Email Marketing by the Numbers: How to Use the World’s Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level

How to Create Segments

One of the most interesting ways to create segments is to ask your customers some provocative questions. From the answers, you can put customers into segments. What do you want to know? It seems to me there are some basic questions:

•	Are these people interested in high quality products or in the cheapest price?
•	Are they going to be loyal to you, or will they defect at the first opportunity?
•	Will they respond to communications or ignore them?
•	Do they spend enough in your category to make it worth your while to create a segment and put them into it?
•	Can their behavior be modified by anything that you can do?

Dreaming up these questions can really tax your imagination—but it can be fun and worth the effort. One of the best sets of questions that I have seen has come from Sears. I bought a washer and dryer from them. After I made my choice, their website took me to a survey page where I was asked to answer some interesting questions. Chief among them were these two:

How Do I Feel about Brands?

• I typically buy top of the line name brand products.

• I buy name brand products at a moderate price.

• I am always looking for a bargain. I will try any brand if the price is right.

How Do I Feel about Technology?

• I buy products with the latest features and innovations.

• I buy products with mainstream features and technology.

• I am not interested in technology. Keep it simple for me.

The answers to these two questions can help you create up to nine meaningful segments. The questions ...