It’s back-to-school season. Knowing your target audience is an essential piece of planning a successful back-to-school marketing campaign. To get the most out of your marketing investment this back-to-school season, it’s important to understand how to identify and segment back-to-school shoppers so you can make sure that the right message reaches the right group at the right time.
In this blog post, we’ll cover how you can segment your target audience to create and deliver custom messaging tailored to individual groups. We’ll discuss segmentation methods that uncover:
- Who they are
- Where they live
- What type of person they are
- How they behave and spend
Here are our tips to accurately define and target your back-to-school marketing audience.
Maximize back-to-school marketing with customer segmentation
Customer segmentation is the process of dividing your audience into smaller groups based on common characteristics such as demographics, behaviors, psychographics, geographics, and more. The purpose of customer segmentation is to create a more personalized and effective approach to marketing. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of each segment, you can tailor your messaging, campaigns, and content to resonate with your customers on a deeper level.
Benefits of customer segmentation
Three benefits of customer segmentation include:
- Improved audience targeting
- Higher engagement rates
- Increased ROI
Instead of addressing your entire customer base with generic messaging, segmentation enables you to deliver custom campaign messaging that speaks directly to each group. This personalized approach helps build trust and loyalty with your customers over time.
Customer segmentation also allows you to better understand your customers, their motivations, and pain points, ultimately leading to more effective marketing campaigns.
Types of customer segmentation
When it comes to segmenting your customers, there are several methods to consider. By experimenting with different approaches, you can find the best fit for your business. Keep in mind that the most effective customer segments will differ depending on the industry.
Let’s review four types of customer segmentation that you can implement as part of your back-to-school marketing strategy.
1. Demographic segmentation
Demographic segmentation categorizes consumers into groups based on shared demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income, occupation, marital status, and family size.
For example, targeting college students during the back-to-school season with promotions on laptops is likely to be more effective than targeting retirees who may have less interest in such products.
2. Behavioral segmentation
Behavioral segmentation divides customers into groups based on their demonstrated behaviors. This method sorts customers by their knowledge of products or services, attitudes toward brands, likes/dislikes about offers, responses to promotions, purchasing tendencies, and usage of products/services.
Behavioral segmentation can help you identify the highest-spending customer segments, so you can budget and target more effectively. Through this type of segmentation, you can analyze each group’s patterns, discover trends, and plan informed marketing moves for the future.
In a back-to-school campaign, you could use behavioral segmentation to identify students who prefer to shop locally. You could then target students who value supporting local businesses and emphasize the importance of buying from local retailers during the back-to-school season.
3. Geographic segmentation
Geographic segmentation involves dividing your target market into groups based on their physical locations. Geographic segmentation reveals aspects of a local market, including physical location, climate, culture, population density, and language.
In a back-to-school campaign, you could use geographic segmentation to identify target audiences in colder climates who may be more interested in winter clothing and gear. You could also use geographic segmentation to target students living in college towns with messaging that speaks directly to campus life.
4. Psychographic segmentation
Psychographic segmentation groups customers based on psychological factors such as lifestyle, interests, personality, and values.
In a back-to-school campaign, you could use psychographic segmentation to target students who value sustainable practices, promote eco-friendly products, or offer incentives for recycling and reusing items.
Watch our 2024 video for tips from industry leaders for back-to-school
In our new Q&A video with Experian experts, we explore changing consumer behaviors surrounding back-to-school shopping in 2024. In the video, we discuss:
- Anticipated shifts in consumer behaviors and shopping habits
- Tactics we predict marketers will employ to navigate signal loss
- Which channels will be the most successful
- And more!
