Market research firms are frequently hired to create customer journey maps and help companies with market segmentation to better understand their customers.
Market segmentation helps identify groups of consumers in more nuanced ways so that companies can customize branding efforts that are relevant and attractive to the group. Market segmentation helps brands minimize risk by understanding which products have the highest chances of gaining market share within market subsets.
Recruiting for customer journey mapping studies, or market segmentation studies can be a bit circular. If the client isn’t clear on market segmentation for its product or service, it’s hard to know, beyond generalities, who to recruit to participate in a study.
Market Segmentation is more than demographics or geography
If the focus of a market research study is to learn more about customers, and what compels them to choose one brand or product over another, then the study might be designed to first recruit a more general audience. As more is learned from focus groups or in-depth studies, the next phase might be to target a more specific sub-category within a group.
It would be highly unusual for a brand to not have some idea of who its customer is. Minimally, the brand would have basic demographic and geographic data on its customer base. Recruiting teams would first start with these segments.
Demographics and geographic information is a starting point for understanding the needs and motivations of customers, but it shouldn’t end there. Other types of market segmentation include:
Psychographics (see our blog post on demographics vs. psychographics)
Firmographics-similar to demographics, but rather than look at individuals, it looks at organizations
Behavioral Segmentation–the segmentation of markets by behaviors such as usage, consumption, lifestyle, and purchase
The more information that market research recruiters have about market segmentation, the better. Recruiting teams and researchers can develop screening guides that better sort participants into various market segments so that the study can home in on the differences and similarities between sub-categories of consumer types.
The ultimate goal of any market research study is to provide the client with deeper insights in what drives consumer behavior. Finding suitable study participants is key to any successful market research study, and market segmentation helps ensure success.
