Audience segmentation
Encyclopedia
Audience segmentation is a process of dividing people into more similar subgroup
s based upon defined criterion such as product usage, demographics
, psychographics, communication behaviors and media use. Audience segmentation is used in commercial marketing so advertisers can design and tailor products and services that satisfy the targeted groups. In social marketing
, audiences are segmented into subgroups and assumed to have similar interests, needs and behavioral patterns and this assumption allows social marketers to design relevant health or social messages that influence the people to adopt recommended behaviors. Audience segmentation is widely accepted as a fundamental strategy in communication
campaigns to influence health
and social change
. Audience segmentation makes campaign efforts more effective when messages are tailored to the distinct subgroups and more efficient when the target audience
is selected based on their susceptibility
and receptivity.
, income
, ethnicity and gender
) and geography (region, county, census tract
). Since an audience segment that is derived exclusively from demographics such as Asian-American youths constitutes a large group that still has varied beliefs, values and behavior, demographics may not be sufficient as segmentation criteria. More sophisticated segmentation strategies use psychosocial
, behavioral and psychographics (personality, values, attitudes, interests, level of readiness for change and lifestyles) as variables to categorize audience subgroups. Once the audience has been divided into segments based on selected criteria, campaigns are then designed and communication channels are selected to reach their intended audience effectively.
s as a strategy to effectively utilize limited resources to reach the intended population. Equity
and utility
are often the prominent ethical issues in audience segmentation. Some campaigns target people who are most inclined to accept suggested messages while other campaigns aim at those with highest risk, despite the fact that they are hard to reach or least likely to adopt recommended behavior. Ethical dilemma
occurs when health communicators have to identify audience segments and plan health interventions for these groups, depriving those not targeted in the process.
Public health
campaigns often target large segments of population who have low to moderate risk as small changes can create visible impact on morbidity and mortality. Health campaigns aim to decrease alcohol consumption
focus on moderate users who are larger in number and have higher likelihood to respond positively to the interventions. On the other hand, targeting small segments of the high risk population (e.g. heavy smokers) in quit smoking
campaigns may be inefficient as they are less likely to stop the risky behavior.
Audience segmentation can also cause conflicts within the community. The Nigeria
STD/HIV Management Project, funded by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) in 1999 stirred intense conflicts after non-targeted community members felt resources had been unfairly allocated to the "unworthy" audience segment, people living with HIV
/AIDS
. As a result, HIV-infected victims were turned away from attending health centers, excluded and discriminated by the community and 25 people with HIV/AIDS in the project eventually died by the end of 2000.
among central California
ns utilized health behaviors to segment the audience into seven subgroups. The health behaviors criteria included (a) cognitive (health knowledge, attitudes, issue involvement, perceived response efficacy, perceived risk, and perceived self-efficacy
); (b) social influence (community, reference group
and family norms, expectations from family and friends, and social visibility of behavior); and (c) individual norms obtained from personal history. The study yielded two distinctive subgroups, despite their demographic similarities (White and middle socioeconomic status
). The group with moderate level of good diets and physical activity and low tobacco
consumption was more likely to seek health information and believed that cardiovascular disease was preventable by changing their health behavior. On the other hand, the group with poor diets, high level of alcohol
and tobacco consumption and high perception of susceptibility to cardiovascular disease did not plan to mitigate those risks and refrained from seeking health information. The disparities between these two segments were crucial for health communicators to design and tailor different messages to influence their health behaviors.
Rimal, Brown, Mkandawire, Folda, Bose and Creel identified risk perceptions and efficacy
beliefs as the main audience segmentation criteria for the HIV-prevention project in Malawi
. Four subgroups created were responsive (high risk, high efficacy), avoidance (high risk, low efficacy), proactive (low risk, high efficacy) and indifference (low risk, low efficacy). The study found different levels of HIV knowledge, HIV testing and condom
use among the four segments. Responsive and proactive groups were most responsive to preventive behaviors whereas avoidance and indifference groups were less inclined to practice preventive behaviors. Audience segmentation could be utilized in Malawi to target different segments with tailored messages in risk perception
s and efficacy beliefs in order to influence them to adopt recommended HIV prevention behaviors.
