Bonnie, Director of Market Insights at Glassdoor, walks through a practical framework for ensuring segmentation research actually gets used inside organizations. She covers pre-flight alignment, momentum-building during fieldwork, and a set of concrete socialization tools including immersion workshops, playbooks, swag, and opportunity analyses. The core argument is that great segmentation research fails not because of methodology but because of weak communication and socialization strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Alignment on scope, roles, and methodology must happen before fieldwork begins. Unmet expectations that surface in the final presentation are very difficult to recover from.
- Overcommunicate throughout the project using existing channels. Status updates with teaser insights keep segmentation top of mind for busy stakeholders who may not revisit the kickoff conversation for three to six months.
- Immersion workshops, customized by business unit, are the single highest-impact socialization tool. Every successful segmentation Bonnie has seen enter an organization's strategic vocabulary was supported by a series of workshops.
- Build for your 'super fans' first. Skeptical stakeholders are more likely to adopt segmentation insights after seeing an enthusiastic colleague use them successfully than after being directly persuaded.
- Embed a segmentation typing tool in every relevant ongoing research program (brand trackers, concept tests, NPS surveys) so segments remain a living lens rather than a one-time deliverable.
- Give all segments equally appealing names. If some names sound more desirable than others, people who land in lower-status segments will disengage from the tool.
Questions & Answers
- You said segmentation is your favorite type of research. Is there a specific reason why?
- Bonnie cited a love of complex projects and the particular challenge of distilling an entire marketplace into distinct people and personalities. Her audio cut out before she could finish the full answer.
- How do you handle stakeholders who are skeptical of research?
- Know who your supporters are and have them in the room when you are talking to skeptics. Build for your super fans and demonstrate what a productive, value-generating conversation about insights looks like. Lean into skeptics' questions and counterpoints early rather than dismissing them. Skeptics are more likely to come around after seeing someone else succeed with the insights than after being directly persuaded.
- How do you determine who becomes a segmentation ambassador?
- Bonnie selects people she already has a problem-solving relationship with: those who ask good questions, care about the company mission, and are invested in supporting their colleagues. In new or unfamiliar business units, she looks for someone on that team who can be a credible internal voice, since a peer is sometimes a more trusted messenger than the research team itself.
- How do you come up with segment names?
- Alliteration makes names more memorable, but vary the starting letter across segments to avoid confusion. Use one adjective and one noun. Avoid proper names, which carry cultural connotations that are hard to control and may not be inclusive or representative. Most importantly, make sure all names sound equally appealing so that no one feels like they landed in a 'bad' segment when they take the typing tool.
Session Notes
What 'socializing' means and why it matters
Bonnie draws a deliberate distinction between sharing insights and socializing them. Sharing is a one-way action. Socializing means cross-functional stakeholders have internalized the insights well enough to establish them as foundational in their own teams and use them consistently without prompting. Operationalizing, the next step up, would mean tying segments to measurable KPIs across the business, but that is out of scope for this talk.
Despite running roughly a dozen segmentation projects, Bonnie notes that only a few made it into the corporate zeitgeist. The differentiator was not methodology. It was consistent, tailored communication. She describes this plainly as 'basically good marketing.'
Before you kick off: the pre-flight checklist
Socialization success starts before a vendor is assigned. The following questions should be answered with genuine stakeholder alignment, not assumed.
- Are all key players clear on their role? Glassdoor uses a RACI framework (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to ensure everyone knows their commitment level.
- Is there alignment on research objectives? Stakeholders need to agree on what is in scope and what is not. Misaligned expectations that surface at the final readout are very hard to manage.
- Is segmentation actually the right methodology? Qualitative personas, or a focused awareness and usage study, may better serve some objectives. Red flags include stakeholders who need to make major strategic decisions before segments are finalized, or who are primarily interested in outputs like journey maps, competitive landscapes, or media channel alignment rather than attitudinal segments.
- Does everyone understand what this type of segmentation can and cannot do? Marketing, UX, data science, and product teams all hold different mental models of what a 'segment' is. Market research segmentations are primarily attitude-, want-, and need-based. Being explicit about this upfront prevents confusion later and also explains why attitudinal segments have a longer shelf life than behavioral ones.
- Have you selected a vendor who will actively support socialization throughout the project? The vendor relationship can affect your credibility with a new cross-functional group. Ask specifically about methodology. A vendor should be able to describe factor analysis for data reduction followed by k-means cluster analyses without hesitation.
Keeping momentum after kickoff
Once the project is underway, the guiding principle is: stay ready so you don't have to get ready. Stakeholders are busy. If three to six months pass without structured communication, the research team will be starting almost from scratch when it comes time to present findings.
