- What is audience segmentation?
- When might you segment an audience?
- How can you segment an audience?
Suppose you are developing a social marketing effort to reduce youth violence in your community.
Many people and institutions may influence that goal, and the changes needed may differ considerably:
- Young people affected by violence may need safer environments, supportive relationships, opportunities, conflict-resolution resources, trauma-informed services, or other forms of support.
- Young people who have caused harm may need credible alternatives to violence, opportunities for accountability and repair, and access to appropriate services and supports.
- Families and caregivers may need resources that strengthen safety, communication, stability, and supportive relationships.
- Schools, youth-serving organizations, health care providers, community organizations, and law-enforcement or justice institutions may need to change policies, practices, or services.
- Employers, housing organizations, transportation systems, funders, and policymakers may influence economic and environmental conditions connected to violence.
These groups do not all have the same experiences, responsibilities, motivations, barriers, or influence over the issue. A single message or intervention is therefore unlikely to be equally useful for everyone.
Audience segmentation helps identify meaningful groups and determine whether different strategies, services, supports, partnerships, or communications are appropriate for each.
Segmentation should not be used simply to identify which people are easiest to persuade. It should help social marketers develop more relevant, ethical, equitable, and effective approaches.
Small organizations can use segmentation as well as large organizations. The process may be simple or complex depending on the issue, available evidence, number of audiences, and organizational capacity.
A successful effort may use community conversations, existing research, program data, low-cost digital or print communication, trusted interpersonal networks, service improvements, policy changes, or other methods. What matters is not the size of the campaign but whether the strategy is evidence-informed, audience- and community-centered, ethically designed, and responsive to the conditions affecting behavior.
What is audience segmentation?
Audience segmentation is the process of identifying groups within a broader audience that differ in ways relevant to the behavior, service, issue, or intervention.
The purpose is not to place people into categories for their own sake. A segment is useful when the characteristics shared by its members help explain why a different approach may be appropriate.
For example, people may differ in:
- Current behavior
- Motivations
- Benefits they value
- Barriers they experience
- Access to services or resources
- Trust in institutions or messengers
- Knowledge and experience
- Social influences
- Geographic circumstances
- Preferred languages or communication formats
- Readiness or opportunity to act
Demographic characteristics may also be relevant, particularly when they help identify inequities or differences in access. However, race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, disability, income, or another demographic characteristic should not automatically be treated as evidence that people share the same beliefs or will respond to the same intervention.
Use formative research and community insight to determine whether a proposed segment actually requires a distinct strategy.
Segmentation and the marketing mix
Segmentation may help you think more carefully about the traditional marketing concepts of product, price, place, and promotion.
Different audience segments may:
- Need different products or services, or the same service delivered differently
- Experience different costs or burdens, including money, time, transportation, effort, stigma, risk, or inconvenience
- Need different places or access points for services, information, and support
- Prefer different communication channels or approaches
Segmentation can also help identify differences in exchange, competition, social influence, organizational barriers, and environmental conditions.
The goal is to make strategies more relevant and accessible, not to reinforce stereotypes.
When might you segment an audience?
A broad strategy may sometimes be appropriate. For example, a community-wide communication about a new public service may use one core message when the information is equally relevant and accessible to most residents.
Segmentation becomes more useful when meaningful differences affect whether people can benefit from or respond to the strategy.
When some communities experience greater burden or inequity
Data may show that certain communities experience higher rates of a health or social outcome, more severe consequences, or greater barriers to services and resources.
In these cases, segmentation may help develop a more equitable response.
Do not stop at identifying which demographic group has the highest rate of an outcome. Ask what conditions contribute to the difference.
These may include:
- Access to health care
- Insurance coverage
- Housing conditions
- Transportation
- Employment conditions
- Environmental exposures
- Discrimination
- Geographic access to services
- Language access
- Differences in institutional treatment
Segmentation should help address those conditions rather than imply that identity itself explains the difference.
When formative research reveals meaningful differences
Interviews, surveys, focus groups, listening sessions, community-engaged research, service data, and other sources may show that people who initially appeared to form one audience actually have substantially different experiences.
One group may already value the proposed behavior but face cost and transportation barriers. Another may have access but see little benefit. Another may distrust the organization providing the service because of previous experiences.
Those differences may call for different interventions.
When different behaviors or decision-makers are involved
Sometimes segmentation is useful because several distinct behaviors influence the same community goal.
