The Stories We Tell (Part 2): Enhancing Consumer Segments

This is our second installment in our series on storytelling with syndicated data. This particular story focuses on using consumer research to enhance transactional segments.

Enhancing Consumer Segments

Even companies that are firmly entrenched in a market need to stay nimble, reviewing their understanding of current and prospective customer bases, and refreshing creative and messaging strategies appropriately. One national apparel retailer we worked with started this process by using internal, transactional data to develop two segmentation schemes – one for maintaining current customers and the other for acquiring new ones. The head of marketing was then tasked with rallying the company behind these segments and building out campaigns that would grow their share of each. However, the segments in their initial form needed more dimension – the marketing team had limited insight into what made these different audiences tick, in what ways they were similar and different from each other, and what their behaviors and motivations were like outside of the retailer’s niche category. The marketing team came to us with an ask to do exactly – and all – of this.

After reviewing what the client knew about each segment, we embarked on a collaborative and iterative process using MRI-Simmons data points to recreate their two segmentations. Upon finalizing these definitions, the dedicated solutions team at MRI-Simmons developed in-depth personas for each group, drawing on retail category insights, detailed media behaviors, core attitudinal motivators, and economic indicators such as discretionary spend. We also delved into category and brand involvement in adjacent areas such as automotive and professional sports. Overall, the analyses included insights and recommendations that touched on over ten product and lifestyle categories.

This effort fed into a variety of goals for the marketing team:

• Socialization: The segments now felt like real people, which made them easier for others in the organization to get to know and keep top of mind. MRI-Simmons created short one-page “tear sheets” of each persona, so that anyone from executives to operations could understand the spirit of the persona at-a-glance.
• Messaging and media planning: For members of the marketing team who needed to dig into the nitty gritty of each persona, MRI-Simmons’ in-depth reports provided the fodder to prioritize the build out marketing messages and offers that would reach the appropriate persona in the appropriate channel. For example, a family and career focused persona who dresses for function and shops online will be swayed by different marketing tactics than a persona who enjoys new fashion and likes to read magazines.
• Partnership development: The client team at this retailer had intuition that high-profile partnerships would help extend any media or direct marketing campaigns for certain personas. MRI-Simmons’ analyses proved this out and gave the client direction on which personas would look favorably upon sponsorship opportunities in a key category that the company had in mind.

To read the full case study, download it here.

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