Did you know that by segmenting your audience into universal “buckets,” or like-minded groups, you can better target your messaging and get better results from your print and digital marketing projects? 

“Buckets” is a helpful term that describes grouping your customers into categories that reflect common wants, needs, and purchase motivators. By assigning each recipient to the appropriate bucket(s), you can target your message more precisely. Here are five basic ways to do that:   

1. Geography. Where do your targets live? Are they grouped into neighborhoods or geographic regions that share common characteristics and needs? 

2. Company Profile. If you’re doing B2B marketing, companies with common characteristics, such as being in the same market vertical or being of similar size, tend to share common challenges and pressure points. You might have a bucket for each vertical market, as well as the number of employees, annual revenues, and the number of locations.  

3. Demographics. This is one of the most common ways marketers think about targeting their customers. What is their gender? Age? Household income? How does each of these demographics influence how you craft the message?

4. Behavior. People with very different demographic makeups can still have shared values and behave in similar ways. For example, a 20-something recent college grad living in New York City might fall into the same “green consumer” bucket as a 60-something retiree residing in Colorado. This is where knowing common interests (such as through magazine subscriptions) and tracking common behaviors (such as white papers downloaded or seminars attended) can pay huge dividends. 

5. Purchase patterns. People who buy the same products have similar needs for upsells and cross-sells. Tracking purchases can provide insight into the next marketing steps. 

These are just some basic ways of understanding and targeting customers, but there are many more. Talk to us about the best ways to slice and profile your data to get maximum results!