Set and repeat realistic expectations
Document and communicate the following from the start, then revisit them throughout the workstream:
- Timelines, tasks, and responsibilities
- Decision-making processes and inputs/outputs
- Hypotheses and a plain-language overview of the segmentation methodology
- How the right solution will be selected
- The socialization plan for the insights
- Success criteria: how will you know the work had impact?
Handling skeptical stakeholders
Bonnie refers to resistant stakeholders as 'insights skeptics.' She explicitly advises against trying to win them over with a better report. Instead:
- Bring them in early to pressure-test load-bearing frameworks and attitudinal structures before the analysis is complete. Their counterpoints are useful at that stage.
- Value their input, but do not prioritize their needs above those of stakeholders who are already engaged.
- Build for your super fans. Early adopters demonstrate what success looks like, and skeptics are more likely to follow once they see enthusiasm from peers than from a research deck.
Do not go dark
Segmentation projects where the research team disappears between kickoff and final readout tend to produce final presentations full of methodology questions rather than activation conversations. Overcommunication is the antidote.
- Set a meeting cadence matched to RACI level. Responsible and Accountable stakeholders meet more frequently; Consulted and Informed stakeholders get regular but lighter touchpoints.
- Send tailored status updates to key groups. Include teaser insights that preview the value to come.
- Identify supporters from across the org at a mix of seniority levels, so you are not dependent on a small cluster. Brief them on the latest findings and big moments as they emerge so they can carry the conversation when you are not in the room.
- Use channels where your audience already lives. Email for informing and celebrating, messaging platforms like Slack or Teams for milestone shoutouts and sneak peeks, meetings for alignment and deep dives, town halls for broader org education, and cross-functional newsletters to showcase collaboration.
The more that you can show them and their team and especially their managers that they're doing a great job and how it's going to help the organization be more innovative and insightful, that's going to really help you build their confidence to be those insights ambassadors.
Socialization strategies: the core principles
These principles apply once the insights are ready to share broadly.
- Tailor the message. Product teams want to hear about user behaviors, unmet needs, and whitespace. Marketing teams want attitudinal profiles, demographic makeup, and media mapping. Different seniority levels also need different framings.
- Tell a story. Stakeholders will not retain individual data points. They will remember a story that connects each segment to their specific business objectives and day-to-day work.
- Assign ambassadors. Supporters embedded in teams across the org can answer questions, capture concerns, and advocate for the insights when the research team is not in the room.
- Connect to KPIs. Tie segmentation insights to the metrics people are already measured on. The more clearly this connection is made, the more consistently the segments will be used.
Socialization tools
1. Segment playbook
A written guide, physical or digital, that breaks down every type of insight in the segmentation and maps it to the product development and marketing life cycles. It explains how to measure and track segment performance against KPIs. In practice, this functions less as a daily reference and more as an onboarding document for new team members or people joining new workstreams.
2. Immersion workshops
Bonnie considers this the single most important socialization tool. Every segmentation that made it into her organizations' strategy documents was supported by a series of immersion workshops. Workshops should be customized by business unit or workstream. Each workshop has three phases:
- Empathize. Share the full segmentation overview with the team. Break into small groups and have each group examine how one segment achieves different jobs to be done in the marketplace, given their attitudes and needs.
- Explore. Run team activities that help participants internalize the segments in the context of their own roles and business objectives. Lean into the opportunity analysis: segment size, spend, brand engagement, category interest, key jobs to be done, and unmet needs.
- Identify. Reconvene as a full group to share exploration findings. Use dot voting on key jobs to be done or value propositions. Apply a design thinking framework to structure new ideas and land on testable hypotheses rather than jumping directly to solutions.
3. Swag
Tangible, branded items that serve as a reminder of the segmentation work and keep it visible on people's desks and screens. Formats Bonnie has used include:
- Trading cards with key segment findings on the back, optionally with a QR code linking to the full report
- Posters and Zoom backgrounds featuring segment icons and insights
- Coffee table books, stickers, and notebooks
- Digital swag: Zoom backgrounds, Slack and Teams avatars, and profile badges
A note on segment names: if some names sound more appealing than others, participants who land in a lower-status segment when taking the typing tool will feel deflated. Make all names equally energetic. Bonnie recommends one adjective plus one noun with alliteration, varying the starting letter across segments to prevent confusion, and avoiding proper names which carry cultural connotations that are difficult to control.
4. Interactive website
A hub where stakeholders can take the segmentation typing tool, discover their own segment, and explore all segments in depth. The site can also host a sizzle reel from any follow-up qualitative research that adds personality to the segments. Adding quizzes with prizes and organizing a 'segment pride' day, where employees use their segment's Zoom background or avatar, can build broader org enthusiasm. The site should include a team directory and links to all essential documents.
