*RESPOND TO BOTH STUDENT'S POSTS*

Forbes published an article in 2019 about the shift in consumer experience. We know that we live and thrive in a dynamic environment, where trends are constantly shifting. Due to these constant changes, marketers must make it a point to study their target markets consistently to ensure they are meeting consumers wants and needs as well as making sure they have the correct segmentation variables to maintain the competitive advantage.

Article: Deep Segmentation Strategies To Improve The Customer Experience

Were in the midst of a marketing paradigm shift. Brands that previously found success in casting a wide audience net are now tailoring their products, services and approaches -- not only to individual buyers but to their individual behaviors from one moment to the next.

For instance, health care, one of the industries our agency serves, is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Care has become more personalized and treatments more precise. Patients are now taking a front seat in their care journeys. As such, health care marketers have to dial in their approach to segmenting their audiences based on the behaviors of individual patients.

The deep segmentation practices required in industries like health care are valuable to marketers in other industries, too. To gain the insight necessary to achieve deep segmentation, you have to ask the right questions.

Narrow The Scope

Marketers have been using audience segmentation for more than a century to target audiences. In the past, segments were formed based on shared demographic and lifestyle characteristics.

But to truly meet rising consumer expectations, marketers now have to narrow their targets, particularly with customer experience (CX) set to overtake price and product as key brand differentiators in 2020.

While this concept is not lost on marketers, executing it is another story. According to research by Salesforce, 75% of health care and life science marketers surveyed admit they "either broadcast identical messages across email and other channels" or dont coordinate between email and other channels at all.

So, how do you move beyond surface-level segmentation to provide a more connected experience to all of your stakeholders?

Learn Their Behaviors

What actions are shaping your customers' decisions? To arrive at answers, explore key behaviors found in your data, paying particular attention to behavioral cues such as:

1. Action Triggers

What type of engagement are you seeing from customers? What actions are they taking on and off your platforms? What is the sequence of these actions?

For instance, in health care this could be a patient turning to online communities for answers, researching a symptom or diagnosis, or searching on a mobile device for a nearby clinic or physician. This would give you insight into the behavior, but youll want to identify the event that triggered action. Maybe they already received a diagnosis from a doctor, which prompted their search for answers in the online community. Or perhaps a symptom triggered them to search for nearby clinics. Once you have action-specific data, you can determine where they are in their buying journey to deliver more personalized information when they actually need it.

2. Channel Usage

Which social networks and platforms do customers interact with, and is their behavior consistent across each one?

With this insight, you can better understand what devices consumers use, where theyre going for information, when theyre using these platforms and what actions theyre taking across channels. Understanding these preferences enables you to add another layer to your segmentation and will help guide your content and outreach strategy within specific channels.

3. Research Habits

What sources do customers initially turn to in seeking out the solution you provide? What questions do they ask of your brand -- either in person, via email or by phone?

As customers search for solutions, theyll eventually narrow their results and begin looking for pointed information on your brand or solution. Understanding the questions theyll ask, where and when they search for these answers and the events that prompt these questions will put you in the strategic position to proactively provide the answers when and where they need them (and perhaps at the precise moment before the need arises).

4. Buying Criteria

How do your customers typically make a decision, and is there a particular event that ushers along that next step?

In health care, this could be the buying criteria a patient has in determining whether or not to use a suggested treatment. The severity of their condition, finances, insurance coverage and other factors may all contribute to their decision making. Identifying this type of criteria will help you pinpoint trends within your audience to further segment and target based on the criteria important to specific sub-segments.

5. Influencers

Who are the key people that influence decision-making? Friends, relatives, colleagues, spouses and public figures all impact our decision making whether were conscious of it or not. Identifying who these key influencers are and segmenting your audience based on this information allows you to pinpoint areas where you may need to expand your brand influence.

These exploratory questions will be unique to your organization based on the various stakeholders you serve and their individual journeys. Keep in mind, your segments will continuously evolve; customer needs are always shifting and your segments will need to dynamically change along with them.

Deep Segmentation In Action

We recently worked with a pharma client to reach a group of individuals with a unique medical condition with the goal of recruiting patients in clinical trials. It required us to develop messaging by focusing on disease education.

