Can you share your experience about segmentation and personas definition?

I’ve typically seen segmentation and personas fall flat in one of two ways: either they were purely based on readily available internal data (usually, transaction or product-focused), or they were purely based on external interviews and didn’t come with a perspective on how representative they were of our customer or prospect base.  The result: Sales uses one, Product uses another.  To drive towards maximum alignment of “who is our customer, and what do they care about”, it’s important to merge ...Read More

Segmentations and personas both have a role to play in informing product strategy and targeting for marketing. Defining segments is more of quantitative exercise with a primary goal of optimizing your business and operating model. Typically, I couple an external prospect survey with internal data on how existing customers interact with your product. You're looking for attributes that are correlated with customer outcomes and behaviors. Some key dimensions for segmentation include purchase behavi ...Read More

We think about this as a layered approach, of which time is an important consideration. Here are some ways to think about the differences: Jobs To Be Done (JTBD): Essentially, what is the 'job' someone is 'hiring' your product to do? What is the outcome they're looking for? This is extreme helpful when you need something actionable, fast. In fact, it's good to consider this as a preliminary research step so that you have a clearer picture of your audience when developing a Segmentation RFP Perso ...Read More

It's helpful to think of personas as fictional representations of buyers and users that tell the story of the top decisions, needs, and motivations that must be present for your product to retain customers. Segments tell the story of how developing clear use cases and meeting requirements make your product relevant in a market. Certain segments are more valuable because with them you're growing margins: the same marketing budget invested in these segments results in steadier growth and greater r ...Read More

I take a three-dimensional approach to customer segmentation. Within any given "traditional" segment (industry, size, geography, etc.) I look at three things: What problems my client's product solves, the stakeholders involved, and what incentives those stakeholders are responding to.  @Greg Hollander is absolutely right that these often fall flat, but I would expand upon the reasons for that happening. With personas, what I often see is an incorrect assumption that the interests of the customer ...Read More