5. Opportunity analysis
This is what allows segmentation insights to enter the organization's strategy documents, which Bonnie describes as one of the most meaningful outcomes she has seen. The opportunity analysis does three things:
- Prioritizes segments using measurements that matter to the org: brand awareness, usage, mission alignment, brand of choice, marketplace engagement, and forward-leaning indicators of customer value.
- Frames the findings in a palatable way, for example early adopters versus late adopters, valuable versus growable, or preferences by genre.
- Creates a foundation for continuously measuring segments against KPIs by embedding the typing tool into concept tests, brand trackers, NPS surveys, and website surveys.
6. Consistency
Once segments are finalized, they should appear in every relevant piece of research going forward, whether or not stakeholders explicitly request it. The research team is accountable for keeping the segmentation lens active. When stakeholders bring a new research objective, the first question should be: how are you thinking about the segments in this context? This also means the immersion workshop framework, once built, can be adapted for future workshops by swapping in new research objectives while the core segment insights remain constant.
On picking insights ambassadors
Bonnie selects ambassadors based on relationship and character rather than title. She looks for people who ask great questions, care about the company's mission, and want to support their colleagues. In business units where she has no existing relationship, she prioritizes finding someone on that team who can serve as a credible internal messenger, since peer voices sometimes carry more weight than the research team's own advocacy.
Transcript
Read the full transcript
hi everybody I'm Bonnie I'm director of Market insights at glass store I've been in the market research and audience insights biz for about 15 years and I started my research Journey as a quantitative researcher but now I'm about 50/50 Quant and qual um and I've spent equal amounts of time on the vendor side and the brand side so that's given me a really unique look and a helpful perspective on why some research projects go really well and why others fall short so today I'm really excited to talk to you all about how to socialize segmentation insights to maximize your impact with stakeholders now I pick this topic because segmentations are one of my favorite research projects to run but in my opinion they're also one of the hardest there's just a lot of moving parts and before we jump in um please feel free to ask questions in the chat or Talk Amongst yourselves or um throw any of your best practices in there as I go along but first question does anybody else use the term socialize is that a little jargony um I used to say that I shared insights but now I try to use words that convey more of a two-way relationship so when I'm sharing something that's just an action I'm taking around others but when I socialized something the group has to be a part of that conversation so so that's what I mean why I'm socializing insights it means that my cross functional stakeholders know the insights well enough they've internalized them and they can establish them as foundational insights within their own team and leverage them consistently with confidence rather than you know me just sharing a report doesn't necessarily mean that any of those other things will happen um and I suppose the next wrong up the corporate jargon ladder would be operationalize but operationalizing a segmentation is a whole lot harder in my opinion we can talk a little bit about what that looks like if we have time at the end that would be really tying your segmentation insights into measurable um key performance indicators beyond the research business unit so that's a little that's a little pie in the sky so today we're just going to focus on the socializing aspect all right so um here's our road map for the day we're going to share some best practices point fingers at the exact person or people who made it go south but has anybody experienced that in the past with the research that they've done and um maybe reflect on where you think maybe it all went wrong I've been lucky enough to work on a dozen or so segmentation projects in my career most of them addressed all the key objectives and were methodologically sound but only a few of them really made it into the corporate Z guide and I've spent a lot of time reflecting on why that is and it really comes down to consistent and tailored communication like basically good marketing so here's our road map for the day um we're going to talk about a few things before you even get started with your segmentation project how to set yourself up for success but we will be spending the bulk of our time talking about those socialization strategies and like I said feel free to pop your tips and tricks in as we go all right so before you kick off your Insight socialization success starts before you even assign a vendor before you even fully commit to running the segment ation analysis so this is your pre-flight checklist um successfully socializing segmentation Insight starts before you kick off you need to make sure that you've got alignment and stakeholder buyin so that when you are finally uh sharing out all your amazing segmentation insights that your whole stakeholder crew is with you so what that entails is first are all the key players aware of their role in the segmentation workstream so everybody needs to know their role and be committed to seeing it through at glass door we use Ry um so that's a framework for responsible accountable consulted and informed so that everybody who's a part of that stakeholder group knows what they are going to be responsible for doing um second is there alignment on the key objectives for the segmentation research so your stakeholder should be aware and aligned of the key research objectives basically what's in scope and what's not in scope um one thing that can really recab on your segmentation project is people who have expectations that aren't met and especially if those people don't make that fact known until you are actually presenting the final segmentation insights that's a really tough question to handle in your final presentation it's better to get that out in the open upfront and then next um just even confirming that segmentation is the best research methodology to address your stakeholder needs so a lot of times we get so excited or think that we need a segmentation or even that your stakeholders might come to you and say they need a segmentation but when you talk to them a little bit more you might find out that that's maybe not what they actually need to address their research objectives so do one last pressure test before you kick off to ensure that segmentation is the right fit and sometimes you can even get away with qualitative research personas or even a simple awareness and usage usage study that focuses primarily