Some exploratory questions we asked ourselves were:

Were the individuals recently diagnosed?

If so, what was their next course of action? Were they talking to their doctor, searching for information online or seeking alternative treatment?

How long did it typically take before they would take action?

If they were seeking alternative treatments, which did they seek?

If they were searching online, where were they searching?

This exercise helped us understand the behaviors of individual patients based on the stage of their journey. We were able to then segment them accordingly and orchestrate specific paths, developing personalized messaging that provided education when and where they needed it.

For this company and others that want to connect with their customers on a deeper level, getting more dialed into the audience is not only critical to achieving business results but to actually helping the customer achieve the best outcomes. For many organizations, deep segmentation will be essential to remaining relevant in a commoditized market.

1. Summarize the article included within this discussion.
2. Of the four behaviors introduced in the article, which behavioral cue resonates with your personal consumer decision journey and why? Please discuss an example in which you applied this behavioral cue.

FIRST STUDENT'S POST:

"The article for our discussion details the newest developments in marketing directly to consumers. With the availability of information that consumers have through the internet, businesses must find ways to stick out in the crowd. The article talks about segments of the market, and how businesses can market more closely to those segments, instead of a mass marketing approach with a broader reach. Our text describes a market segment as "a group of customers who share a similar set of needs and wants" (Kolter, 2016). The five behavior cues listed in the article that are important to identify are action triggers, channel usage, research habits, buying criteria, and influencers (Grossman, 2019).

The action triggers are the things that prompt the consumer to start looking into a particular product or company. Identifying the reasons your product is sought out or identifying will you help you develop specific marketing strategies. Channel usage is the means that consumers use to identify, research, purchase, and use the product; which can include the internet or social media. Research habits are the specific criteria that consumers use once your product has been identified. If the product fills a specific need, then the consumers of that product will arrive to it by asking the same questions or needing the same result. Buying criteria is the end result of the research habits that consumers use. After asking the specific questions, consumers will identify the criteria they desire, and use that to determine their purchase. Finally, influencers are the individuals or organizations that sway a consumers buying decision. These can be celebrities on specific channels (social media) or even family members that provide a past experience or preference.

For me, the influencers cue resonates the most with me. I hadn't realized that I use influencers in just about every purchase I make. Before I buy something, I usually tell someone in my family that I am thinking about it or planning on it, and I usually get some sort of opinion from them at that point. However, for some purchases I seek out their opinion. I was in the market for a new TV last year and started doing my own research online. After I had identified a few possibilities, I called my brother to get his opinion, because I trust his knowledge of electronics, but also his experience with just about every brand out there. I told him I wanted XXX approximate size and was hoping to stay around ZZZ budget, and the two I was looking at. He called me back about 30 minutes later with his opinion on it. In that time, I found a different one that was going to be available for Black Friday that was more than half the cost of the others. I told him I was going to get the Black Friday deal no matter. He cautioned me about the brand, but for the price, my mind was made up. Needless to say, I haven't been able to use the TV for about 3 months because of some issues its having (luckily it came with a free warranty). "

SECOND STUDENT'S POST:

"This article dives deeper into the behaviors that affect the way in which we get our information about certain products or services. The way in which we search for information or are marketed to truly can impact our buying decisions or what we see and believe to be true. Humans are creatures of habit. We create habits from doing things time and time again by being attracted to certain things. The same is true about our buying decisions. We are attracted to specific ways that companies market their products to us. Whether it be through the way that information is channeled to them or the things that they research each day. People buy things based off of certain criteria such as what their finances are or their personal experience with certain products or services. People around us also influence our buying decisions through looking at reviews online or just through talking to others about what they thought of the product.

I would say that through my own buying process the behavior cue that resonates with my own consumer decision journey would be the buying criteria in which I use to make my buying decisions. When I go online and look for certain things I am going to search for things that I might have seen in a store or seen out and about and I thought that it would improve my life by having it. I am not going to go online and search for things that I know are way out of my budget so I have certain criteria that allow me to make certain decisions."

Please respond to both student's posts with a minimum of 150 words.