One of the biggest challenges when it comes to digital marketing is how to determine in what ways your audience will engage.
- Will they follow us on Twitter?
- Submit photos for our website?
- Provide reviews on our brand experience?
- Comment on our blog?
Much like we saw with how innovations move through the five different adopter categories that Dr. Everett Rogers outlined, the same can be said for how much people will interact with different content outlets online. Some will expect you to be on Twitter. Others will interact with you on Facebook. And still others will lurk in the shadows, observing and consuming, but not interacting in the light of the web (at least not with your brand).
A third way to segment customers for digital marketing
Traditionally marketing has looked at demographic and psychographic data as ways to identify and segment customers. “Female, upper-income, 25-34, African American, college-educated, who prefers high-end brands” was good enough for a long time. The thought being that by going narrower, the marketer gets a better return on their marketing dollars and does not pay to interrupt customers who would have no interest in buying.
But as we’ve seen, technology has forever broken this traditional model of marketing. The customer has a voice and the tools to assemble online. So, segmentation has become more difficult with the consumers ability to tune out all advertising and keep from being interrupted.
Today, a third way to group customer segments is coming to light – especially for digital marketing. Based on studies done by Forrester Research, this method goes by the term “Social Technographics”. By analyzing the online habits of U.S. adults, the company developed various categories to help the marketer predict what they might expect for engagement.
Note: These consumers are still sliced in part by demographic data. As you might expect, participation can vary widely by age and a bit by gender.
Let’s dive in and take a look at social media user segments.