Segmentation Worksheet (1/5)
STEP Define Your Objective
1 What are the business objectives you are looking to address with this segmentation effort?
Will you focus more on strategic or tactical issues / opportunities?
STRATEGIC TACTICAL
More specific review of actions related to
Higher level business direction decisions
products, communications or operations
• What are the main business issues facing the • Do you think that your offering needs to be
organization right now? Are these centered on adjusted, or does the messaging surrounding it
opportunities the organization is looking to go need to be improved?
after, or around problems it needs to solve? • Are there specific segments you have in mind for
• Of these, which are specific to your current or which to adjust your offering / messaging?
potential future customers? • Are you launching a new product, or expanding
• What are the underlying assumptions your into a new market?
organization is currently making about these • Are you receiving a challenge from a new
customers and do these need to be tested? competitor, or is usage or purchasing down for
any reason?
Think through the following categories and examples:
CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES
ACQUISITION Increasing customer awareness Expanding customer base
USAGE Increasing uptake of product offerings,
Reducing dormancy
improving customer value proposition
RETENTION Increasing customer loyalty Increasing lifetime value of customers
EXPANSION Entering a new market /
Solving for stagnant growth
Launching a new product offering
Describe your business objectives below
What are the given assumptions?
What parts of the organizational strategy are set, and will not be changed by this effort?
Segmentation Worksheet (2/5)
STEP
2 What is your target market for this research effort?
Think of the box to the right as
representing the full population of your CURRENT
market below, what part is relevant to CUSTOMERS
you. Start partitioning out the market to
get to the groups about which you care Relevant
UNBANKED
(e.g., only the unbanked, rural areas, market
or females, etc.). Example: Telecom in Country X
The full set of customers in country/region ____________________________
Describe the customer population you are looking to better
understand and why you have selected it.
Make sure your relevant market matches with the business
objectives. If in doubt, it’s better to include more people than
to miss potential target customers
Segmentation Worksheet (3/5)
• Outline of business objective and relevant market
MATERIALS
• Past research or available relevant information
REQUIRED
• Meeting agenda
• Project Sponsor: Decision maker for implementation of segmentation results
• Project lead: Reports to the project sponsor and leads segmentation effort
• Other stakeholders: Representatives from one or more of the following
functions;
SUGGESTED • Organizational leadership
ATTENDEES • Marketing/advertising
• Sales
• Product design/development
• Finance
• Research leads: People involved in and responsible for research/analyses
1. Recap of business objectives and relevant market
2. Think through any past research or available relevant information
3. Brainstorming session
• List any upfront hypotheses
• Potential exercises: (A) Brainstorm Relevant Characteristics,
SUGGESTED
(B) A day in the life or (C) Buying Process
AGENDA
• Consolidate results and draft hypothetical segments,
if possible providing a descriptive name for each group
• Sense check segmentation against objectives
4. Develop plan for testing hypotheses; what information needs to
be gathered to either prove or disprove any of the hypotheses
• Impartial Moderator: While having an impartial moderator isn’t required,
we suggest having this person to make sure that they are focused on
holding a good discussion without also having to think about their own
contributions to the content
• Additional characteristics: We recommend really pushing your
MISC. TIPS
organization to expand their option set here. It can be easy to default to
standard options, but the key characteristic might be outside that list and
seem obvious after-the-fact.
• Hypothesis characteristics: Pushing yourself to form a strong hypothesis
can make or break the project. Focusing research is key.
Segmentation Worksheet (4/5)
A Brainstorm Relevant Characteristics
Start by listing all the characteristics you think may be relevant for your
objectives/situation (for more examples, refer to the full guidebook)
LIFESTYLE
DEMOGRAPHIC ATTITUDINAL BEHAVIORAL
(PSYCHOGRAPHIC)
Age Hobbies Views on need for Specific product
Gender Religious beliefs offering usage
Income Political views Rationale for Similar products
Education Interest in new usage/non-usage usage
Location technologies Interest in product Usage intent for
Ethnicity features new product
Now that you’ve listed your characteristics, think through the pros and cons of the different
types of characteristics, as listed in the Segmentation Guidebook
Now that you’ve thought through these, list out potential characteristics and
combinations of characteristics which could drive your segmentation
Segmentation Worksheet (5/5)
B A Day in the Life
Close your eyes and imagine one of your customers. Think about what they look like, where
they live, what they do for a living, etc. Try to imagine a day in their lives…how does it start?
What’s the first thing they do? Are they going to have a busy day? What do they do in their
free time? What challenges do they face during their day?
Now, think about how this customer uses your product or service. When do they use it, and
why? Why do they choose yours and not a competitor’s? What do they like about your
product / service? What might they dislike?
[Have each person in the room complete this exercise separately, then compare and discuss results]
C Buying Process
Try to map out each step in your customer’s buying process. It might include the following steps:
NEED RECOGNITION & Can be either a single event trigger (e.g., needing a loan)
PROBLEM AWARENESS or a more regular item (e.g., depositing business proceeds)
Can be as simple as asking peers for advice or
INFORMATION SEARCH
going to multiple banks/MNOs for the best rate
EVALUATION OF Alternatives here include not even using a bank,
ALTERNATIVES e.g., hiding money under a mattress
Remember that this process works
PURCHASE / USE
for both buying and usage
How does the person feel about their purchase
POST-PURCHASE
or behavior change after the fact?
Think about how all of those steps might break out for different customers. For example, in
step #2, what are the different ways your customers learn about your product or service?
Is it from word-of-mouth, and, if so, who are the trusted advisors in their circle? At the
‘Evaluation of Alternatives’ or ‘Purchase / Usage’ steps, what are the things that may cause
a potential customer to use your product offering? Alternatively, what are the things that
may cause them to pass?
Use post-it notes on a whiteboard to map out all of the possible paths that a customer might
take through this process. If you feel especially ambitious, try to assign a percentage to how
many customers are taking which options at each step.
Now, pick one path through the process. What type of customer would take this particular
path? How are they different from another customer who might take a different one? Repeat
this process until you have thought through a few different types of customers. Another
interesting variation is to think through where the biggest drop-off point might be for your
customers. See if you can agree on this as a group and then relate this to your previous
conversation of which customers are following which path.