For example, increasing childhood vaccination may involve:
- Parents and caregivers making vaccination decisions
- Health care organizations offering convenient appointments
- Clinicians communicating clearly and respectfully
- Schools providing accurate requirements and referral information
- Public-health agencies addressing access and supply
These audiences need different strategies because they control different parts of the system.
When some people are not being effectively reached
If existing communication or services consistently fail to reach certain communities, segmentation may help identify why.
The issue may involve:
- Language
- Disability access
- Transportation
- Digital access
- Service location or hours
- Trust
- Institutional history
- Immigration-related concerns
- Stigma
- Communication channels
Do not describe people themselves as "hard to reach" without examining whether organizations and systems have failed to reach or serve them effectively.
When you have the capacity to tailor the strategy meaningfully
Segmentation requires resources. Multiple audience strategies may require additional formative research, partnerships, service adaptations, translations, accessibility work, communication materials, implementation capacity, and evaluation.
Do not create segments that your organization cannot meaningfully serve.
If resources are limited, it may be more effective to prioritize one or two important differences than to create many narrowly defined groups with superficial variations in messaging.
How can you segment an audience?
Contemporary social marketing may use combinations of demographic, geographic, behavioral, psychographic, environmental, experiential, and service-use information.
No single category should automatically determine the segmentation strategy.
Behavioral
Behavioral segmentation is often especially useful because it relates directly to what people are currently doing and what the intervention seeks to influence.
Relevant differences might include:
- Whether people currently engage in the behavior
- How often they engage in it
- Whether they have attempted to change before
- Whether they currently use a particular service
- Whether they have access to the resources needed to act
- Whether they intend to act
- Whether they need support maintaining a beneficial behavior
For example, a tobacco-cessation effort might distinguish among people who smoke and are actively seeking help to quit, people considering quitting, people not currently interested in quitting, and people who recently stopped smoking and want support maintaining cessation.
These groups may need different services and communication.
Barriers and enabling conditions
People may be engaging in the same behavior for very different reasons.
One person may lack transportation. Another may have experienced discrimination in a service setting. Another may not be able to afford the service. Another may have concerns about privacy.
Segmenting according to meaningful barriers can help develop interventions that address actual conditions rather than simply changing the message.
Motivations, values, and perceived benefits
People may value different outcomes.
For example, an active-transportation initiative might find that some people value health benefits, others value lower transportation costs, others value environmental benefits, and others value convenience or social connection.
These differences may help shape services and communication.
Avoid assuming motivations based on race, age, religion, political identity, or another demographic characteristic. Ask people what matters to them.
Readiness, confidence, and opportunity
People differ in their willingness, confidence, and practical ability to act.
Behavioral theories may help explain these differences, but avoid assuming that everyone progresses through a single fixed sequence from awareness to permanent change.
Someone may understand an issue, value the behavior, and strongly want to act but lack transportation, money, safe housing, supportive policies, or another necessary resource.
Segmentation should therefore consider both motivation and opportunity.
Geographic and environmental context
Where people live, work, study, obtain services, or spend time may influence access and behavior.
Relevant geographic distinctions may include:
- Urban, suburban, rural, or frontier areas
- Neighborhoods
- Service areas
- School districts
- Transit corridors
- Areas with different environmental conditions or infrastructure
Geographic information systems and other mapping tools can help identify patterns involving services, transportation, environmental conditions, health outcomes, and other community characteristics.
Use aggregated or appropriately protected data and avoid maps or analyses that unnecessarily expose sensitive information about individuals or small groups.
Geographic patterns should also be interpreted carefully. A map may show where an outcome occurs but not explain why.
Demographic characteristics
Demographic information may include:
- Age or life stage
- Gender, when relevant
- Race and ethnicity
- Household composition
- Income or economic circumstances
- Education
- Employment
- Disability
- Preferred language
- Immigration or citizenship status when legitimately relevant
These characteristics can help identify inequities, understand service access, or ensure that important populations are represented in formative research and evaluation.
They should not automatically be used to predict attitudes, values, intelligence, political beliefs, health behaviors, or willingness to change.
Consider intersectionality as well. People's experiences may be shaped by several interacting circumstances rather than one category alone.
Experiences and service history
Previous experiences may affect people's expectations and decisions.
