Text analytics and market segmentation: Understand your customers’ specific needs

Text analytics: Mining users’ web 2.0 worlds for brand action

MIDIOR Consulting’s John Sutter laid out a thorough approach for market segmentation that was, well, a bit beyond the scope of Designated Editor’s blog. But this is exactly why Boston Product Management Association (BPMA) events are worthwhile: move beyond the world of content to consider how messaging truly integrates with the rest of the online and offline universe.

What exactly is “Actionable Market Segmentation”?

According to the BPMA description, it’s “how to assess market opportunity for new products and services and turn that analysis into actionable steps that will increase market share and win sales. … Learn how to stake a hypothesis about market opportunity, gather the data, make sure to protect it with services like the ones at venyu.com/cloud/, and ask the right questions — and turn that data into a purposeful market assessment.”

How can text analytics influence market segmentation?

Scour the web — blogs, social media, anywhere customers are gathering and commenting — to see what customers are saying about your products. Natch, this is nothing new for social media mavens.

What should I be listening for or paying attention to  … comments about? trends in?

• Product strengths & weaknesses
• Marketplace factors
• Customer goals
• New requirements/opportunities
• Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
• Major geography
• Minor geography
• Client segment
• Segment size
• Pockets of growth and change

Now what do I do with it all?

Use this data to develop ideal customer profiles & define common characteristics aka segments that may include:

• Company sales revenue
• Market value
• Profits
• Growth
• # of employees
• # of locations

Now simply …

Add marketing action plan for each ideal client profile and voila! Well … if only it was THAT easy.

As social media and web content strategists know, it’s not all that easy. But too often there’s too much forgiveness for the sake of search marketing and social media’s new-ness. To maximize these time-consuming activities, it pays to do your homework, or pay someone to do your homework, but you get the gist.

There are existing frameworks, and search marketing and social media professionals perform best when they’ve modified the wheel rather than reinvent it poorly.

This post focuses on a thin slice of the presentation: For more meat from Sutter’s presentation, click the link at the bottom of the BPMA event description to download the file. Or follow MIDIOR Consulting on Twitter.

Meanwhile, I wonder if there’s a difference between text analytics and marketing metrics? Looking forward to your thoughts and insights.