Audience segmentation is the process of dividing people into homogeneous subgroups based on defined criteria such as demographics, psychographics, communication behaviors, and media use. This process is used in commercial marketing to design and tailor products and services that satisfy targeted groups. In social marketing, audience segmentation is used to design relevant health or social messages that influence people to adopt recommended behaviors.

Audience segmentation is important because it allows marketers to deliver more tailored messaging and build more meaningful relationships with their audience. By grouping people based on shared characteristics, marketers can create more targeted campaigns and tailored messaging that resonates with their target audiences.

There are several criteria used to segment audiences, including demographics (age, level of education, income, ethnicity, and gender), geography (region, county, census tract), psychosocial, behavioral, and psychographics (personality, values, attitudes, interests, level of readiness for change, and lifestyles) .

Audience segmentation is employed in health interventions as a strategy to effectively utilize limited resources to match audiences, messages, media, products, and services based on the specific needs and preferences of the audience.

To use audience segmentation in marketing, companies can create different groups of people based on the criteria identified during audience analysis. They can then use these groups to inform their marketing plan, such as using targeted email campaigns or social media ads to reach a specific audience.

Overall, audience segmentation is a powerful way to generate new opportunities for a company and improve customer satisfaction. However, its important to strike a balance and not narrow the audience down too much, as this can limit the effectiveness of the segmentation strategy.