Key customer segmentation to accelerate small business sales

The problem

Our client, a global player in the computing market, wanted to ensure that its products would be quickly adopted by small businesses. It was therefore critical to identify business segments that desired the features and capabilities of those products. The client wanted our solution to be global to support a roll-out at scale, and local to ensure strong buy-in from country-specific teams and customers.

The solution

• We identified key factors affecting PC and mobile device acquisition among small businesses, including feature preferences, application usage and price sensitivity. We collected quantitative data from several hundred small business technology buyers in six countries.
• Statistical modelling – principal components, factor analysis, clustering and regression trees – was applied to segment the market with the objective of uncovering market segments that would have a strong affinity with the value proposition of our client’s new product.

Figure: Five-segment global small business solution

The result

• We uncovered five small business segments worldwide, of which two were premium segments with a high preference for the client’s new products. The client decided to target these segments with marketing communications for the next 12–18 months.
• We subsequently applied the same segmentation framework to additional countries where the client wanted to expand its marketing efforts. We provided the client with segment-specific messaging hooks for their creative agencies to build upon further.