on your target audiences or key demos or key Industries some signs that the segmentation might not be the right fit are that your stakeholders are going to make really big strategic decisions before the segments are finalized so it's hard to kind of shoehorn the segmentation insights into those really big decisions after the fact so if they're launching a a suite of new products or a really big marketing campaign trying to shoehorn the segmentations in on the back ends it's going to be difficult and then another sign would be stakeholders are asking for deliverables that just don't really match up with segmentation outputs so maybe they're more interested in user Journey Maps precise alignment with Ds or specific media channels um or even just a competitive landscape and those are all things you can fold into a segmentation analysis but if those are really the only things that are driving their interest you might consider if you know the segmentation piece is going to be the star of the show or not and if it might be better to First address their needs with a smaller project and then see if a segmentation is still needed um next is everyone aligned on what the segmentation can and can't do so is everyone clear on the type of segmentation that you're running and the word segmentation can mean different things to different people especially people in different business units so folks in marketing might see segments as targetable audiences based on known characteristics um ux researchers might think about them as personas based off of qualitative product usage and behavioral patterns and the data science team might think of segments as patterns and behavioral usage data so the pro product teams like honestly your guess is as good as mine they they surprise me every time so um typically market research segmentations are primarily based off of attitudes wants and needs and the benefits are really getting to know each segment on a deeper level that helps you explain not just what they want but the why behind their behaviors and decisions so that also gives your segmentation a longer shelf life because those attitudes once and needs are not very likely to change so the point of all that here is just to be really really clear upfront about exactly what the type the type of segmentation that you're proposing and how it's going to benefit your stakeholders and last Point here have you selected a vendor who can really support you and your stakeholders throughout the entire process so this is really key um you will need their help reminding stakeholders about the key goals outputs use cases and value throughout the entire process you don't want a vendor that just say segmentation is a mix of Art and Science or worse if they say segmentation is more of an art than a science do yourself a favor and be sure to ask them about the science part um if they can't immediately tell you that the first step is a factor analysis for data reduction followed by a series of K means cluster analyses I would not trust them to run the study and um think about your position too like if you're working with a big cross functional group for the first time this VOR could really make or break your reputation within your organization so Choose Wisely all right now for some tips to keep your momentum after you kick off so once you kick off your motto should be stay ready so you don't have to get ready set realistic expectations upfront and communicate them consistently throughout the segmentation workstream so that includes things like timelines tasks responsibilities decision-making processes inputs outputs hypotheses high level overview of segmentation analysis like what is the methodology how does it work and select how you're going to select the right solution the socialization plan for the insights and finally the success criteria for the whole segmentation workstream how will you know that you've made an impact and um setting up these realistic expectations up front will just help your stakeholders help remind your stakeholders why they're doing this and just keep in mind too your stakeholders are really busy they have a lot going on especially if they're not managing this project it's not going to be top of mind so if they forget what they talked about three to six months ago when you kicked off the project you're really going to be starting from scratch when you set out to socialize the segmentation insights and you might be thinking but Bonnie what if some of my stakeholders are insights crogans and it's hard to get them excited or bought in about anything before there's anything for me to share and to those of you who are asking that I would respond how many of you have tried to win over an insides kagin by creating like the best most actionable most insightful report of your entire career yeah I've tried that with a few of my segmentation projects too and it didn't really go the way that I thought it was going to go so plus if you're here uh listening to this webinar I'm sure you're going to deliver the best possible report so what else can you do to set yourself up for Success so setting these expectations up early um and then just setting the expectation that there are so many stakeholders that you will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good so that means you're going for more of a general consensus and the responsible crew will be the one who makes the final calls but you also want to collect all the feedback so even though maybe not everybody will get exactly what they want out of the segmentation everybody's feedback is completely valuable so bring those insights krogans along for the ride show them that you value their perspective by encouraging them to ask questions or highlight whatever counter points come to mind and they can be really helpful early on to help you pressure test like the loadbearing Frameworks and structures and attitudes early on in the segmentation worksh stream so you're not confronted with all of those after the analysis is already done um so listen to them value their input but do not put do not put them above your other stakeholders in terms of you know the priority of solving their problems so what that means is you know build for your super fans create a segmentation that delivers the most value for the folks who really get it because those are going to be the early adopters and any of these Insight chromogens that just kind of don't get it if they're going to adopt these insights and really um use them as foundational insights in their business unit they're going to do it after they see somebody else be successful with it or after they see somebody be really excited about it all right next so don't go dark on the vendor side of the business I've definitely been a part of some segmentation projects where we had a huge cross functional kickoff with our client and then did not really interact with anybody except our primary Research contact until the final report and those reports are really tough to deliver because the