• by Aaron Baar , April 12, 2017

Marketers looking to reach sell consumers new smart home products and services should look beyond traditional demographics into a new sort of customer segmentation that takes into account different groups’ views on technology and its benefits. 

Technology consultant Strategy Analytics this week issued six customer segmentation categories for smart home products and services, based on surveys and information from more than 2,000 consumers. 

“There are some consumer groups that will be easier to reach than others,” says Joe Branca, principal industry analyst at Strategy Analytics. “This research helps to identify some of the challenges associated with reaching customers outside of the early adopter segments.”

The  six segments, as identified by Strategy Analytics are: Strugglers, Laggards, Affluent Nesters, Greens, Impressers, and Millennials.

Among those groups, the Impressers (those who want to impress others with the technology around them) and Affluent Nesters (home owners with disposable incomes and an affinity for technology) might be the lowest-hanging fruit, Branca says. Consumers in those segments, as the names might suggest, are looking to have “updated and nice-looking” living spaces that they’d be happy to fill with technology, Branca says. 

Beyond those two groups, marketers may want to create messaging to reach Greens (those who prioritize the environment) and Millennials (younger, tech-friendly consumers who prioritize convenience), and even some Laggards (who have little interest in technology, but put effort into having well-run homes), Branca says. 

“There are consumers in those groups that don’t relate with technology much, but they have latent needs for such devices,” Branca tells Marketing Daily. Messaging, he says, should focus on filling that latent need for the consumers. 

The Strugglers, meanwhile, may be the hardest to reach. As a group, they have lower incomes, little interest in technology and do not frequently invest in home improvement updates, Branca says. While the group should not be excluded wholesale, marketers would be wiser to focus on the other segments in the short-term. 

“They should put a focus on messaging [targeted] at the needs that are more clearly expressed for the other segments,” Branca says.