Our work for Derks helped them to discover who their customers are, how to segment them, how many potential customers there are in each segment, where those customers are geographically, and how to prioritize segments based on their vision as well as our assessment of which segments best align with their brand. Having this deep an understanding of your customers is vital. Not only does it provide information about who is buying from you but also how their buying habits and propensity to buy from you rather than your competition differ across segments. This knowledge enables you to better plan your communications activities. For Derks, we combined clothing spend data acquired from specialized sources with an analysis of close to 30,000 Derks customer transactions to develop complex profiles, which included 68 geographic, demographic and psychographic variables. To make it easy for Derks to act on our research and analysis, we assembled the visual customer universe map you see above.

Having a framework that helps you decide how to allocate your budget across multiple segments, goals, and channels is as important as knowing who, when and how to target with your messages. Budgeting is an essential skill that influences the success of your campaigns and your ability to grow and scale your business. To help Derks navigate media budgeting complexities, we developed a budgeting framework specific to their goals and customers. We scored every customer segment and placed them in clusters based on their interests and propensity to purchase. The end result is a visual map and strategy that factors in possible outcomes based on how budgets are allocated.

The process of developing customer personas is as valuable as the final product because it invites questions and thinking differently about your customers. To make customer personas actionable and make this process relevant for Derks, we acquired behavioral data and researched their customers’ media preferences, as well as what they buy, from where, how often, and when. We looked at unique attributes that differentiated one segment from another and the impacts this has on in-store sales activities and future marketing and how to tread those waters. The end result is a comprehensive description of each segment, made relevant for different people within the organization at different times.