Audience segmentation tools for building a better marketing strategy

When designing a marketing plan, defining your target user profiles is key. An audience can be comprised of unique and definable segments based on their online behavior.

One example of a tool for audience segmentation analysis is Forrester's Social Technographics data that classifies consumers into seven overlapping levels of social technology participation.

There are a number of tools for researching and defining audience and user segments for marketing plans. Numerous categories exist for these tools. Below is a list of tool categories that can be useful for web strategy analysis and user-profile research.

Types of segmentation analysis tools

• SEO tools - There are an array of SEO tools which can help monitor and track keyword rankings, content and engagement. These tools can help with identifying user segments and messaging used to speak to those segments. SEO tools may offer both insights into paid and unpaid marketing and advertising--therefore making a powerful tool for strategy planning.
• Web analytics - Website analytics tools, like Google Analytics, already have built-in audience segmentation views. These tools can be a rich source of behavioral data.
• User surveys - Surveys are a fantastic way to receive qualitative feedback. Some survey systems can integrate into your brand website and provide advanced analytics and reporting. Options such as SurveyMonkey, Polldaddy as well as Ironpaper's own Facebook polling architecture, can help mine for insights in your immediate community.
• Search trends and insights - Search insights provide perspective into what users are searching for online. You can mine search data across geography, various industries, time. Google Insights (Trends) is a great tool for search trends and is free to use.
• Social sharing - Social sharing tools track sharing activity of content and some tools provide insights into multiple social networks, geography and time. Social sharing analytics can highlight the most popular and best performing content of a website or blog--helping to track online engagement. Good examples of social sharing tools are: Addthis and Sharethis.
• Social media tracking - Social listening tools can provide insights into broad audience trends as well as timely reactions for individuals. These tools can act as an alert system for conversations, posts and engagement surrounding a brand.
• Keyword Alerts - Setting up keyword alerts can help identify mentions of any keyword--be it a competitor or your own brand name. These tools can be essential to identifying reactions and engagement to content, marketing or your brand in general. Very useful in identifying user behavior and content performance.
• Influencers - Social media montoring tools, alerts and other tracking systems can spot mentions of your brand online. Finding influencers is a vital task for many marketing teams. Influencers may deserve their own segment in a marketing strategy, but influencers may also exist in each custom segment--depending on how your team defines it's user profiles.
• CRM segments or tags - Your company CRM can be a tool for marketers to group actual and existing customers into segmentation categories. With segments in place, a marketer can direct offers, emails and messages that are appropriate to these customer segments instead of pushing out mass communications. Targeting messages and offers will increase the performance of any marketing communications--because the targeted messages are more appropriate and based on user behavior or interest profiles.