Relevant experiences might include:
- Previous use of a service
- Previous attempts to change a behavior
- Experiences with discrimination or stigma
- Previous interactions with institutions
- Caregiving responsibilities
- Experience with a health condition
- Exposure to violence or trauma, when directly relevant and handled sensitively
Collect sensitive information only when necessary and use appropriate privacy, consent, and data-protection practices.
Social influence and trusted relationships
People's decisions may be influenced by family members, peers, clinicians, educators, community leaders, online communities, employers, faith and spiritual leaders, or other relationships.
Research can help determine whether influential audiences should be engaged alongside the people whose behavior is directly involved.
Do not assume which messenger people trust based on demographic identity alone.
Communication preferences
Some segments may prefer different languages, communication formats, channels, levels of detail, or sources.
Consider:
- Preferred language
- Literacy and health-literacy needs
- Disability access
- Digital access
- Privacy
- Trusted messengers
- Use of social media, text, email, community media, interpersonal networks, or other channels
Do not simply translate an existing message and assume the strategy is culturally appropriate. Involve intended audiences in developing and pretesting communication.
Costs and burdens
People may experience different financial, practical, emotional, social, or physical costs when adopting a behavior.
Examples include:
- Fees
- Transportation
- Time away from work
- Childcare or dependent care
- Privacy concerns
- Stigma
- Social consequences
- Physical discomfort
- Technology requirements
A segment defined by a shared barrier may require a service or environmental change rather than a different advertisement.
Openness to new approaches and social influence
Some people may adopt new practices earlier than others. Others may prefer to see evidence, observe trusted peers, or wait until a service becomes more familiar.
These differences can be useful when planning implementation, but avoid labeling people as irrational, resistant, conformist, or not worth engaging.
Instead ask:
- What information or experience would increase confidence?
- Whose experience matters to them?
- What risks do they perceive?
- What barriers make experimentation difficult?
Influential audiences and partners
The people whose behavior is directly involved may not be the only audience requiring attention.
A social marketing strategy may also need to engage:
- Family members
- Peers
- Clinicians
- Educators
- Employers
- Community leaders
- Businesses
- Service organizations
- Policymakers
In some situations, changing the behavior of an institution or decision-maker may have greater impact than asking individuals to adapt to barriers the institution controls.
Deciding which segments to focus on
After identifying meaningful segments, determine which ones require distinct strategies and how resources should be distributed.
Commercial marketing has traditionally used criteria such as measurability, accessibility, substantiality, and actionability. These ideas can still be useful in social marketing, but they should be interpreted alongside public benefit, ethics, equity, and community priorities.
Identifiability and relevance
Can you identify the segment well enough to understand its experiences and determine whether a different strategy is needed?
The question is not simply whether a group is large enough to justify attention. A smaller group may still deserve focused resources because it experiences severe inequity, exclusion, risk, or barriers.
Ability to engage and serve the audience
Can the organization communicate with and provide meaningful support to the segment?
If the answer is no, ask why.
A community should not automatically be deprioritized because your organization currently lacks trusted relationships, language capacity, accessible services, or appropriate communication channels.
Instead consider whether you can:
- Build partnerships
- Hire or compensate people with relevant language or community expertise
- Improve accessibility
- Modify services
- Build trust over time
- Share decision-making with community organizations
Significance to the community goal
Consider how important the segment is to the issue and what benefit may result from addressing its needs.
Significance may reflect:
- Number of people affected
- Severity of impact
- Degree of inequity
- Influence over systems or environments
- Community priorities
- Potential for meaningful benefit
Do not use expected numerical "return" as the only basis for prioritization.
Ability to design a meaningful response
A useful segment should differ in ways that lead to a meaningful change in strategy.
If two demographic groups face the same barriers, value the same benefits, use the same services, and prefer the same communication channels, separate campaigns may not be necessary.
If two groups differ significantly in access, motivation, trust, service needs, or environmental conditions, tailored approaches may be justified.
Equity
Include equity explicitly when deciding which audiences receive attention and resources.
Equal investment in every group does not necessarily produce equitable outcomes. Some communities may require greater investment because they face greater barriers or have historically had less access to resources.
Ask:
- Who is currently benefiting from our services?
- Who is missing?
- Who experiences the greatest barriers?
- Would focusing only on the easiest audiences widen existing inequities?
- Are community members involved in deciding how resources should be prioritized?
Readiness and opportunity
Readiness can help tailor a strategy, but it should not be used as a reason to abandon people who face substantial barriers.
