Customer Segmentation For Using WhatsApp Business API - Why And How

Learn more about customer segmentation to make the most of the WhatsApp Business API.

Most eCommerce businesses use WhatsApp for different purposes — marketing, sales, customer service, promotions, etc.

But not all of them are able to achieve desired results. Why? Because most digital marketers follow the practice of sending broadcasts, promotions and blast messages to the entire WhatsApp list. In the process, they completely ignore segmentation.

On other marketing channels such as email and SMS, brands have long ditched the practice of blast messaging the entire list. Marketers use segmentation to keep communication contextual and personalized.

• Segmentation helps brands understand customer intention
• It enables brands to get a better sense of customer challenges
• It provides brands better knowledge about their customers

Then why not use the benefits of customer segmentation for WhatsApp marketing? A WhatsApp Business API solution like QuickReply.ai can help you implement segmentation on WhatsApp.

What is Customer Segmentation and What Are Its Benefits?

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing your customer list into sub-groups based on specific shared characteristics. For example, you could segment customers based on age, gender, marital status, spending capacity, location, etc.

You could narrow down segmentation to any level. For example, customers who bought a red scarf or customers who made 10 purchases in the last month, etc.

Customer segmentation helps brands to target specific groups with targeted promotions. It makes marketing more focused and helps achieve higher marketing goals.

Here are some benefits of segmentation:

1. Helps with Personalization

90% of customers find the idea of personalization appealing. When you personalize messages according to customer preferences, your communication becomes more contextual and relevant to them.

Segmentation is one of the first steps in the personalization process. When you separate customers based on different parameters, you can determine how to contextualize your communication to target those specific customers.

2. Reduces Unsubscribe

72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messages. When you send random messages to your entire list, it’s obvious that the same message may not be relevant to all your customers. Hence, when you create customer segments and then send them relevant messages, it improves their experience. It means you’re not giving them a reason to get annoyed and unsubscribe.

3. Boosts Engagement

Imagine you run a promotional campaign and send the same message to your entire WhatsApp list. What’s going to happen? Not all your subscribers would engage in the same way. Some might open the message, some might click, some may straightaway delete it, and some might unsubscribe because the message isn’t relevant to them.

Instead, what if you targeted specific segments with tailored deals and incentives? Or personalized product recommendations? Your customers are more likely to engage with your campaign.

4. Improves ROI

According to studies, 92% of shoppers make purchases when brands send personalized recommendations. When you send targeted communication, promotions, and messages to your customers, they bring better results. Your clickthrough and conversion rates increase when your customers find the messages are relevant to their current needs.

5. Helps Prevent Spam

When you start sending relevant and contextual communication to your customers, they’d know they can expect meaningful messages. There’s less chance of them blocking you or marking you as spam. Moreover, it also reduces churn.

On What Type of Segmentation Should You Focus?

There are different types of segmentations — behavioral, geographical, demographic, psychographic, seasonal, etc. You can choose the segmentation criteria that work best for your products, services, brand, and industry.

1. Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation separates customers into different groups based on their behavior.  For example, their browsing pattern on your website, the time at which they purchase, specific periods during which they spend more, etc.

This kind of segmentation can help you identify opportunities to optimize customers’ journeys, use past behavior patterns to predict future patterns, run targeted marketing campaigns to address customers’ specific needs, etc.

2. Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation is based on customers’ basic information such as age, gender, marital status, education, profession, income, etc.

While factors such as gender, age, marital status, religion, etc. would be more applicable to B2C brands, B2B brands usually focus more on occupational segmentation such as profession, business, education, etc.

Demographic segmentation helps brands offer better personalization, improved product relevance and overall targeted marketing.

For example, if you want to send promotional campaigns for the school reopening season, you’d want to target married people or parents in the age group of 35 to 50. That’s when you’d need the age, gender and marital status segments for your campaigns.

3. Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation takes into consideration customers' personalities, interests, activities, culture, lifestyle, etc. For example, you could segment customers based on their social class, personal values, attitudes, interests, activities they engage in, etc. In short, psychographics explain why customers buy something.

For example, if you’re selling trekking gear on your eCommerce site, you’d want to target customers who like outdoor activities, and who’ve bought related products from you earlier.