stakeholders barely remembered the point of the research um especially if they didn't have a lot of experience with segmentation to begin with and then there would be a lot of questions about the methodology and the relevance and the rigor and exactly what questions we asked in the survey instead of how to Leverage The insights so key piece of advice here don't go dark overcommunication about you know the racy framework for your um for people that are involved at any level set up a meeting Cadence so obviously those who are responsible and accountable they need to meet up more often those who are consulted and informed maybe less often but it's still really important to have those touch points and let everybody chime in and ask questions and then send status updates so make sure that you send tailored status updates to key groups and feature teaser insights that highlight the benefits and outputs to come and leverage your supporters across the or too this is really important so make sure you have supporters that are from a good mix of business organizations and seniority so that you are your supporters are well distributed throughout the org and you're not totally dependent on a small group so if you're really dependent on more Junior analysts or you're really dependent on senior leadership it's hard to make sure that you're actually going to get coverage into like some of those middle areas and leverage them to build interest and enthusias for the segmentation insights even when you're not in the room so have them be the most the most aware of what's going on the most bought in on the segmentation project um be sure to always be sending them the latest teaser insights and big aha moments you know as you're Fielding or just getting out of field so that they can use that even when you're not in the room to keep that um we've tried some like special like email drip campaigns we we tried to put up um an info center on our Confluence site and since those channels weren't already part of people's usual daily um you know mix of channels they weren't super successful so my advice would be to stick to the TR and true channels where you know that your audience already is again this kind of comes down to marketing 101 so um I've had a lot of luck using email to inform celebrate call folks to action for messaging like slack and teams doing shoutouts um when somebody when there's like a big milestone achieved or somebody does something that gets some more visibility for the segmentation project or has a great idea great time for a shout out reminders of upcoming deadlines and exclusive sneak peeks before you send them out to other folks um for meetings that's a great time to question align and do data deep Dives Town Halls so when you go beyond your working group generate some excitement and educate on key benefits across the org so that when the insights are ready and they do roll out more broadly that these folks already have a sense of what it is and why it's valuable and finally newsletter see if you can leverage cross functional newsletters to Showcase all the cross functional Val Val and collaboration that's happening on the segmentation project and one thing that works really well too is make sure that you are really celebrating the people who are supporting you cross functionally this is likely to be something that they don't do in their everyday lives and the more that you can show them and their team and especially their managers that they're doing a great job that they're contributing exactly the way that they're supposed to and how it's going to help the organization be more Innovative and insightful that's going to really help you along the way way and kind of build their confidence to be those insights ambassadors as the project move forward all right so we finally made it to the promised topic so let's go through some socialization tips so again this kind of feels like marketing 101 but it's really important to focus on these Basics because segmentations can get kind of wild and it feels easy or sometimes even necessary to cut Corners here and there and you might think it's better if I spend more time on the report or the insights or the data or with a vendor because this is the part that matters but really if the socialization doesn't happen none of it really matters so tailoring messages so different business units and varying levels of of leadership are going to require a more tailored message to optimize Insight so this is just as true like when you're actually when you have the insights you're ready to socialize them out being really considerate of um which teams need to know which pieces of information and help creating a message that really makes it clear to them what parts are going to be most useful them for them to leverage and exactly how they'll leverage it so for example the product team they're going to be really steeped in the um user behaviors and unmet needs and areas for Whit space opportunity whereas the marketing team they might be more interested in sort of like the attitudes and a media mapping components and exactly like the Dem graphic makeup of these segments and how they're going to Target them and which messages will resonate the most so next tell a story your your stakeholders obviously aren't going to remember every single data point you share but they will remember a story that highlights where each of the segments falls into their unique business objectives so really think about starting with like what are the business objectives for your stakeholders and how can you tell a story to each of them that ties into their day-to-day life at work and then assign and ambassadors so I've touched on this a little bit already but leverage your supporters by asking them to be the segmentation insights ambassadors and plant them in teams across the org because you can't be in every single room every time there's a question sometimes there might be conversations when you're not there about like how do we use this it's really valuable to our org it's extremely helpful to have these folks embedded in the teams and know that that's their role so that they can um they can support the segmentation insights support their team where it's applicable and at least be in the room to be able to capture questions and bring them back to you if you weren't actually in that room and then last is focus on kpis so help your stakeholders win big in their role by demonstrating how segmentation insights can help them improve their kpis so everybody is trying to prove that they're doing work in a way that is benefiting the organization overall and the more that you can tie the segmentation insights into key performance indicators and how people are actually measuring themselves the more likely they're going to be to use that all right and next these are some tools for socializing that I've found to be really helpful it's not an exhaustive list but these are some of the ones I've had the most success with so obviously having a great Report with