Businesses often make the mistake of trying to sell more to everyone.

Why is this a mistake? Well, if you try to please everyone you end up delighting no-one. This is why best-in-class marketing works with best-practice segmentation.

Whatever method you use for segmenting and choosing your target customers, the results of your exercise of customer grouping needs to meet the following five conditions, known collectively as the MIDAS touch.

Measurable: The individual groups need to be clearly defined and quantifiable using KPI’s such as size, market share, value share.

Identifiable: Each segment must have a distinct profile and each customer must be attributed to only one segment.

Definable: Every cluster must be easy to describe and share with others so that you have a mutual understanding of each of them.

Actionable: The groups must be easy to identify, in order to be able to target your actions and communications to them.

Substantial: The chosen segment must be financially viable to target, which means that it should, in general, be stable or growing, and durable over the long term.

Once you have identified the different types of users you are attracting, you can then decide which is the most important group to you, using what is often referred to as the Boston Matrix.

This analysis was first developed in the 70’s by the Boston Consulting Group. At the time, the matrix was created to help corporations analyse their business units and was based on market growth and relative market share.

Today this scatter plot is created using various elements to make up the two axes. Whilst the criteria you use for each axis can vary, this simple analysis has the advantage of being able to be further refined over time, as you get more information.

All businesses want to sell more. They also want as many customers as possible. However trying to sell to everyone is unlikely to meet with the success you hoped. Choosing the right group of customers to attract with your product or service is essential. But so is doing everything you can to then understand your chosen segment as deeply as possible. Truly customer centric organisations excel at doing both; do you?

Need help in segmenting, identifying or understanding your target customers? Let us help you catalyse your customer centricity. Contact us here or check out our forthcoming Webinar “Customer Centricity Champions“. You’ll learn far more about segmentation, how to use the Boston Matrix and a whole lot more. Reserve your slot before it’s too late!