Audience & Customer Segmentation Research
Consumer and B2B market segmentation research companies
Specialists in customer segmentation, helping brands uncover growth opportunities.
At Vision One, we help businesses move beyond a one-size-fits-all view of their customers. Our segmentation research reveals the distinct groups within your market, what matters to them, and how their needs and behaviours differ. With a clear understanding of your audience, you can target more effectively and focus your strategy where the greatest growth opportunities exist.
Why segmentation improves your business
At a very basic level, customer segmentation may consist of simple demographics, such as age, gender, household composition and social class. Whilst easy to develop, this tends to be overly simplistic and fails to get to the true motivations and behaviours of your target audience.
We prefer to develop more powerful, sophisticated approaches beyond demographics to ensure you have a unique and defensible view of the market.
Vision One has been curating inspiring insights for over 20 years in the UK and globally, for small-scale businesses and market leaders alike. We help brands compete in the market and increase ROI by streamlining processes and saving them time and energy so they can focus on what’s important. Segmentation has many benefits and helps companies with:
- Generating greater cut-through communications that produce successful campaigns
- Expanding their current market share by optimising customer acquisition
- Increasing the level of customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention
- Decreasing costs by saving employee time and increasing profits through improved targeting
- Producing a more efficient sales and marketing funnel
Customer segmentation approaches
The golden rule for any customer segmentation is to create something unique and tailored to you. Why? Very simply, if all companies use the same segments they will compete directly with each other and target the same customers with the same solutions. So think differently!
Behavioural
Behavioural segmentation can be an effective approach, as people rarely change how they do things. This approach could include behaviours such as shopping habits, usage behaviours (e.g. frequency, quantity, type), and even brand or product loyalty.
Psychographic
Psychographic segmentation divides audiences on softer, more sentiment-based characteristics. Psychographics could include conscious. (and subconscious) beliefs, motivations, and priorities to explain and predict consumer behaviour.
Demographic
Demographic segmentation effectively targets an audience based on their identification.
Examples of demographic variables include age, gender, marital status, family size, income, education, social class, occupation, nationality, and more.
Winners
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B2B segmentation & firmographics
Unlike consumer segmentation, Business-to-business (B2B) companies typically adopt a different approach, using firmographics and roles and responsibilities to segment businesses within a market.
Firmographics is similar to demographic segmentation for individual consumers, but instead examines the characteristics of companies that may become customers. Examples of data to look at include industry, revenue, number of employees and location.
Bringing your customer segmentation to life
Businesses often fail when brands believe that audience segmentation alone is enough. This method and philosophy have to be embedded into a brand’s journey. It involves employees who have bought into the concept and understand the power of different segments in driving a company’s success. Ways that make this transition easier are:
Distinctive
Ensuring each of your segments is truly distinctive is crucial to making them relatable and easy to understand. Clearly defined personas enable internal teams to act with clarity and confidence.
Unique Messaging
No single message works for everyone. The best segmentation strategies allow you to target each segment individually — using the channels, content, and messaging that truly resonate with them.
Simple
A common mistake is overcomplicating segmentation with too many groups. This makes segments harder to understand, remember, and—most importantly—put into action effectively.
Recent client testimonials
They excelled at project management, consistently meeting all deadlines and demonstrating flexibility when needed.
Their insights and expertise greatly enhanced our performance and understanding of our brand health; Vision One are WONDERFUL to work with. Their communication, time management and dedication to question-solving are excellent!
They are methodical in their approach, always looking for the best way to approach a particular area, and genuinely go the extra mile for their clients. I have recommended them to other businesses seeking their expertise
Vision One offer us a quality and reliable research service which is why we return again and again! They have become a key part of our business and really understand our company and needs. Whether the project is big or small, they adapt accordingly and provide a wealth of knowledge throughout.
This was one of the most successful engagements I have had with a research company in my career
It has been a pleasure to work with the team at Vision One. It has been a very efficient process and the outputs look amazing, so Thank You!
Fantastic service. Will go the extra mile to accommodate your needs and fit within changing timelines and requirements.
Customer case studies
Recent Case Studies
Your segmentation questions answered (FAQs)
Segmentation is particularly valuable when entering new markets, refining brand positioning, launching new products, or when a business wants to better understand its customers. It provides a strategic foundation that helps guide marketing, innovation, and customer experience decisions.
A good segmentation goes beyond simple demographic groupings. It identifies meaningful differences in needs, motivations, and behaviours, and translates these insights into clear, actionable segments that can be used across marketing, strategy, and product development.
The most important aspects are:
- Easy to understand and relate to
- Memorable – so your peers can act on them
- Easy to replicate and identify which segment a person might belong to
- Predictive of market and customer behaviours
Segmentation and targeting work hand in hand. Segmentation identifies the distinct groups that exist within a market based on needs, behaviours, or attitudes.
Targeting, on the other hand is the strategic decision about which of those segments a brand should prioritise. Together they help businesses focus resources on the audiences most likely to drive growth.
There is no universal number, but most effective segmentation studies identify between four and seven segments. Too few and the insights may be overly broad; too many and they become difficult to activate. The goal is to create segments that are meaningful, distinct, and practical for marketing, product, and strategy teams to use.
Data integrity is at the heart of our research process. We are ISO 20252-accredited and utilise robust sampling frameworks, meticulous data validation techniques and continuous quality monitoring throughout the research lifecycle.
Every dataset undergoes thorough checks to ensure accuracy, reliability, and compliance with industry standards, including MRS, ESOMAR and GDPR guidelines.
Segmentation typically uses advanced statistical techniques such as cluster analysis, factor analysis, and latent class modelling. These tools identify patterns within large datasets and group customers with similar behaviours, needs, or attitudes. The result is a set of distinct segments that represent how people actually behave in the market.
The best segmentation studies go beyond statistics and translate insights into practical guidance. This includes rich segment profiles, clear descriptions of motivations and behaviours, and recommendations on how to target and engage each group effectively.
Yes. Segmentation often reveals overlooked or underserved groups within a market. These insights can highlight opportunities for new products, services, or positioning strategies that better meet the needs of specific audiences. If this is the goal of the segmentation make sure you make it clear in your brief.
Vision One is committed to ethical practices in market research by adhering to industry standards and guidelines set by organisations such as the Market Research Society (MRS) and ESOMAR. We are also committed to Net Zero and are Good Business Charter accredited. This includes obtaining informed consent from participants, ensuring data confidentiality, and maintaining transparency throughout the research process.
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We are quick, responsive, and above all, our research is customised precisely to your needs, ensuring you get exactly what you need every time.
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