proof against the changing market landscape, Salt River Project (SRP) aimed to provide value beyond basic utility services. To do this, they needed strategic direction for creating exceptional customer experiences and developing innovative products and services to meet customer needs.
Read more to learn how Bellomy's multi-phased segmentation exercise resulted in impactful cultural change and new ways of thinking across the organization.
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