Sep 24 2009
Don’t Boil the Ocean - Segmentation Works
We all know that marketing campaigns consist of four basic phases:
1. Create/deploy
2. Analyze results
3. Adjust campaign
4. Repeat
Now, the critical part is the adjusting step, because the goal is to improve the campaign frequently and incrementally. Frequently, because it gives the most efficient path, and incrementally because it allows us to tackle one specific problem at a time, instead of boiling the proverbial marketing ocean.
The question is - how would I actually do the adjusting? Well, as Robert McNamara said in Lesson 6 - “get the data”, or, for our purposes, analyze specifically what customers are interested in. (Plug: SmartSymbols Analytics can help 
A variation on this strategy is a successful implementation of personalization and segmentation approach as a multi-channel campaign. Petco implemented such a campaign and produced stunning results: 400% subscription increase, and 18 times (!) ROI.
My take-away is that we are receiving more and more evidence that “one size fits all” marketing approach does not work; and personalization along with segmentation based on permission marketing is gaining momentum at a record pace.
Where does this lead us? I don’t know of course, but maybe in the future every marketing “impression” is going to be completely segmented, personalized and permission-based. At least, given the business SmartSymbols is in, I certainly hope it would be so.
