Summary: This article is about post market research, segmentation and segmentation variables – specifically, response variables.
Segmentation variables are used to identify different segments. They can be broadly classified into two categories – response variables – the ones we use first and then identifier variables – the ones we only ever use after using response variables.
Different jobs and outcomes may be based up the following “response variables” so called because they are to do with how the consumer will respond to an actual offering. You’ll know this from your consumer research, but it doesn’t harm us to state them all together here -
- Exact functional benefits sought (e.g. features, performance, liability).
- Exact psychological and emotional benefits sought (e.g. trust, esteem, status).
- Exact service and convenience benefits sought (e.g. time, ease)
- Exact financial benefits sought
- Priority and importance of benefits sought.
- Cost.
- Use/purchase occasion.
- Usage rate/consumption patters/volume and frequency – high, medium, low.
- Location.
- Loyalty status – unaware, experimenters, satisfied, very satisfied, unsatisfied/defectors.
- Attitude towards product – loves, favourable, indifferent, unfavourable, hates.
- User cycle – first time buyer, potential buyers, regular user non user etc.
- Attitude and sensitivity towards price (e.g. bargain hunter, price quality balance or very best).
- Knowledge of product.
- Application.
- Channels used.
- Sensitivity to promotion.
- Exact functional liabilities and risks sought to be avoided
- Exact psychological and emotional liabilities and risks sought to be avoided
- Exact service and convenience liabilities and risks sought to be avoided
- Exact financial liabilities and risks sought to be avoided
Across the board, because these are all too do with value, these fit into one of four broad types – functional factors (e.g. quality, performance, durability, etc.), service and convenience, financial, and psychological/social/emotional factors such as image and social status.
Remember to analyse these for buyers, users, payers, key influencers, and final decision makers – these are the Key Players.
These response variables allow us to segment consumers based on their hierarchy and importance of jobs and outcomes, attitudes, behaviour, buying patterns and occasion, as we’ve said – how they will respond to an offering because of their different jobs and outcomes they prioritise and how well they feel they have met their Opportunity Scores. In addition, you may find some segments use different Consumer Value Lines.
As you’ve seen from your consumer research, sometimes, consumer’s jobs are stable across purchase/consumption occasions and those are a reliable predictor on any purchase occasion –for example a preference for light/diet soft drinks over normal is well captured by a user based outlook. In contrast however the preference for flavour is more likely to change depending on usage occasion. Another example of how usage occasion can alter things, is how people may consume different brands of beer on different occasions depending on the job to be done – drink at home in private, drink with friends, drink on a date, drink with co workers and so on.
Therefore people can and often are part of many different segments depending on the usage occasion – the job they want doing in the circumstances.
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