In today’s fiercely competitive business environment, the ability to approach market testing effectively translates into a better understanding of an audience and their habits.

Market testing also lays the groundwork to create marketing strategies for increased loyalty and profitability.

It is the marriage between marketer and data analyst that results in the deployment that will ensure adherence to effective strategies, and more profitable response.

Understanding the “total customer” and leveraging the knowledge gained is key to implementing a successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.

As marketers, we must embrace the value of knowing which of our customers are the most profitable (and which may be a drag on the bottom line).

Fortunately, today’s technology, and the professional expertise behind it, affords us many tools and techniques for analyzing data  resulting output delivering a greatly enhanced understanding of customers.

Depending on the analysis required Spoton staff can carry initial analysis requirements through full analysis of marketing requirement.

Our strength is that we understand when our experience, training and abilities wil not be enough.

It is our abilities in analysis and market testing that allow us to define who are the right people for the job, when the requirement exceeds the point where we would be effective for the client.

It is knowing what is required and where to find it without wastsing time and money which is important.

Starting With the Basics

There are numerous ways to segment customers.

Simply defined, a customer segment is a subgroup that shares some general characteristics within an entire customer base.

When segmenting customers, a marketer should attempt to find differentiated groups of homogeneous customers.

It is the goal of segmentation to find non-arbitrary groups of customers whom one would or should intuitively treat differently”loyal, established customers” and “new customers” are two suitable examples.

Each segment should be identified by key characteristics-demographics, psychographics and purchasing behavior-and should be assigned unique business goals and objectives.

While the results are not predictive to large numbers, simple segmentation can separate a collection of customers into a few basic groups that can then be segmented further using more sophisticated tools.

In defining segmentation, it is also important to differentiate clearly between customer segments and targeting strategies.

Customer segments are mutually exclusive.

In other words, a customer can belong to only one customer segment, with its unique characteristics and goals.

Targeting strategies are then what the direct marketer devises to maintain a dialogue with each distinct segment, both to support the needs of those customers and the marketing of XYZ products.

By seizing the right moment and the channel, relying in part on analytical tools, marketers look for a customer segment or segments that are most likely to respond to their specific offers