Latest posts
The top of the year is always a great time of reflection. As our team has been excitedly preparing for our first webinar of 2017, I’ve been able to reflect on the many changes I’ve seen happen internally and externally in the digital marketing landscape, especially those related to shifting roles and breadth of knowledge. Nearly twenty years ago, when I was first getting started, most marketers knew the four Ps (price, product, promotion and place). We used to be able to come up with ideas, execute in a couple of channels, pop a bottle, and celebrate success. Tech folks tended to develop software based on requirements developed by project managers and engineers, and congratulated themselves when a project was fully tested, and delivered on time and under budget (with few, if any, bugs). Then came the big disruption of the digital age. And the lines between marketing and technology became blurred. The marriage of marketing and technology increasingly requires shared responsibilities and deeper knowledge of both areas. Marketers must be much more versed in technology and how it exists to provide support in reaching distracted and elusive customers. Developers must understand fundamental marketing concepts and be open to approaching enhancements based on how a new feature would solve real-life marketing challenges. If either of these stakeholders say “that’s not my job”, and refuses to learn, the brand’s ability to provide a consistent, customer-centric experience will suffer. Ultimately, no matter how many systems are in place, human beings—from your internal team to your audience—guide programs. That being said, personal development—from classes to reading books and blogs to networking—is critical and something you MUST make time for, whether you’re the email marketing manager or the director of product development. But let’s be real: in the busyness of daily life, you probably can’t get away from your desk for lunch most days. However, even if you have to slot time on your Outlook calendar, it is worth it in order to foster a broader and more accurate view of your program and the industry. This curious and thirsty mindset is also a top predictor of success (assuming you aren’t born into a dynasty). Don’t believe me? The greatest minds of our time, from Warren Buffett to Oprah Winfrey spend a LOT of time on personal growth through a very simple activity…reading[i]. So how can you be a lifelong learner, build your skills and stand out from the crowd professionally? Take your growth by the reins and do the following: Attend webinars: There are webinars related to everything from how to give webinars, to specific areas including contextual marketing and testing. Tip: Try not to multi-task during the webinar, to be sure you are fully immersed in the content. Attend industry conferences: Get around likeminded people who speak your language. Be inspired and challenged by learning what they do in their own verticals, and repurposing it to fit your audience, as appropriate. Blogs, whitepapers: At least bi-weekly, take time to expose yourself to thought leadership. I get a lot of great ideas and industry knowledge from what others talk about—not that I always agree, but that’s the point: surround yourself with other ideas. But remember, you only get to know those ideas by purposefully exposing yourself to them. Internal relationship building – My mother’s example at work became my template once I joined corporate America. She got to know everyone on campus at Loyola Marymount, from professors to nuns, staff and students. It gave her a great idea of who did what outside of her wheelhouse, and expanded her overall knowledge. It has served me well to get to know everyone in my organization – in speaking with tech folks, I gain a deeper understanding of how our software works and what the plans are, and vice versa (they get more insight as to how we are actually using our technology, and what would truly be helpful on a daily basis). In your own organization, you’ll learn to navigate personalities and roles when you seek out colleagues who are communicating with your audience across other channels. Ideally, you’ll be able to share resources, gain inspiration, and build efficiencies all around. Don’t forget – you are an important part of your company’s success and, just like your marketing programs and technology enhancements, you must also be continually developed. I dug more into personal development and how it fits into your overall campaign strategy in our January webinar, Trends are Dead Ends: Create a clear road to success with our 2017 planning tips. My co-host was Justin Foster, co-Founder of Liveclicker, and we took a deep dive into tried and true strategic and tactical tips to help make you and your marketing programs successful in the coming year. Our webinar definitely steered away from trends and towards the basics, and being a lifelong learner is a basic for success. If you didn't get a chance to catch it, you can view it here! [i] Observer article, “Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Oprah Winfrey All Use the 5-Hour Rule” by Michael Simmons
