Understanding the Needs of Different User Segments

Understanding the Needs of Different User Segments:

    • Diffusion Segments of Innovation:
      • (1) Innovators
      • (2) Early Adopters
      • (3) Early Majorities
      • (4) Late Majorities
      • (5) Laggards
      • (6) Persistent Septics

Innovators:

    • Often lavish great time, energy and creativity on developing new ideas and gadgets.
    • How to work with Innovators:
      • Invite keen innovators to be partners in designing the project.
      • Recruit and train them as Peer Educators.

Early Adopters:

    • On the lookout for a strategic leap forward in their lives or businesses,
      • Quick to make connections between clever innovations and their personal needs.
      • Tend to be more economically successful, well connected and well informed and hence more socially respected.
    • How to work with Early Adopters:
      • Offer strong face-to-face support for a limited number of early adopters to trial the new idea.
      • Study the trials carefully to discover how to make the idea more convenient, low cost and marketable.
      • Reward their egos e.g. with media coverage.
      • Promote them as Fashion Leaders (beginning with the cultish end of the media market).
      • Maintain relationships with regular feedback.

Early Majority:

    • Pragmatists, comfortable with moderately progressive ideas, but won’t act without solid proof of benefits.
      • Want to hear “industry standard” and “endorsed by normal, respectable folks”.
      • Looking for simple, proven, better ways of doing what they already do.
      • Require:
        • Guaranteed off-the-shelf performance,
        • Minimum disruption,
        • Minimum commitment of time,
        • Minimum learning,
        • Cost neutrality,
        • Rapid payback periods.
    • How to work with the Early Majority:
        • Offer give-aways or competitions to stimulate buzz.
        • Use mainstream advertising and media stories featuring endorsements from credible, respected, similar folks.
        • Lower the entry cost and guarantee performance.
        • Redesign to maximise ease and simplicity.
        • Cut the red tape: simplify application forms and instructions.
        • Provide strong customer service and support.

Late Majority:

    • Conservative pragmatists who hate risk and are uncomfortable with new ideas.
      • Practically their only driver is the fear of not fitting in, hence they will follow mainstream fashions and established standards.
      • Often influenced by the fears and opinions of Laggards.
    • How to work with the Late Majority:
      • Focus on promoting social norms rather than just product benefits:
        • Want to hear that other conservative folks like them think it’s normal or indispensable.
        • Keep refining the product to increase convenience and reduce costs.
        • Emphasise the risks of being left behind.
        • Respond to criticisms from Laggards.

Laggards:

    • See a high risk in adopting a particular product or behavior.
      • Worried they stay awake all night, tossing and turning, thinking up arguments against it.
    • How to work with Laggards:
      • Give them high levels of personal control over when, where, how they do the new behavior.
      • Maximize their familiarity with new products or behaviours.
      • Let them see other Laggards successfully adopting the innovation.

How big is each segment?

    • Innovators: 2.5%
    • Early Adopters: 13.5%
    • Early majority: 34%
    • Late majority: 34%
    • Laggards: 16%