In today’s omnichannel retail landscape—where brands must navigate e‑commerce, in‑store, mobile and marketplace touchpoints—effective segmentation remains foundational.
Yet according to research from the American Marketing Association (AMA) and Kantar, many organizations are treating segmentation merely as a communications tool rather than a strategic driver.
The Problem: Under‑leveraged Segmentation
The AMA/Kantar survey shows that while 72% of marketers agree segmentation is crucial to understanding customers, most are using it only for messaging, media targeting and audience definition—not to drive strategic decisions.
This creates misalignment: decisions across product, innovation, sales and channels often proceed without a unified customer view, leading to inefficient investment and weakening trust in marketing’s role.
Three Principles for Segmentation That Drives Strategy
- Clarify the Use Cases — Segmentation should be designed with clear commercial objectives and extend beyond marketing alone. Involving product, sales, and innovation teams ensures the framework supports broader organizational decisions.
- Look Beyond the Market Today — A static segmentation tied only to current categories limits future growth. The study found only 8% of respondents said their segmentation informed expansion opportunities. Segmentations should embed customer trends, broader demand spaces and adjacent categories for long‑term relevance.
- Create New Behaviors, Not Just New Learnings — A segmentation project is not an insight dump; it’s a change initiative. Only one‐third of organizations planned for embedding segmentation from the design phase, and just 15% felt the effort energized teams.
Why This Matters for Omnichannel Retail
For omnichannel brands, segmentation underpins customer‑centric strategy across channels—online, in‑store, mobile, and marketplace. When segmentation simply informs ad campaigns, brands miss the opportunity to align assortment, store format, loyalty programs and supply‑chain decisions on the same customer insights.
A truly strategic segmentation enables coordinated execution: tailored experiences in‑store, personalised digital journeys, and relevant offline touchpoints that reflect the same customer logic.
In short: to reap the full value of segmentation, organizations must treat it as a strategic tool tied to business outcomes—not just communications. That shift unlocks the power to drive growth across channels and build resilience in an evolving retail ecosystem.
