Not another segmentation!
... a frequent exhortation from many a client.
Embarking on a new segmentation can be costly, time-consuming and risky.
Because even if it’s perfectly executed and communicated, it might not get adopted within the business.
One reason is that we fail to manage the change that’s required, effectively. But there’s often another, huge missed opportunity.
We fail to bridge into existing segmentations.
An existing segmentation might not be perfect (if it were, we wouldn’t be creating a new one) but it might well have currency within the business - in reporting systems, marketing practices and cultural rhetoric.
If you design your new segmentation to bridge into one that’s already operational, you stand a far greater chance of successfully embedding it, for 4 key reasons:
1. Avoids confusion
And its partner, paralysis.
2. An easier transition
It will be seen as enhancing the accepted wisdom, not supplanting it – thereby offering colleagues the enticing prospect of working more efficiently without needing to make much more effort.
3. More people on board
Those familiar with the past work will be less likely to resist the new insight when it arrives.
4. Familiar language
Everyone will be familiar with the words you’re using.
Bridging to an existing segmentation isn’t that hard and doesn’t mean being constrained by it, but it might mean:
- Engaging with current segmentation custodians and end users early in the process
- Using existing segments as your starting point and then sub-segmenting within them to provide more granular understanding in a way that ladders back up to something recognisable (you can still leave space to 'discover' new segments and question existing ones if the market has evolved or existing segments were driven by imperfect/incomplete information)
- Mirroring internal database variables so that you can proxy for internal segments in the wider market
- Creating a simple, visual insight framework to make clear how the new or enhanced segments fit alongside existing ones
- Creating or updating a single playbook for how the segmentations should be used
Who should be responsible for each of the above steps? A decent research agency will do 1-3, but steps 4 and 5 really fall within the remit of the client-side team to drive (perhaps with agency support).
So why don’t we always do all of this? Perhaps we feel we need to get everyone looking forward rather than backwards and therefore should abandon imperfect legacies. Perhaps the past segmentation was created by another team internally and it becomes a lot of work / politically awkward to engage with it. These are legitimate reasons – and as a client, you’re best placed to judge how much you need to heed them.
We think the key question is: does another segmentation have currency in the business such that there will need to be some ‘re-education’ if and when a new segmentation is launched? If the answer is yes, then think seriously about how you bridge the two.
As is so often the case in market research, a blank sheet of paper isn’t always the best starting point.