No one likes being bombarded with content, especially with content that has nothing to do with them. The most effective marketing and advertising strategies incorporate behavioral segmentation. But what exactly is it?

Don’t be scared off by “behavioral”—you don’t have to put your audience on the couch. Unlike psychographic and demographic segmentation, which explores who your audience is—their identity, motivation and values—behavioral segmentation looks at what they actually do. In fact, it is used to confirm the accuracy of your psychographic and demographic data.

Let’s see how this might be applied to improve your content marketing.

Timeliness: By knowing what decision a person is making and, just as important, when they make it, you can effectively segment your marketing campaign to a specific user.

Example: A working professional purchases coffee each morning Monday through Friday from the franchise coffee shop—your client—near her downtown office. On weekends, the professional doesn’t buy coffee there, because she’s home and no where near where she works.  So sending her a discount coupon on a Monday morning is going to be ineffective.

TIP: Time your content interactions to coincide with the highest likelihood of engagement or conversion.

Relevancy: Let’s go back to our caffeinated professional. We’ve determined the best time to stay relevant to her is from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.  What then?

We might send her a coupon for 20% off the next purchase, or better yet, a free coffee with a purchase of coffee beans. Should this offer have a limited time frame? Absolutely. This is a special, one time limited offer that expires Sunday at 11:00 pm. (Until we repeat this the following weekend, of course.)

TIP: Content must be relevant to the audience, but it also must be relevant to your intended  outcome.

Channel: We now know when to interact with our audience and the means of connection that  will be most effective. Now, how do we do it?

Did the professional order coffee in the store or on an app? Knowing that will enable us to select the digital channel or delivery where she’s most likely to see the offer—i.e.  through push notifications or mobile ads.

TIP: Segment your audience based on purchase trends or usage trends to determine the correct marketing channel.

When behavioral segmentation is used in combination with psychographic and demographic data, you can get a complete and actionable picture of your target audience—how they think and how they act. In turn, your content marketing will be targeted, relevant and timely.

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