Subgroup
In group theory, given a group G under a binary operation *, a subset H of G is called a subgroup of G if H also forms a group under the operation *. More precisely, H is a subgroup of G if the restriction of * to H x H is a group operation on H...
s based upon defined criterion such as product usage, demographics
Demographics
Demographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population. These types of data are used widely in sociology , public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location...
, psychographics, communication behaviors and media use. Audience segmentation is used in commercial marketing so advertisers can design and tailor products and services that satisfy the targeted groups. In social marketing
Social marketing
Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as...
, audiences are segmented into subgroups and assumed to have similar interests, needs and behavioral patterns and this assumption allows social marketers to design relevant health or social messages that influence the people to adopt recommended behaviors. Audience segmentation is widely accepted as a fundamental strategy in communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
campaigns to influence health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
and social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
. Audience segmentation makes campaign efforts more effective when messages are tailored to the distinct subgroups and more efficient when the target audience
Target audience
In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....
is selected based on their susceptibility
Susceptibility
*In physics, the susceptibility of a material or substance describes its response to an applied field. There are many kinds of susceptibilities, for example:These two susceptibilities are particular examples of a linear response function;...
and receptivity.
Criteria for audience segmentation strategy
Audience segmentation strategy is driven by the goal of developing criteria that can be used to form homogeneous clusters. The most common criteria used are demographics (age, level of educationEducation
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
, ethnicity and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
) and geography (region, county, census tract
Census tract
A census tract, census area, or census district is a geographic region defined for the purpose of taking a census. Usually these coincide with the limits of cities, towns or other administrative areas and several tracts commonly exist within a county...
). Since an audience segment that is derived exclusively from demographics such as Asian-American youths constitutes a large group that still has varied beliefs, values and behavior, demographics may not be sufficient as segmentation criteria. More sophisticated segmentation strategies use psychosocial
Psychosocial
For a concept to be psychosocial means it relates to one's psychological development in, and interaction with, a social environment. The individual needs not be fully aware of this relationship with his or her environment. It was first commonly used by psychologist Erik Erikson in his stages of...
, behavioral and psychographics (personality, values, attitudes, interests, level of readiness for change and lifestyles) as variables to categorize audience subgroups. Once the audience has been divided into segments based on selected criteria, campaigns are then designed and communication channels are selected to reach their intended audience effectively.
Grunig's model of segmentation
Grunig proposed a theory-based model of segmentation which comprises a series of inner and outer nests. The inner nests contain (a) individuals (individual communication behaviors and effects) and (b) publics (groups of people sharing common interests and issues). The outer nests consist of (c) communities, (d) psychographics, lifestyles and subcultures, and social relationships, (e) geodemographics, (f) demographics/social categories and (g) mass audience. The nests display increasing specificity instead of generality as they move towards the inner center; more specificity provides more audience details and insights that allow communication campaigns to create more precise messages for the target audience.Ethical issues in audience segmentation
Audience segmentation is employed in health interventionHealth intervention
A health intervention is an effort to promote good health behaviour such as physical exercise or to prevent bad health behaviours, e.g. promoting tobacco smoking cessation or discouraging the use of illicit drugs or excessive drinking....
s as a strategy to effectively utilize limited resources to reach the intended population. Equity
Health equity
Health equity refers to the study of differences in the quality of health and health care across different populations....
and utility
Utility
In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....
are often the prominent ethical issues in audience segmentation. Some campaigns target people who are most inclined to accept suggested messages while other campaigns aim at those with highest risk, despite the fact that they are hard to reach or least likely to adopt recommended behavior. Ethical dilemma
Dilemma
A dilemma |proposition]]") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable...
occurs when health communicators have to identify audience segments and plan health interventions for these groups, depriving those not targeted in the process.
