All You Need To Know About Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral Segmentation : One of the essential tools to approach customers is market research. Within these processes, behavioral segmentation is used, which allows the creation of strategies for immediate response to the needs of consumers.

Remember that to make an impact on your customers it is essential that you know them from head to toe, so all information, especially that of their buying habits, serves to captivate them with your products. 

That’s why today we present a guide that will help you to know and apply behavioral segmentation better.

What Is Behavioral Segmentation?

It is the process where the consumers of a brand or a company are divided and grouped based on the behavior they show at the time of making a purchase. This market segmentation looks at the customer’s behavior, attitude, frequency, quantity, and responses to the product or service.

The main objective of behavioral segmentation is to know the different consumption, use and purchase habits of people. Through this method, companies can identify the most like-minded consumers, create strategies focused on them to encourage purchase, provide them with specialized attention and increase profits.

Among the different market segmentation techniques, behavioral is one of the most used when it comes to getting more sales and consumer loyalty. Currently, applying it with digital marketing tools is a matter of minutes.

Three Types of Behavioral Segmentation

• Behavioral segmentation by benefits.
• Behavioral segmentation by frequency of use.
• Behavioral segmentation by amount of use.

Behavioral segmentation by benefits

It locates customers who are looking for certain products for the specific benefits they provide. Within their behavior it can be noted that among the different variables available they usually prefer a special version. If you manage to get the product to give them the most benefit, it is certain that these consumers will become regular customers.

Variables of behavioral segmentation by benefits:

• By occasion: focuses on the reaction of consumers to a product launched by a particular occasion. It can become a product of the standard offer or it could only be for that season or occasion. You will know this through analysis.
• Focus on loyalty: here you are going to focus on those recurring customers and it will help you a lot to measure and improve customer retention rates.

Behavioral segmentation by frequency of use

It refers to the number of times a consumer buys a product in a period. There can be different frequencies, so this segmentation allows you to identify and manage them in your marketing and sales efforts.

Variables of behavioral segmentation by frequency of use:

• Regular consumers: these are customers who purchase products on a regular and periodic basis. Usually, every time the product or service term ends, they buy again.
• Occasional consumers: corresponds to all those who make purchases only once or sporadically.
• Seasonal consumers: Includes people who buy a product only on a certain date or season of the year. They rarely buy again.

Behavioral segmentation by amount of usage

This type of segmentation focuses on the number of products or services that consumers purchase; regardless of your motivations, the focus is more on the number.

Variables of behavioral segmentation by amount of use:

• High number of purchases group: represents customers who make purchases in large quantities. They are the highest percentage of a company’s total sales.
• Group of average number of purchases: this group is characterized by regularly buying a product; the amount is not much or small, so they are the midpoint of the three variables.
• Low number of purchases group: refers to those people who make purchases in low quantities of product.

What Are The Functions Of Behavioral Segmentation?

The primary function of behavioral segmentation is to identify similar consumer behaviors to accommodate them in groups. In this way it will be easier to focus your marketing and sales efforts in a specialized way, since this way you can generate strategies, campaigns and specific actions for each group with greater success in attracting or attending to these segments.

Based on this classification you will have better decision making in terms of time, budget, advertising and resources that you must allocate to each one.

All this will help you considerably to obtain a greater commercial impact; in more concrete words, behavioral segmentation serves to determine which products are going to be marketed and to whom they are going to be directed in a more precise way.

By knowing the behavior of each group of consumers, companies can adapt their products to the needs of each division and as a result gain customer loyalty.

What are the advantages of using behavioral segmentation?

The main advantages of this approach are:

• You can easily identify the consumption habits of your customers to later create more far-reaching marketing strategies.
• With this market segmentation it is also possible for you to understand the needs of the consumer according to the group that belongs.
• The attention to each group of clients is specialized, which will allow you to set the guidelines with which your service team will treat each segment.
• By applying this technique you can visualize what is the difference in performance of one group with respect to another according to the objectives set.
• You can use the history of consumer behavior to analyze and predict the habits of new customers.

What are the disadvantages of using behavioral segmentation?

The main disadvantages when using behavioral segmentation are as follows:

• People’s behavior by nature is changeable and dynamic, so the plans you bet on may not quite work.
• Likewise, the behavior of each group should be evaluated continuously in case a reclassification is necessary.
• The data you have of consumers are somewhat limited, because they do not take into account other important factors at the time of purchase such as location, personality of the buyer, economic situation, availability, etc.
• This type of segmentation is based on qualitative data that sometimes you will not be able to transfer to figures, statistics or results.
• Together with the previous point, you will not be able to determine forecasts, expenses or budgets exactly.