“Understand your target consumer.” That nugget of wisdom has been passed along in every business seminar, online course, and coffeehouse chat between entrepreneurs. It’s accurate but it begs a new question: how do you understand your target consumer? One of the most powerful strategies is market segmentation.
To help you put together your own campaign, our pros are answering your top questions about market segmentation and sharing a template of market segmentation survey questions to ask.
The Big Picture: The Goal of Market Segmentation Surveys
Market segmentation surveys open the door to better insight into your ideal customers and therefore a stronger ability to reach them in a way that feels relatable. If you’re not familiar with the term, market segmentation is an aspect of market research. The aim is to break up your target consumers into groups based on characteristics like their ages, occupations, genders, marital statuses, income levels, interests, locations, and so on. For example, one segment might be married men ages 35-50 making a middle-class income, while another might be single moms ages 25-40.
There are a few ways to use market segmentation to grow your business. First, you want to find out what types of people are already loyal to your brand and what types of people you’re missing. Second, you want to gain a better understanding of your target customers so that you can create more specific, targeted ad campaigns that are designed to appeal to particular segments. For instance, if you’re creating a campaign to reach single moms ages 25-40, you can tailor your ad to resonate with these women better than if you were making a broader ad to reach moms in general.
How to Conduct Market Segmentation
Market segmentation is all about getting more personal with your customers and finding out who they are. The only way to do that is to ask them. A market segmentation survey should use demographic segmentation questions to gather insights into who your potential customers are.
With that in mind, though, you might discover through these surveys that there are certain groups that could be a perfect fit for your brand but aren’t buying from your business. In this case, you could do a follow-up survey of people who fall into those groups, asking them if they’re familiar with your brand, if they’ve tried your brand, and so on. In this way, market segmentation can be a first step for more specific, in-depth research about your target customers.
Top Market Segmentation Survey Examples of Questions to Ask
Your market segmentation results will depend on the quality of your survey and your ability to ask the right questions. So where do you begin? While the possibilities are nearly endless, you want to keep your survey from getting too long so customers will have the time (and energy) to complete it. While the questions you ask might vary based on your products or services, consider these segmentation questions for your survey:
Have you ever made a purchase from our brand?
How often do you make purchases from our brand?
How likely are you to continue buying from our brand?
Why do you choose our brand?
What is your age?
In what country do you live?
In what state/province do you live?
Do you live in any of these cities/metropolitan areas or do you live in a rural area?
What is your gender identity?
What is your race?
What is your ethnicity?
What is your occupation?
What is your approximate gross household income (before taxes)?
What are your hobbies and interests?
What is your marital status?
Do you have any children? If yes, how many?
How many children under age 18 live in your household at least 50% of the time?
How many children do you have under the age of 18?
Do you have any grandchildren? If yes, how many?
What is the highest level of education you have completed?
If you have a college degree, in what field is your degree?
Are you currently enrolled in any type of education? If so, what level are you enrolled in (e.g., bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, etc.)?
What is your political affiliation or inclination?
Do you practice a religion? If yes, what religion?
Your market segmentation campaign can be incredibly valuable for your brand, but only if it’s carried out well. Asking the right questions is only part of the challenge; you also need an effective survey tool that can ask open-ended questions, process answers that are more insightful than multiple-choice or one-word answers, and produce useful findings that you can use to inform your marketing strategy.
That’s where GroupSolver comes in. This AI-driven survey tool has the capabilities and features to gather authentic, conversational answers from your customers and quantify the results to provide you with details that can revolutionize your marketing. But don’t just take our word for it; try it out for yourself! Request a GroupSolver demo or try it for free to see this intelligent survey tool in action.
