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Shaping Strategy Through Needs-Based Segmentation

Why needs-based segmentation is important.

Companies often believe they know what customers want, perhaps based on demographic or behavioral studies, or simply by habit. Products and services are designed accordingly, and markets that seem to hold the greatest number of potential customers are targeted.

Our in-depth research into the needs of customers and prospects has often shown — to the surprise of many — that the most profitable segment is often not the largest or the most obvious.

Demographic and behavioral studies are certainly important, but they are not necessarily the only key indicators of where companies should direct their marketing activities.

To understand what motivates a customer to buy, a company must first listen to what the customer truly needs, segregate those needs, and then align itself to the market appropriately.

CSR neatly categorizes customers and prospects to a very fine degree using technology that captures dimensions of meaning not always obvious by simply reading verbatim answers or looking at raw data.

I really thought it was a good use of our money and we got a lot more value. CSR did a piece of research that we had scoped out with them, but in terms of the results and the interpretation, they took it even further than we expected.

Vice President, Strategic Planning
Nationwide Health Care Provider

We can also incorporate any additional information from a client’s own database that may enhance the richness and depth of this needs-based segmentation.

We develop solutions.

Knowing why customers do what they do — how their needs are being satisfied and which needs remain unmet — is at the heart of strategy creation.

After conducting extensive interviews and compiling the data, CSR’s needs-based segmentation differentiates customers and prospects based on their needs and experiences with the products and services they buy, as well as by demographics and behaviors. Customers and prospects are then “grouped” by these needs. We then use MarketMaps to visually display the distinctions between the most widely held ideas by different segments.