Someone may be ready to act but unable to do so because the service is unavailable, unaffordable, inaccessible, unsafe, or incompatible with their responsibilities.
Assess motivation together with opportunity, capability, and environmental conditions.
Addressing audience segments
Once you have identified useful segments, decide how much tailoring is appropriate.
Broad-audience strategy
A broad-audience strategy uses a common core approach across several audiences.
This may be appropriate when:
- The same information is relevant to most people
- Barriers and benefits are broadly similar
- The primary goal is community-wide awareness
- Resources do not support extensive tailoring
Even broad strategies should be checked for accessibility, cultural relevance, unintended stigma, and whether important groups are being excluded.
Tailored-audience strategy
A tailored strategy develops different approaches for several meaningful audience segments.
Tailoring might involve:
- Different service locations
- Different schedules
- Different languages
- Different trusted messengers
- Different benefits emphasized
- Different barrier-reduction strategies
- Different communication channels
Tailoring should be based on formative research rather than stereotypes.
For example, do not assume that all young people want fast-paced videos or slang-heavy communication, that older adults prefer traditional media, or that people from one racial or cultural group share the same values.
Ask intended audiences and pretest the strategy.
Focused-audience strategy
A focused strategy concentrates resources on one or a small number of audiences.
This may be appropriate when:
- One audience experiences particularly severe inequity or barriers
- One group's behavior has an especially strong influence on the outcome
- The organization has limited resources
- A pilot effort is being tested before broader implementation
- One audience has been consistently underserved by existing approaches
Be explicit about what will not be addressed and why. A focused strategy should not make other affected groups invisible.
Language and communication
Provide information in the languages people prefer and in formats they can access.
Plain language, translation, interpretation, captions, screen-reader-compatible materials, large print, audio, and other formats may be needed.
Language should be natural and respectful. Avoid trying to imitate presumed slang or cultural style without direct input from the people involved.
Cultural context
Culture can influence communication, family relationships, health practices, community leadership, beliefs, and decision-making.
Cultural responsiveness does not mean assuming that everyone who shares a cultural, racial, ethnic, or religious identity thinks alike.
Work with community members to understand the specific values and practices relevant to the issue.
Sensitive or contested issues
Some issues involve deeply held moral, religious, political, or personal beliefs.
Social marketing should not stereotype people according to group membership or manipulate those beliefs.
Listen to the communities involved, provide accurate information, respect autonomy, and make clear where organizational or public-health goals differ from individual beliefs.
Knowledge and familiarity
People with extensive knowledge of an issue may need different information from people encountering it for the first time.
Match information to what people actually need without treating unfamiliarity as a deficiency.
Economic circumstances
Economic conditions can affect access to transportation, technology, health care, childcare, housing, time, and other resources.
Do not assume that lower-income audiences should contribute labor while higher-income audiences contribute money. Ask what forms of participation are appropriate, voluntary, and realistic for different people.
Organizational and policy audiences
Sometimes the segment requiring a different approach is not a group of individual community members but an institution or decision-making audience.
Employers, clinicians, educators, service providers, business leaders, funders, and policymakers may respond to different evidence, responsibilities, incentives, and community expectations.
Tailor engagement to their actual roles and decision-making context rather than reducing their motivations to personal or political self-interest.
In Summary
Audience segmentation is the process of identifying meaningful groups within a broader audience when those groups differ in ways that affect the behavior, service, issue, or intervention.
Useful segmentation may consider behavior, barriers, motivations, benefits, readiness, opportunity, geography, service history, social influence, communication preferences, environmental conditions, and relevant demographic characteristics.
Demographics can help identify inequities and ensure representation, but they should not be used as shortcuts for assuming what people believe, value, or will do.
When deciding which segments require focused attention, consider not only whether they can be identified, reached, and served effectively, but also the severity of the issue, community priorities, structural barriers, and equity.
A segment that is harder or more expensive to engage may require greater investment rather than less if existing systems have historically failed to reach or serve that community.
Organizations may use a broad-audience strategy, tailored strategies for several audiences, or a focused strategy for one or a few priority audiences. The appropriate approach depends on the issue, evidence, community input, resources, and the meaningful differences among audiences.
Above all, segmentation should improve the relevance and fairness of a social marketing strategy rather than simply make people easier to persuade. Listen to the people involved, test assumptions, protect sensitive information, address barriers and structural conditions, and involve communities in decisions about how they are understood and engaged.