Public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
campaigns often target large segments of population who have low to moderate risk as small changes can create visible impact on morbidity and mortality. Health campaigns aim to decrease alcohol consumption
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol consumption may refer to:* Alcohol consumption by youth in the United States* Alcoholic beverage* Legal drinking age* List of countries by alcohol consumption* Long-term effects of alcohol* Short-term effects of alcohol...
focus on moderate users who are larger in number and have higher likelihood to respond positively to the interventions. On the other hand, targeting small segments of the high risk population (e.g. heavy smokers) in quit smoking
Smoking
Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco or cannabis, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them...
campaigns may be inefficient as they are less likely to stop the risky behavior.
Audience segmentation can also cause conflicts within the community. The Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
STD/HIV Management Project, funded by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) in 1999 stirred intense conflicts after non-targeted community members felt resources had been unfairly allocated to the "unworthy" audience segment, people living with HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. As a result, HIV-infected victims were turned away from attending health centers, excluded and discriminated by the community and 25 people with HIV/AIDS in the project eventually died by the end of 2000.
Using audience segmentation in international health campaigns
Slater and Flora's 1991 study on the risk of cardiovascular diseaseCardiovascular disease
Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...
among central California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ns utilized health behaviors to segment the audience into seven subgroups. The health behaviors criteria included (a) cognitive (health knowledge, attitudes, issue involvement, perceived response efficacy, perceived risk, and perceived self-efficacy
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is a term used in psychology, roughly corresponding to a person's belief in their own competence.It has been defined as the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain set of goals. It is believed that our personalized ideas of self-efficacy affect...
); (b) social influence (community, reference group
Reference group
A reference group is a concept referring to a group to which an individual or another group is compared.Sociologists call any group that individuals use as a standard for evaluating themselves and their own behavior a reference group....
and family norms, expectations from family and friends, and social visibility of behavior); and (c) individual norms obtained from personal history. The study yielded two distinctive subgroups, despite their demographic similarities (White and middle socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family’s economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation...
). The group with moderate level of good diets and physical activity and low tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
consumption was more likely to seek health information and believed that cardiovascular disease was preventable by changing their health behavior. On the other hand, the group with poor diets, high level of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
and tobacco consumption and high perception of susceptibility to cardiovascular disease did not plan to mitigate those risks and refrained from seeking health information. The disparities between these two segments were crucial for health communicators to design and tailor different messages to influence their health behaviors.
Rimal, Brown, Mkandawire, Folda, Bose and Creel identified risk perceptions and efficacy
Efficacy
Efficacy is the capacity to produce an effect. It has different specific meanings in different fields. In medicine, it is the ability of an intervention or drug to reproduce a desired effect in expert hands and under ideal circumstances.- Healthcare :...
beliefs as the main audience segmentation criteria for the HIV-prevention project in Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
. Four subgroups created were responsive (high risk, high efficacy), avoidance (high risk, low efficacy), proactive (low risk, high efficacy) and indifference (low risk, low efficacy). The study found different levels of HIV knowledge, HIV testing and condom
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
use among the four segments. Responsive and proactive groups were most responsive to preventive behaviors whereas avoidance and indifference groups were less inclined to practice preventive behaviors. Audience segmentation could be utilized in Malawi to target different segments with tailored messages in risk perception
Risk perception
Risk perception is the subjective judgment that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. The phrase is most commonly used in reference to natural hazards and threats to the environment or health, such as nuclear power. Several theories have been proposed to explain why...
s and efficacy beliefs in order to influence them to adopt recommended HIV prevention behaviors.
See also
- DemographicsDemographicsDemographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population. These types of data are used widely in sociology , public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location...
- GeodemographyGeodemographyGeodemography includes the application of geodemographic classifications for business, social research and public policy but has a parallel history in academic research seeking to understand the processes by which settlements evolve and neighborhoods are formed...
- PsychographicPsychographicIn the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, and social research in general, psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. They are also called IAO variables...
- Market Segmentation
- Social marketingSocial marketingSocial marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as...