Eles não. Eu, para chegar ao nós (parte II)

Continuado daqui.
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Quando falamos em identificar os clientes-alvo não falamos em segmentos baseados em factores externos aos clientes, tais como a localização geográfica, a idade , ou o sexo:
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"Your location, age or sex are no longer reliable proxies for what you consume. Nor are these details, especially age, reliable indicators of your technology savvy. The straight line that once linked a person's demographics to their buying patterns today looks more like a crack in the windshield, a meandering path marked with more than a few dead ends.
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different customers buy for different reasons, and different customers engage with a product or service in different ways. Only if you understand those differences can you see opportunities (and threats from others) to delivery new and different value — and extract new revenue from customers." (1)
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Também não me parece que esta abordagem "New Criteria for Market Segmentation" que se traduz nestas coisas, seja o que é preciso.
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"Unlike traditional segmentation approaches, which hold steady no matter what business you are in, the behaviors that help Tesco sell its product will have only a coincidental relationship to Harrah's, and vice versa. Today's relevant segments are not only industry-specific; they are probably company-specific as well. And those segments will change — constantly — requiring revision and correction with new data on real behaviors. The only segmentation that matters today is your own." (1)
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Prefiro de longe esta abordagem única para cada negócio. Por isso, aconselho as empresas a pensar nos clientes como pessoas concretas, com nomes, não como "a miudagem".
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Porque é que a empresa X é vossa cliente? O que é que ela procura? O que é que ela quer? O que é que ela precisa?
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Uma ferramenta interessante parece ser esta de criar, de caracterizar "personas", usada na indústria do software. Sim, mesmo no B2B:

• "An introduction to personas and how to create them"
• "Personas are a set of fictional, representative user archetypes based on the behaviors, attitudes, and goals of the people we interview in our research phase. Personas have names, personalities, pictures, personal backgrounds, families, and, most importantly, goals; they are not "average" users but specific characters. A persona is a stand-in for a unique group of people who share common goals; at the same time, persona characteristics encompass those of people in widely different demographic groups who may have similar goals." (Trecho retirado "Reconciling Market Segments and Personas")
• "Ask 37signals: Personas?" (Moi ici: Embora o autor esteja contra o uso de "personas" julgo que está a recorrer ao caso extremo em que a "persona" coincide com o produtor. Recordo um caso que li há mais de 20 anos num livro de Peter Drucker, dois irmãos suíços tinham uma fábrica de botas. Um dos irmãos alistou-se como voluntário pelos franceses durante a I Guerra Mundial e usava as botas nas trincheiras. Enviava por carta, para o irmão ideias, conselhos e sugestões para aprimorar as botas. Depois da guerra as botas suíças tornaram-se um sucesso. Recordo o caso da Polisport portuguesa que também começou por causa de dois amantes do motocross que se lançaram a produzir o que queriam colocar nas suas motos.)
• "The Origin of Personas"
• "Perfecting Your Personas"
• "it is about people - whether we are working on B2B marketing challenges or B2C challenges it is always about people and their experiences. Personas are a very powerful tool for B2B companies because the exercise of mapping Personas forces you to consider the customer experience. Often marketers confuse this exercise with customer segmentation. Consideration for Personas is different from customer segments (though you may end up with the same groups). ... We began a Persona strategy discussion by thinking through a few simple questions to help identify the Personas:

What are the aspirations and motivations of your customers and prospects?
How does that group work and how do they integrate your services into their workflow?
What experiences do your customers expect to have?
How does the customer describe and / or identify themselves?"

Um campo a investigar, leitura próxima (?) "The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design" de John Pruitt e Tamara Adlin, embora para o que procuro o título mais adequado seria "The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Business Model Design"


(1) - Trechos retirados de "Learning How to Make Market Segmentation Work Again"