We conclude the series of posts on the Starbucks case, after the previous post, with part 4 of the lessons of its brand strategy. On this occasion, we are going to go deeper into the segmentation process, which we started to look at earlier.
Let’s look at a smart way to segment your target audience.
Identify the opportunity
In this case, the idea is to redefine the coffee experience through its variety and personalised elegance, enabling convenience spaces.
Specify the target
Starbucks has done an exceptional job of identifying their ideal buyer profiles. Not only have they clearly identified them, but they have studied in depth how they think, what their behaviour is, what types of actions they take, what lifestyle they associate with, what their preferences are, and so on.
This performance has driven Starbucks to plan world-class branding and segmentation strategies. Let’s say it is an inspirational model that shows us how to be very specific with a target market for any type of product or service, strategy or campaign.
Defining the value proposition
Once we know the ideal customer profiles, we must build a solid value proposition to convey to them. To do this, we must answer these questions, among others:
- How does the brand appear to them?
- What would we like them to know about the products or services?
- How do we convey the competitive advantages in an impactful way?
- How do you want them to feel about the brand?
From here, we can start to design messages based on the brand values that resonate with the audience and generate recall.
Analyse strengths and weaknesses
What really generates sales, what keeps customers coming back, do they really enjoy the products or is it something more intangible?
As we have already mentioned in this series of posts, at Starbucks, the ambience and the customer experience keep people coming back to the shop.
Determining which customer groups show the most loyalty
Starbucks is well aware of the relevance of its most loyal customers. Every brand has this special group of customers who remain in frequent contact. They are undoubtedly the ones who most frequently provide that valuable word-of-mouth communication.
It is these brand ambassadors that we must retain and to do this we must work on the long-term emotional connection through effective messaging and relevant campaigns.
It is not easy to establish a brand in a niche like coffee, which is already saturated. But Starbucks has done it in a very strategic way. To do so, one of its critical strategies was to understand its target customers, plan and act accordingly.
Photo credit: EA
