Over sixty per cent of UK marketers believe consumer segmentation – the categorisation of customers based on shared traits – is an outdated method of marketing, with 63% considering it totally unfit for purpose.
That’s according to new research from enterprise customer data platform, Treasure Data. This is despite almost all (96%) marketers in the UK still using segmentation within their organisations – even though its effectiveness is being called so clearly into question.
The findings, which surveyed 500 UK marketers, found that whilst 86% of respondents update their customer segmentations at least every two years, well over half (56%) still struggle to target their audiences effectively.
And marketers think this new challenge is a result of consumers becoming trickier to understand, with two thirds (66%) concerned that consumer behaviour has become more complicated since the pandemic.
In fact, with easy access to more information and choice than ever before – especially online – priorities, preferences and purchasing habits now have potential to change at any given moment. Almost three quarters now agree it’s hard to group consumers into one segment because they’re always evolving.