For some time now, social networks have allowed us to divide our contacts into lists, groups or circles so that we can filter the information they receive from us. This ensures that only those groups or people we want can see our content, avoiding the rest. We needed technology like this because a photo or comment will be perceived differently if it is seen by a family member, friend, business partner, client or stranger. In the end, we will have unintentionally carried out a segmentation of our friends portfolio. And unconsciously we also want to maintain a personal position within each segment of contacts on the social network.
And it is that we all behave differently depending on the company we have at a given time. It is different to be with family, friends, business partners or alone. There are infinite variables that will make us change our behavior as the place, the time of day, mood, type of social event, and so on. It is not that we give up our personality or that the subconscious becomes hypocritical; it is a matter of personal marketing, selling ourselves and trying to understand how our environment perceives us based on our behavior.
So the consumer behaves differently, and in a very diverse way, depending on hundreds of variables, which will make us change our behavior towards a product, even consume it or not. Do we drink the same soft drink, beer or wine when we are with friends as when we are in an informal business meeting? And with family? And alone? And depending on the time of day, do we change habits or brands? And if our team wins or loses?
Let's imagine that, thanks to market research, we are able to calculate these consumer movements between segments and we can segment the market based on these dynamic variables. We could determine the dynamics of the market by observing consumers who jump from one segment to another based on emotional, attitudinal or lifestyle variables. In fact, there are multivariate statistical techniques for this purpose, which help us to better understand the market. As a result, we can carry out marketing mix actions for these types of segments and attract consumers that we had not previously considered.
However, we must not forget that for a segment to be effective it must meet several requirements. If it is not large enough, is not accessible, is not measurable or the efforts to penetrate it are greater than the potential benefit, it is no longer a target. Even if all the above conditions are met but the segment responds heterogeneously to the action, this segment will not be efficient.
At the same time, the brand can act differently towards each segment, just as social media users do when they publish different content for each group of friends. In addition, by selecting a good segmentation criterion, we can find niches, still undiscovered, which will make our market grow.
This dynamic market can be understood through a rigorous market study and by gathering information on as many variables as possible. In fact, these variables will determine the viability of each segment and, when analyzing the data, will show us which segmentation criteria is most appropriate for each product.
And finally, a fact: 85% of our behavior is based on emotions. We could start to think about which emotional variables are the ones that drive sales of our product and also segment the consumer by these more emotional variables.
Alfons Rotger
