We all know, not every customer is alike.  Customers buy for many different reasons.  Some buy to solve an immediate need, some buy a cure a specific pain point, and others know they need it but not sure how to get the most value out of your solutions.  As a marketer tasked with staying engaged with current customers, where do you start?

Start by segmenting your customers into groups that share common characteristics.  Talk to you sales team, spend some time with your customer implementation team, stay in touch your customer support team.   All of these people will help provide you more insight on how to reach out and target your communications with your customer base.   Try and figure out who has the best relationship with each customer and make sure you get regular updates when possible.

Here’s a few ideas on how your might segment your customer base for more effective, targeted marketing.

• Who are your end users?  What is their role in the organization?

• What pain points are your customers trying to address?

• Do you have multiple products?  Do your customers use one or a combination of several?

• Do you have different editions of your software or platform?  Each level will have different needs with your enterprise users having more complex problems and a higher level of sophistication.

• Do you have some customers that need more education to achieve success?

• Do you have some that are stretching the capabilities of your solution?  You might need a more sophisticated message for these people.

• Are their multiple people in the customer organization using your solution?  These people probably care about different things, you might consider doing more customized outreach here.

• Geographies/Firmographics – are their verticals or industries that are clustered together that use your product in a similar way?

• You probably have some customers who have gone dark on you too, your message and offers to these people are definitely going to be different.

Don’t forget your cross sell and upsell opportunities.  You’ll want to be sure you are considering these things when crafting your messages.

Once you have segmented your customers, stay top of mind through monthly or bi-monthly communication.  Here at ReachForce, we send a monthly newsletter and one targeted email or direct mail to each of our customers every month.