amazing segment profiles that bring the segments to life is essential so we're going to go through some of some other socialization tools beyond that that helps generate more interest enthusiasm and immersion in the insights so um one thing I've had a lot of success with is a Playbook so this can be a physical book or it can be a word doc or Google doc whatever you use and it basically just breaks down all the different types of insights that are in the segmentation analysis and exactly where they can be used in the product development life cycle and in the marketing life cycle and even if you can go as far to tie it to um a lifetime value study for for the segments that kind of applies to your business and other kpis like that's great and the goal there is going to be to show like how how the segments fit into their their day-to-day Life Next is immersion workshops I think this is this is probably the thing that has every time I've done a really successful segmentation that really did make it into the corporate Ze Guist and got used in strategy documents there were a series of workshops around it so I think this one's crucial and these are customiz workshops customized to teams or business units to help them practice activating segmentation insights next is swag I feel like I can't do a segmentation without having some kind of Swag it's kind of a given so you know have fun with it these are like fun branded Insight souvenirs and what's nice it's like a it's usually a nice little tactile thing that lives on somebody's desk um just to remind them that we did this big thing espe it's a really important for your insights ambassadors and stakeholders as kind of like a souvenir of your your time together and um just a nice friendly reminder that they have those insights handy whenever they need them an interactive website has also been really helpful so a website where stakeholders can discover their own segment and learn more about them um an opportunity analysis is pretty crucial so leveraging an existing lifetime value analysis or um creating a new one and Elevate segments to help kind of plug them into your org strategy and the last one is not really a tool but I needed six things to make slide template work so it's really just consistency once the segments are final they should be part of all the relevant insights moving forward and that's really on the research team so whether or not people ask for it or not every time they come to you for a brand tracker or a concept test or a message test or what have you the segmentation typing tool should be part of it and we should be we should always be reporting out on the segments so that we're you know number one accountable for making sure that the segmentation insights continue forward so now we're going to go into a little bit more detail on each of these Playbook highlights the key insights reiterates how the segmentation insights will level up into other work streams and describes when and how segmentation insights can be applied so give some examples of segmentation insights and how they can be incorporated into future research as well and explains how to measure and track segmentation performance on kpis so this is basically the how-to Manual of how to leverage the segmentations best and um usually people will just kind of slack me and ask me these questions directly which is fine but it's nice to have these set aside especially so teams can um teams can leverage them when they're starting new projectss but I've actually found that this is more of an onboarding tool for new members or people who are joining new work streams more than anything else which is great because it's a nice little refresher when you're starting a new type of a new job or a new project exactly how you can Leverage The segmentation insights and next the immersion Workshop so again this is probably if you do nothing else I'd recommend doing insights immersion workshops for your segmentation it's a lot of work I would recommend setting up different immersion workshops for each of your business units or at least work streams depending on you know how your organization achieves its goals um oh shoot I hope I'm not freezing again um okay hopefully I'm back sorry if my internet's been a little choppy everybody all right so it's really important to have these workshops set up for different work streams or different business units depending on how your organization organizes itself but overall there are three parts um so there's empathize that's where you share the overview of the full segmentation with the team and really focus on how each segment interacts with the marketplace as well as the organization specific brand and so this is where um you can break up into team have them break up into teams everybody can take a segment and really think about you know how the segment achieves different jobs to be done in the marketplace depending on their attitudes once in the the next phase is exploration so breaking teams out for activities that help them really internalize the segmentation insights in the context of their roles and business objectives and lean into the opportunity analysis so figuring out you know what role can each of these segments play based on their their their size their spend um their interest and engagement in the category and really identifying like what are the key jobs to be done for each segment here and what are the unmet needs and then the last one is identify so come back together as a group and share insights from the exploration phase and then one thing that we do a lot is we'll do dot vote on key jobs be done or key value props if it's for a marketing team and begin applying the design thinking framework to add some structure to the new ideas and develop testable hypotheses and having new ideas and testable hypotheses is really like a great outcome for these workshops a lot of times if you get product folks in a room they immediately want to just solve all the problems because that's what they do in their job and they're really great at it but a lot of times we try to get to the point of like can we focus on ideation can we focus on concept development and end with testable hypotheses before we race off and do something all right some swag ideas I actually have some examples in my desk because I've I have several segmentation swag pieces just laying around I've done so many of these but one of my favorites is segmentation trading cards so they kind of look they look like this and then on the back you have different little insights to share of different kinds of ways of highlighting key findings for each of the segmentations they're really fun to kind of just shuffle through and we even have um a QR code one of these has a QR code that uh links back to the report so that if our folks ever oh here we go that one right there um if stakeholders ever forget where their report is they can just scan it on their phone and then boom it's right there so those are those are always a great one oh my gosh I just realized