Global Engineering Team Staffing Up New Oslo Hub; Nordic Operational Team Also Slated for Q1'17 NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, now a part of Experian, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, is opening an office in downtown Oslo, Norway, effective January 16, 2017. This development reflects Tapad's continued growth following its acquisition by the Telenor Group in early 2016. Tapad Oslo will be comprised of a globally-focused engineering team as well as an upcoming operational headquarters for the region. Jeff Olchovy, a senior Tapad developer and one of its earliest employees, will forge the company's Nordic engineering presence by supporting the build-out of the team. The initial hiring plan of more than 20 open positions includes roles such as Head of Engineering, Senior Software Engineers and Solution Engineers. Plans for Tapad's Nordic Region business line, including its leadership, will be announced within the first quarter of 2017. "Given the caliber of technical talent and our extensive network in the region, Oslowas the logical choice at this stage of our growth," says Dag Liodden, Tapad CTO and co-founder. "This enables us to continue building out our innovative team on a global scale in a region that is close to our hearts and minds." In collaboration with its New York-based developers, Tapad's Oslo-based engineers will continue to advance the company's renowned product portfolio, such as the Tapad Device Graph™. An early adopter of Scala and big data processing technologies, Tapad has long been an influencer in U.S. tech. "As the head of our platform group, which daily processes several petabytes of data and is the foundation for all of our real-time systems, Jeff is a highly respected engineer," said Pål Høye, Tapad's senior vice president of engineering. "Given his experience and skillset, he is ideally suited to find and lead an innovative team focused on building the industry-leading products we are known for." Tapad has 15 offices in six countries with more than 200 employees worldwide. For more information on Tapad and to explore open positions, visit www.experian.com/careers/ In 2016, Tapad launched an entrepreneurial mentorship initiative, the Propeller Program, which selected five Norwegian startups to share Tapad's New York Cityworkspace, receive C-level guidance and help establish a U.S. presence. To learn more about the Propeller Program, visit www.tapad.com/propeller-program. About TapadTapad Inc. is a marketing technology firm renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. With 91.2% data accuracy confirmed by Nielsen, the company offers the largest in-market opportunity for marketers and technologies to address the ever-evolving reality of media consumption on smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Deployed by agency trading desks, publishers and numerous Fortune 500 brands, Tapad provides an accurate, unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began aggressively licensing its identity management solution, the Tapad Device Graph™, and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem. Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit,Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Toronto. Tapad's numerous awards include: EY Entrepreneur of The Year (East Coast) 2014, among Forbes' Most Promising Companies two year's running, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, Crain's Fast 50, Entrepreneur 360, Digiday Signal Award, iMedia ASPY Award and a MarCom Gold Award.
Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, has been named Founder of the Year by the Global Startup Awards. The Global Startup Awards' Founder of the Year Award recognizes an individual that has pushed the boundaries of technology to empower new innovations and ideas. The Global Startup Awards places each year's regional category winners against each other to determine whose achievements stand out from the rest of the startup ecosystem through nomination, voting and jury evaluation. In May 2016, the Nordic Startup Awards named Traasdahl Founder of the Year. "Are is a force of nature and his creativity and passion know no boundaries, it seems," said George Tilesch, Global Startup Awards juror and U.S. managing partner of Innomine Group. "Extra kudos for the mentoring work and the Norwegian superfund plans. Are knows giving back is of the utmost importance." "Are is a superstar within the Norwegian startup ecosystem," said Kim Balle, founding partner and CEO of the Global Startup Awards. "From the jury feedback I could see that not only are his impressive achievements the reason for their rating, but also his focus and ability to give back to the startup scene played an important factor in him winning the category." "It is an enormous honor to be named Founder of the Year by the Global Startup Awards," said Traasdahl. "I am so committed to fostering entrepreneurship both at Tapad and throughout the startup space. This win is a remarkable bookend for a stellar year that began with our acquisition by the Telenor Group and continued with best-in-class product innovation, superior solutions for our clients and our Propeller Program that is so dear to my heart." Tapad's Propeller Program hosts five early-stage companies at Tapad's New York headquarters for one year to mentor them through global expansion. The participants of this inaugural program come from Traasdahl's native Norway. For more information on the Global Startup Awards, please visit: http://www.globalstartupawards.com/#gsa. Contact us today!