mindset-segmentation-the-one-secret-that-sets-your-business-apartIf you were to make a child choose between wearing the same uniform every day and wearing a different color t-shirt every day – what do you think he’ll pick? Nowadays, customers are more educated and demanding about the content delivered to them. So, during recent years, a trend in personalizing what you give to the customer has started. Marketers must lean towards the needs and feelings of people more and more, and this goes by the name of mindset segmentation.

What is Mindset Segmentation

God’s gift for marketers, some would say. Firstly, segmentation stands for the process of splitting people into groups that have certain things in common. Mindset segmentation organizes those people depending on expectations and values. For brands, this translates into having to create personalized messages to “fit” the needs of certain groups. These complex personas reveal how customers perceive a brand and whether the company’s values reflect theirs.

Next, it is important to distinguish between the categories of audience segment attributes.

Brand perceptions are a priceless way to understand how your brand is seen, understood and talked about by the audience you target, all while getting information about their personal values as well. Their beliefs are worth studying as well since that’s a good way to check if and how your brand matches them. Research into their expectations to have a preview of how they will perceive your brand. Listen to their hopes and fears, since that might give you special insight to help you improve your brand. Make sure you know something about their emotional needs as well, especially if they’re loyal customers.

What Causes this Shift in Customer’s Approach

Some trends have begun to change the way customer’s needs are perceived and consequently, how the people interested in this will react to it.

One of the trends is research. If done correctly, research can reveal that emotion plays an important role in customer communications. In support of this, Corporate Executive Board has come up with a study that suggest emotions matter more than rational motivators for customers. So, bottom line is, products with benefits that are purely functional won’t be as popular as the ones that offer clients some personal value as well.

A storm of distrust is clouding people’s attitude towards every kind of information they get. This is due to their concerns about the government, the business sector, the financial crisis and the list can go on. To surpass this wall of cynicism, marketers should communicate through their content in an honest and open way.

There is too much technology and too little human interaction. People want interactions with real people, not with machines, so even in buying a product they will appreciate the attempt to establish a personal connection.

Getting Started with Mindset Segmentation

Firstly, you must keep in mind that your approach shouldn’t be annoying or invasive. A good starting point for this is a database of loyal customers. You can create these segments easily by conducting surveys, interview, focus groups. It is all about getting to understand your customers’ feelings and expectations. Also, it is important to engage in this project when your company is in a stable state. Having changes inside it, or some crisis from which you must recover won’t be very helpful. It might even endanger your results.

It is imperative to know that mindsets open new doors of opportunities towards understanding people. Customers are usually with a growth mindset, or with a fixed mindset, which translates into being able to recover from disappointment, or not.

Also, you should try to link mindset segmentation to marketing segmentation, a type of grouping focuses on people’s likelihood to some certain products from a company.

To sum up, the customers’ wishes and fears must be of interest to your marketing team. After the foundation for vocabulary is completed, it will be much easier to anticipate the customers’ opinion about the brand, or their reactions to products and possible changes.

Please feel free to share your vision and experiences with mindset segmentation in comment section below!

Author Bio: Michael McCaffrey, Sr. Account Manager, Sherpa Marketing.