The other day, I was talking with a client who sells Indian chai.
She told me:
“One of the most frustrating things for us is…
Many customers in the US believe that the Starbucks Chai Latte is chai… when it’s simply 70% sugar.”
It’s true.
Everything at Starbucks is infused with so much sugar.
(Even when you ask for “no sugar,” the drink is still overly sweet because of the flavoring and syrups they add.)
Lesson?
What tastes… feels… sounds good on the surface can come with a lot of hidden problems.
Take segmentation, for example.
The idea is great –
Send tailored messages to the specific audiences to get the highest engagement (and conversion rate). But in reality…
It almost never works this way.
Just like my chai client.
When I onboarded her a few months ago, she told me that their chai audiences are young, adventurous, love discounts, and do NOT buy single-estate tea.
(they made it very, very clear that a chai customer would never buy a First Flush… or Autumn Flush… and I should not cross-sell estate tea to chai buyers)
That’s why they never promote teas to chai buyers.
But when I dig into the data…
I discovered that 49.6% of chai buyers HAD bought other products.
This means…
If you “segment” them out of the tea campaign, you are losing sales.
In addition…
Because single estate teas lead to higher customer lifetime value…
This means “segmentation” was costing my client A LOT of long-term revenue, too.
That’s why my segmentation strategy has always been –
Keep it simple.
Focus on writing stories that EVERYONE would find entertaining.
(Thinking about it… Maybe that’s Starbucks’ strategy, too? Instead of trying to use complicated ingredients… why not just focus on using a lot of sugar to entertain everyone? 🤪)
To your success,
– WYH