No matter what type of business you’re in, segmenting your customer base to reach the right people is a very important step for any business to succeed. You need to make customers feel that you understand their needs and wants, helping them build trust in your brand. 

Segmentation is one of the most powerful tools for marketers and entrepreneurs to understand their customers better. It can help you create better products, increase conversions and improve customer lifetime value.

Understanding customer behavior is the foundation for successful customer experience strategies. In this article, I’ll share with you some powerful behavioral methods. By understanding how customers behave, you can provide them with better offers, sell products or services more effectively, and improve customer satisfaction. Let’s dive in!

What is Behavioral Segmentation?

Behavioral segmentation is a process of identifying and categorizing users based on their actions and behavioral patterns in your business. 

For example, you can segment your customers by – 

• How they are using or interacting with your product or service
• How often are they engaging with your business
• How often do they purchase, when they purchase from you etc.

Importance of Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation helps you better understand your customers by allowing you to cater to specific segments of customers with distinct needs, preferences, and behaviors based on their actions across all the touchpoints in your product or service.

• It helps you target your marketing efforts to the right group of people at the right time.
• It helps you understand how your customers behave and what makes them tick so you can tailor your products or services accordingly.
• It enables you to deliver an experience relevant to each customer’s interests and needs.
• It helps you predict future customer behavior to plan and optimize your marketing campaigns effectively to ensure they continue to see value in your products or services.

Six types of Behavioral Segmentation 

#1 Purchasing Behavior

The purchase-related behavioral segmentation helps to identify how your customers proceed throughout the buying process. Customers are segmented based on their likelihood of purchasing from you, their purchase frequency or buying considerations.

You could consider creating segments of those  likely to purchase from you, those who purchase frequently, and those who pay particular attention to their purchases. 

A better understanding of your customers’ purchasing decisions can help boost conversions. 

Using purchase behavior segmentation, consumers are typically divided into these four categories: complex, variety-seeking, dissonance-reducing, and habitual. 

You can learn a lot about your customer’s purchasing behavior, including how complex and difficult the purchasing process is, as well as which behaviors are most and least likely to result in a consumer buying something. 

#2 Usage and Customer Interest

You can identify how many of your customers use your products or services, either occasionally, frequently, or extensively, by categorizing them according to their usage behavior.

Customers are categorized as : 

• Super users who spend the most time on your product or service
• Average users who use your product regularly but not as much as super users
• Light users who rarely, if ever, use your product or service 

Usage behavioral segmentation is one of the best ways to identify your most loyal customers. 

Further, consumers can be segmented using interest-based behavioral segmentation to discover what piques their curiosity and deliver personalized products or services that resonate with them.

You can also create new customer personas by combining several hobbies. For example, individuals interested in cruelty-free and luxury items can be segmented and then marketed accordingly. 

You may find out what sparks your customers’ interest by analyzing their browsing behavior, the subjects they click on in your emails, and the kind of stuff they like to purchase. By segmenting your buyers in this manner, you can provide many customized experiences, such as customizing the advertising/content they receive, the recommended products, the content they discover on your platform, etc. 

#3 Benefits Sought

When we make a purchase, we base our decision on the expectation of receiving a certain level of value or benefit out of it. Along a similar line, benefits sought segmentation is the process of classifying your consumers according to the value proposition your customer desires to receive from your product or service. It allows you to understand which product or service feature or aspect drives consumers to make a purchase.

#4 Engagement level

Engagement level segmentation classifies users by how engaged, involved or committed they are to your business. It is a similar metric to usage but captures a much broader assortment of behavioral data. The more involved a customer or a prospect is with your brand, the more likely they will purchase, build trust, and engage with your business.

Brands like Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix use recommendation engines to suggest content based entirely on customers’ behavioral interests. 

If a customer enjoys their experience with your brand so much that they desire to interact more frequently with your business, this is a positive sign of success.

#5 Customer Loyalty

Segmenting customers by customer loyalty is the process of using behavioral data to categorize groups of people who frequently buy from you. These are your loyal customers who are likely to purchase your new products, leave testimonials, send referrals and participate in case studies. Since these individuals account for most of your revenue, cost less to keep than acquiring new customers, and have the highest lifetime value, you must maximize their value and develop strategies to convert more customers into your brand advocates.

You can use behavioral customer loyalty segmentation to find valuable answers to questions like 

• Which customer journey factors and behaviors lead to loyalty?
• Which customers are the best candidates for loyalty or advocacy programs?
• How can you keep your most loyal customers’ content and get the most value from them?
• What factors are crucial in keeping your loyal customers happy?

#6 Customer Journey stage

Customers at different stages engage with content and experiences designed across all touchpoints and channels in no particular order. Segmenting a customer’s journey is about identifying where your clients are in the sales funnel at every phase. You can then send focused offers to entice them to move on to the next phase. 

For example, you can reward customers who leave products in your online checkout or wishlist by sending them a coupon code. You can gather as much behavioral data about your customers as possible across all your channels and touchpoints to accurately identify the customer’s current journey. 

Conclusion

Behavioral segmentation is one of the best ways to identify and understand your customers. It gives you valuable insight into their behaviors, preferences, and needs to help you understand which products or services are relevant for each customer.

Utilizing the above-mentioned behavioral segmentation methods will enable you to maximize ROI, increase customer lifetime value, and improve customer experience and sales conversion rates.

The Upshot.ai Advantage

Upshot.ai is an omnichannel, user engagement, and gamification platform that helps digital product owners and marketers improve product adoption and conversions.

With advanced features such as customer segmentation, loyalty program, journey builder, gamification, and others, Upshot.ai has naturally become the modern retailer’s number one choice. It can provide personalized insights, actionable recommendations, and contextual nudges designed to deepen your relationship with your users.

Get started today! Schedule your personalized demo here. It’s time Upshot.ai increased your customer retention rates.

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