Why is segmentation important to your business?
What would you do if you discovered that 80% of your income came from the highest performing 20% of schools?
Would you say anything different to prospects if you knew that 25% of their students qualified for free school meals?
Segmentation is the art of saying the right thing to the right people at the right time. At The Education Company, we've invested 20 years into perfecting segmentation strategies for education suppliers. Our Spirit database holds 60,000+ education establishment records, 400,000+ named education contacts, 200,000+ direct to teacher e-mail addresses, and perhaps most importantly, over 10,000,000 demographic indicators.
What is segmentation?
Marketing segmentation is the process of dividing a large audience into clearly identifiable groups with similar needs, wants or characteristics.
This makes it easier for you to personalise your campaigns and prioritise your target audiences. If segmentation shows that some prospects would be more likely to buy a product or service than others, you can better allocate your attention and resources.
What to consider
- DEMOGRAPHICS - characteristics of your participants & prospects e.g. size, location, Pupil Premium, Ofsted performance
- HISTORICAL ACTIVITY WITH YOU - has a school or teacher previously purchased from you? What is their level of engagement?
- YOUR OFFER - what are you asking the school to do? How does it benefit them?
Segmentation can be a piece of cake
Everyone wants the biggest slice
1. School Size - Consider the number of pupils on roll and the number of staff. Does your product or service deliver the same benefits to small schools as it does to large schools? Do you need flexible pricing depending on the size of the school?
Have your cake and eat it
2. Funding & Government - It’s important to consider how much a school has to spend and where the money’s coming from. Do they get large allocations of Pupil Premium or Sport Premium funding? Will independent schools have the same purchasing requirements as their state counterparts? What about Multi Academy Trusts?
Sweeten the deal
3. Performance & Inspection - Use performance and inspection data to identify school priorities. For example, schools with declining performance or a poor Ofsted rating will react better to words such as ‘improvement’, whereas schools performing at the highest level will react better to power words such as ‘retain’
Location, location, location!
4. Geography - Consider regional messaging. Are your case studies geographically relevant? Are you neglecting rural areas? If you market internationally, are your products and services relevant to all curricula?
Looking at the books
5. Spend - Financial information can help you identify schools who spend highly on products and services similar to your own. For example, if your product is digital, concentrate your marketing budget on schools that have regularly invested in ICT.
Speaking their language
6. Pupil Profiles - Use pupil data to identify challenges facing your audience. For example, a high ratio of EAL* students presents additional teaching challenges. Or Schools with a high percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals will be under pressure to close the attainment gap.
*English as an additional language
Customers matter
7. Their relationship to you - Make sure you recognise your customers in your strategy. Reference their previous purchases and recommend complimentary products. If you need your customers mapped against your target list we can help, quickly and accurately.