2017 Best Marketing Segmentation Tools
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you’ve likely heard, or even had talks, about using personalization in your online marketing. Segmentation is nothing new in general marketing, but it has definitely transformed.
Today, we are using various factors to segment and personalize the experience of customers and prospects. Particularly, we’re beginning to see the importance of gender marketing segmentation and how it relates to improving conversion rates.
As you may already know, today’s consumers are more savvier than previous generations. This means we have to get savvier with our marketing.
Why Should Marketing Segmentation Matter to You?
Now, there are multiple reasons why marketing segmentation is important in every industry. In most cases, you have more than one type of customer. And it’s very likely you attract both male and female clientele.
After all, there are women working in just about every industry these days. And more women are taking the role as the one who makes purchasing decisions for the household. So having the ability to attract and appeal to both markets is essential.
But to put it for you plainly, here is a quick list of the benefits gender marketing can offer your business:
- Precise audience targeting
- Better understanding of consumers
- Increased conversion rates
- Improved customer outreach
How Are Gender Roles Changing?
We know of all the different details we can collect about consumers based on analytics data we gather. But why hone in on the gender tidbit?
Maybe because gender is no longer just an identifier of your physical sex. And it’s likely because we’re finally seeing the psychology behind marketing to these sets of people.
Even Facebook has found gender to be of importance. This is why it now offers 71 options for gender. Plus, it has a gender option, so people can identify themselves how they want to on their platform. But that’s just political correctness.
Needless to say, it’s a very smart move. It’s very important that as a business, you roll with the changes society throws. Otherwise, your brand could end up being placed on the back burner by consumers.
Now, although we are witnessing changing gender roles and how we market to these individuals, we still have to take gender into account. Otherwise, your marketing campaigns aren’t going to be as effective.
Will Changing Gender Roles Affect Marketing?
Most of us grew up with the concept of man and woman, which had clear and more defined gender roles. In a nutshell, gender was determined by the sex you were born. So you were either a male or a female. However, society is now adopting new concepts to this — some people who are born one sex may psychologically identify as another sex.
The strict gender norms, stereotypes and roles we’ve grown accustomed to are no longer written in stone.
According to the American Psychological Association, your true gender is determined by the interrelationship between gender expression, gender identity and gender biology. So in other words, your physical sex, what you identify yourself as and how you behave or present yourself is what determines your gender.
This can play out in multiple ways. For example, you could have a person who was born a woman, who identifies as a man, but still dresses and acts feminine. Or you could have a male, who identifies as a woman and dresses as one.
So the gender spectrum is pretty broad, which creates a bit of a conundrum for marketers. In the past, it was simple to identify a person by their gender, but today, it is completely up to the individual.
As we continue down the path to gender equality and diversity, these concepts will shift more. This is especially true for the younger generations, who are being brought up with this new way of thinking and self-expression.
For instance, you will now find gender-neutral pronouns and uniforms being inserted in elementary schools. Young children are even being given the option to identify as male or female. And, not to mention, the gender-neutral restrooms being added to schools and businesses.
It’s a new world and a new day, so it’s important for your business to keep up.
How Can Marketers Adapt?
This is what marketers do best — adapt to the needs of the consumers they’re trying to attract. While this is a tricky situation, it’s not impossible. As always, it’s about knowing your customers by learning everything you can about them.
What this means is identifying your audience’s emotional needs, aspirations, desires, hopes and functional needs. Once you know this, you can make strategic decisions on how to proceed with your marketing campaigns.
The key is backing away from gender stereotypes as much as possible. Shifting your products and services away from focusing on gender-specific and transitioning them to be gender-neutral. This is easier in certain industries, such as insurance and personal finance.
But for industries that are gender-specific, such as makeup and hair styling tools, this is different. The key would be to focus on the needs of the customer versus their gender. Step away from seeing your customer as male or female and just focus on solving their problems.
Does this mean you should ignore knowing the gender of your audience? Absolutely not. If anything, you should reach out to them based on their perceived gender, and then allow them to choose the gender they prefer to be addressed as in your communications with them.
And that brings me to the gender database tools you can use to determine the sex of your audience in advance. Let’s review which are the best of the best. We’ll start with the #1 database on the market.
#1 Name Gender Pro
You’ll find this database mentioned several times throughout my e-book and for good reason. You can find a great collection of gender-based names gathered from the top English-speaking countries around the world — not just the USA.
For instance, these names derive from Canada, United Kingdom and Australia as well. These names are gathered from publicly available data sources. So if you’re selling products or services on a global scale, it’s good to have a tool like this.
This way, you can determine the gender of your customers and prospects before reaching out to them. You won’t find a better price for a name gender database. And even better, you get to keep the database forever.
You only have to worry about the upfront cost and that’s it. The other tools require a monthly or annual rate to maintain access to their databases. With Name Gender Pro, you’re getting a reliable database that’s simple to install.
Once you do, you get instant access to the database in the form you want — csv or sql. In just 10 minutes, you can have your databased updated with names based on gender, allowing you to start segmenting your marketing campaigns immediately.
Hands down, it’s the best tool on the market today.
#2 Gender API
In this database, you get access to hundreds of thousands of names collected from 178 different countries. However, not all of the countries are English-speaking. This may not particularly cater to your audience.
Like Name Gender Pro, you can integrate it with your own database. But the cost is higher and you won’t own the data. Also, the database is smaller in comparison to Name Gender Pro.
#3 US Census
This is the source that NameGenderPro.com uses for its database. With this option, you get to own the data, but you’ll have to do all of the work to put together all the data. A scraper is needed to parse the data.
Also, the database is much smaller, but it is free. But again, the amount of time you’ll have to spend on it may not be worth it. After all, you have to separate the unisex first names on your own.
On that note, having a tool you can trust will come in handy when you begin personalizing your marketing campaigns. So consider using one to help improve your conversion rates!