this is the long the wrong slide sorry folks you're seeing a draft there but um next posters always great too something that they can put up on their um put up behind their desk we've had a lot of luck with zoom backgrounds as well um so just like a fun Zoom background that has maybe a picture icon of the segment and some fun insights in the back um coffee table book something you can print out and keep on your desk that shows what the segments are how to use them stickers notebooks always really fun all right and next inter quiz so that they can see their segment learn about it um one thing I would recommend here based on my own experience is the last segmentation we did we got really excited about some of the clearly more valuable segments and we gave them really fun names and then there were some segments that were just not as engaged in the marketplace and we gave them kind of not lame names but like not very exciting names so it was clear like there were more desirable segments that if you landed in you were cool and if you landed in some of these other ones you were not cool and so then when people took the segmentation uh typing tool on the interactive website they were a little sad they like oh I got this segment I guess I'm not very good at being engaged in the category that I work in So Pro tip make sure you give all your segments really fun names um for me I prefer not to use like the like adding an actual person name in them so one of our segments we call them um Community cultivators I wouldn't call them like Community cultivator Collins or something like that just because I think I don't know personally I think it sounds silly but you all do you just make sure that they sound equally cool if you do have a website where everybody in the company is going to be taking it and then the website's also a great place to feature your Sizzle reel so if you do some follow-up qual that really kind of adds more personality to your segments the sizzle reel can live on the website um quizzes with prizes so if you do have sort of like a lesson Le thing in your organization or you want to build in a quiz um just with your survey tool offer prizes for folks who you know take the quiz first or get the most right answers or have the best open-end response something to kind of generate a little bit more enthusiasm there digital swag again you've got the zoom backgrounds badges slack teams avatars um if you can get people to be excited about which segment they're in again it's really important to make sure they all sound cool for this to to be most effective um then you can kind of have like a segment a segmentation like pride pride week or Pride day where everybody is kind of like rocking the the zoom backgrounds and the slack avatars and that kind of thing so that's been really fun and then finally really important to have a team directory and links to essential docs so list out your research crew uh contact information for the vendor um make sure your research crew includes your cross functional insights ambassadors and make sure the link to all the essential docs so that everybody knows where they can find everything all right and then the opportunity analysis so this is really crucial this is um I think most of all the segmentations I've done have had an opportunity analysis but the last one we did really helped us get the segmentation insights built into our strategy for the whole organization and like just seeing the segmentation insights in the Strate strategy Dock and how other teams are going to be accountable for incorporating those insights like made me want to like Cry tears of joy it was one of the proudest moments of my life so this is really a crucial part to to making the segmentation insights live on um so what the opportunity analysis does is it prioritizes segments leveraging measurements that really matter to the or so some obvious ones are going to be like receptivity so brand awareness usage Mission alignment brand of choice you know how are those segments interacting with your brand and your products and Marketplace engagement Etc and thinking about you know how do you when you think about what makes your consumers or customers valuable what kind of forward leaning um variables are you considering as well so next it frames the insights in a meaningful way so when you think about which segments have the most opportunity and the least opportunity um think about what what you're actually saying so is it that there's early adopters versus late adopters is that how the opportunity is showing up is it valuable versus growable is it preferences by genre if you're in entertainment so just kind of think about you know a helpful way to frame it to make it really easily palatable to your target audience and then the last point is just continuously measure segments against kpis so um what that looks like is have your segmentation typing tool in concept tests your seats your brand trackers what have you um any other like your MPS surveys all of that so that you you're constantly able to show where you're seeing more or less value from the segments overall like where you're seeing more engagements if you have a goal for example that you know segment three you want to grow that segment because you're investing in a a new type of product then like on your website survey on your cat on your brand tracker see if you're changing the perception among that segment specifically all right the last Point here is just consistency so once complete the segmentation should always play a role in all new research where applicable um ask stakeholders to consider the role of segments in their future research objectives so now when when you know if somebody comes to me with a research objective and it's you know for our consumers then I'm going to look at our segment and say like okay like how are you thinking about each of the segments in this like do you have hypotheses based on segments is there a Target segment for this product is there a Target segment for this marketing communication and really kind of going back to the insights to help us frame things up so that we can get really specific on what exactly we're testing because if we you know revert back to looking at more of like a gen pop view it's just gets murkier to interpret the results and the segmentations have been a really helpful lens in helping us get deeper and figuring out the why and continue to leverage segmentation insights in workshops and ideation sessions so one thing I love about our segmentation research is that once I created the insights immersion workshops based on the segmentation insights as a foundation now every time I do a workshop it's basically like a prepackaged product ready to go like I just have to kind of go in there and change out like I can use a lot of the same activities and just kind of change out some of the research objectives depending on which team I'm working with but the insights are the same and it's just how we're leveraging them and what specifically