4. Seasonal Segmentation

People tend to change their purchase behavior based on seasons. For example, they tend to shop more during a certain period in the year, during festivals and holidays, etc. Seasonal segmentation enables brands to market season-specific products.

Seasonal segmentation can help brands create promotional campaigns during slow seasons. Similarly, make the most of the most happening seasons. Moreover, brands can target different customers during specific seasons for more targeted campaigns.

For example, during a slow season, you could target customers by offering them a discount.

Customer Segments to Consider For Your E-Commerce Store

Most businesses create segments of first-time buyers, most loyal customers, etc. But you have many other customers who fall under many more segments. You should focus on them to beat your competition.

Here are some segments you should look at for your eCommerce store:

1. Cross-Sell Segment

To create a cross-sell segment, you can group customers who have bought a particular item from your store but haven’t purchased any related items. The idea of cross-selling is to offer a related item to customers to increase their order value.

For example, say there are customers who bought cushions but didn’t buy covers. A good segment to target would be anyone who ordered cushions. You could send them a WhatsApp broadcast with discounts on cushion covers.

2. Product-Specific Segment

You might have some customers who shop for only specific products or brands from your store. These customers are usually not interested in any other products. You can narrow down these customers by their product or brand interest. Then, you can create WhatsApp promotions and communication to target them. That way, you can create content that’s more relevant to them.

For example, say you sell vegan dog food on your site. You can create a customer segment of all the customers who have bought vegan dog food from your site.

3. Location-Based Segment

If your eCommerce site caters to a wide geographic location, for example different countries, continents, etc., location-based segmentation can be useful to you.

Customers’ shopping behavior tends to align with their location. For example, a country that is experiencing winter at a certain time during the year would tend to order more woolens and warm clothes. Whereas, people in another country would not.

By segmenting customers based in different locations, you can send targeted promotions and offers to boost sales.

4. Segments Based On Engagement Tiers

You can create engagement tier-based segments of different parameters. One of the simplest ways to group customers would be engaged and not engaged customers. However, there can be many more engagement tiers.

For example, customers who purchased 10 times in the last six months, or customers who haven’t purchased from you in the last six months.

One of the best WhatsApp broadcast practices is to create different campaigns for the different engagement-tier customers. For example, you could offer discounts, send ‘we miss you’ messages, share reorder option messages to encourage repeat purchases, etc.

5. Average Order Value Segments

One of the best ways to segment customers is based on their average order value (AOV). Through this type of segmentation, you can know the spending capacities of different groups. You can then send them promotions that align with their budget.

Moreover, you can even try to increase AOV of customers by sending them promotions that help increase their AOV by a little. That way, you can slowly and steadily increase the AOV of all your customer segments.

6. Sale Shoppers Segments

There might be customers who shop from your site only during the sale and discount time. You can create a separate group of these customers. By doing so you can increase engagement and target them during the sale season.

Since you know these customers are more likely to buy from your sale, you could send them WhatsApp campaigns to give them early access to the sale, share the sale catalog via WhatsApp, etc.

7. Former VIP Segment

You should create a former VIP customer segment from time-to-time. It’s possible that some of your most important customers might stop engaging with your WhatsApp messages. At such times, it’s time to retarget them through other channels. Re-engage them. Entice them to come back to your site by telling them what they’re missing out on.

Once this segment starts re-engaging, you can create more targeted WhatsApp Broadcast campaigns. The goal is to engage them on all platforms, including WhatsApp.

8. Test Segment

Test segments are a smaller group of customers that represent a larger group. For example, say, you want to run a WhatsApp campaign for a cycling accessory. In this case, you’d create a segment of customers who’ve bought cycling-related products from you in the past.

Further, you should create a sub group of customers from this larger segment. Send your WhatsApp campaign to this sub-group first. Assess the response. Optimize to improve the campaign. And then send the revised campaign to the entire segment.

How to Get Started with Customer Segmentation for Your Shopify Store WhatsApp Marketing?

Customer segmentation for WhatsApp is imperative. Without segmentation, it’s like shooting in the dark.

To reap the real benefits from your WhatsApp marketing strategy, you not only need customer segmentation strategies but also a WhatsApp Business API solution that is designed to automate all the required tasks of your strategies.

That’s why you need QuickReply.ai — the best WhatsApp marketing tool for Shopify stores.

Install QuickReply.ai on your Shopify store today!