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Session Recap

Advanced Audience Segmentation: Leveraging Powerful Data

August 26, 2021 — Martha van Berkel of Schema App, Chad Milligan of Frontier Communications, and Theresa Kushner of NTT DATA Services shared how their organizations are currently utilizing data to extract actionable insights tied to consumer behavior.

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Featured Experts

Martha van Berkel

Chief Executive Officer

Schema App

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Chad Milligan

Director of Marketing Analytics

Frontier Communications

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Theresa Kushner

Consultant

NTT DATA Services

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Framework: Alignment on Advanced Audience Segmentation

When we say advanced audience segmentation, what does that really mean? Modern technologies provide organizations with more fine-grained management and modeling of their audiences and segments. The following framework was established at the beginning of our discussion to align on how to define approaches for advanced audience segmentation.

Segmentation and data handling methods are now dynamic, leading to the development of new behavioral dimensions.
Collected data allows organizations to predict behavioral actions such as who is in your audience and what they are responding to.
Tracking responsive behavioral actions leads to inferring intent and discerning what they are showing interest in.
Multiple new dynamic dimensions of data dramatically shift the conversation surrounding segmentation.
Leverage dynamic data and content to effectively reach your customers within their unique journey stage in the buyer journey.

The Stages of Segmentation

Our experts shared the following insights on how to leverage data to drive data-driven marketing strategies within your organization:

Defining a New Era of Segmentation:

The volume and velocity of data that comes at us move so quickly that segmentation must be dynamic, or continually being updated to move with the flow of information.
Each customer’s actions create the potential for the customer to fall into a new segment, and we must be ready to react and adjust accordingly.
Messaging for each segment must be equally dynamic; therefore, your content and systems must be agile.
Your data defines your segmentation strategies, but only if it’s leveraged and utilized properly.

Utilizing Dynamic Data for Segmentation:

Graph technology and knowledge graphs allow you to define relationships to gain insights and answer future questions so your organization can continually delight your customers. You can execute this by:

The volume and velocity of data that comes at us move so quickly that segmentation must be dynamic, or continually being updated to move with the flow of information.
Each customer’s actions create the potential for the customer to fall into a new segment, and we must be ready to react and adjust accordingly.
Messaging for each segment must be equally dynamic; therefore, your content and systems must be agile.
Your data defines your segmentation strategies, but only if it’s leveraged and utilized properly.

Key Points for Building and Executing Your Segmentation Scheme:

Don’t ignore first-party data. This is your most powerful data source, and every element of your segmentation scheme should be at least partially driven from this data.
Your organization has an expected customer journey that you want your customers to follow. At the end of the day, customers are the final decision-makers, so it is best to ensure your segmentation scheme can evolve along with the content your customers are engaging with.
Ensure your segmentation scheme is built with flexibility in mind, and that it should be dynamic so you can shift course easily if necessary.
Testing should be at the forefront of what you’re doing when developing and executing your segmentation schemes. If you’re not testing, then you’re not learning. The more you’re testing, the easier you’ll be able to pick up on any changes in customer behaviors.

Framework and Discussion: Results-Driven Channel Integration

Each of our experts discussed the unique ways their organizations have been utilizing data to develop advanced audience segmentations and dynamic content strategies. Here are the key takeaways they shared:

Kushner: Make sure the segments you allow to enter your marketplace are segments that you care about, but you also must make sure that if they’re not producing for you, you must eliminate them quickly.

Milligan: When developing your segmentation schemes, keep your customers front of mind. We all develop the perfect buyer journeys we hope our customers will complete, but at the end of the day our customers are the final decision-makers, so we must be flexible enough to continually adjust our segmentation scheme to align with the actions our customers are taking.

van Berkel: Segmentation is all about delivering the right message of the right length to the right person at the right time. Organizations should be future proofing their strategies and tech to answer future questions. By structuring your content in a common vocabulary and defining those relationships, you can start gaining insights and asking future questions which allow any team within your organization to delight your customers.