we're looking at so it's a great way merch dies your your segmentation insights and then set goals for product satisfaction and messaging by segment so sometimes it can be really hard to get like kpis attached directly to the segments um some folks will go as are to do a behavioral lookalike model for their attitudinal segmentation and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't when it does work it's really cool because then you can really kind of measure like what's the click rate um what what's the you know what does the CTA action look like by segments if you can do that amazing but if not you know even just looking at how the different segments are um reacting to products in a satisfaction survey or messages and message tests that's a great way to set goals too and then celebrate New segmentation insights and insight activation wins so always celebrate a win that's like one of the biggest takeaways especially when it comes outside the research team so we can um reward that good behavior and show all of our cross functional friends what it looks like to win with segmentation insights all right and I think that's all I have for you all so if there are any questions feel free to put them in the chat let me know all right otherwise Amber anything on your end uh yeah I did actually have a couple I did hear in the very beginning of the presentation you said that segmentation was your favorite type of research is there a specific reason why or is it just the overall process that you really enjoy H I love I love really complicated projects and I like I think one of my favorite things about segmentation is that you're going you're taking the entire Marketplace and then you're kind of distilling it into these different people personalities and then at the same time you're kind of balancing that against all the different kinds of people and person okay okay Bonnie it it looks like your um audio is cutting out for a moment let see I've experienced that in a few positions luckily sorry folks um know who your supporters are and bring them in the room with you when you're talking to those who like the insights I call them insights crans basically people who are a little wary of research and its impact on their work streams but have your supporters in the room and really build for them and kind of like demonstrate what it looks like to have a productive conversation about insights and kind of show them like where it can really help um and make sure you really lean into advice from the leaders who are not fans of research like if they have even if they if they have questions or if they have counterpoints like lean into that up front show that you're open to that conversation but then again build for your super fans build for the people who who really love it and make sure you're demonstrating the value and um showcasing the winds and that's I think your best hope for having them come around if you have any really specific questions please feel free to find me on on LinkedIn um yeah that's something I've dealt with a lot great question B you mentioned before picking out ambassadors to really keep momentum going in the units how do you determine those ambassadors oh that's a good question for me I'm a really social person so I have you know friends and preferred Partners all over the org and those are folks who you know they'll they'll come to me for questions and I know that somebody that I can problem solve with and um someone who asks great questions and cares deeply about the mission of the company and cares deeply about um supporting their co-workers and their business units so when I find those people I'm always you know trying to think of like how can I how can I pull them into these work streams where I need a strong cross functional partner so it's sort of like having your list of super fans and supporters and um when I don't have someone top of Mind in maybe a new business unit that I'm working wor it to because again like there's folks you know on the product team and on the bizops team where they might not feel comfortable asking me a question because they don't want to seem like they don't believe in the work I do but they might Talk Amongst each other and having somebody on their own team who can help them understand how they can use the insights and justify why the the insights are valid and helpful is going to be sometimes a more credible messenger than than I am that's great it's always H good to have an ally on your team building better trust and my last question for you was I know that it's important to have fun segment names but how do you come up with your fun names do you have like a tried and true method do you focus on alliteration it's always entertaining to see everyone's thought processes when they come up with their names oh yeah I feel every time I've come up with segmentation names I'm a little kooky by the end of that day but I think alliteration is really important um that just makes them more memorable the last segmentation we had two alliterations that started with c's and they got really uh they got confused so sometimes people would say like they're basically all the segment names had two words and so sometimes they would kind of mix up the words for those two segments so I would say like alliterations are important and then trying to focus on like different letters with the alliterations and then um I also prefer to stay away from like I said using like proper names like Sally or Dave or anything like that especially like it's it can get a little murky nowadays with um how you want your segmentation to be like picture like when somebody thinks of a name the names have really strong connotation so it's like if you're going to use a name you have to get it so right I think to make sure that you're you're using names that are best representing the segment and the marketplace and being inclusive and I prefer just to stay away from them so um that's kind of yeah that's kind of it and usually I like to have like one adjective and one noun so one that we have right now is the community cultivators so that's that's my process but I think it's a very personal thing I also think every time I have come into a job where recently like you know within a year before I I entered that role somebody did a segmentation before me never liked their segmentation I've never liked their names it's a very personal experience I think for researchers we're all hiy so I'm I'm not saying I'm the expert on the subject we we all seem to have our own preferences there got it are there any more questions from the chat so I'm not seeing any at the moment but I'll give them a couple extra seconds to see if they have got anything else to type up real quick Y and if any of you have any questions please feel free to find me on LinkedIn I'm always happy to talk about segmentation insights Al righty Bonnie I think that was it thank you so much for your time today and your wonderful presentation all right thank you thanks everybody thank you have a good
