Marketing Audience Strategy

Audience Targeting and Segmentation

A practical course on identifying the right people, grouping them intelligently, and tailoring marketing with confidence

Audience Targeting and Segmentation logo
Quick Course Facts
16
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
16
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
5.1
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Audience Targeting and Segmentation Course

Audience Targeting and Segmentation is a practical Marketing course that shows you how to identify the right people, group them intelligently, and tailor your approach with confidence. You’ll learn how stronger audience insight can improve relevance, reduce wasted effort, and help your campaigns connect with the people most likely to respond.

Master Audience Targeting And Segmentation For Smarter Marketing

  • Learn a practical course on identifying the right people, grouping them intelligently, and tailoring marketing with confidence
  • Build clear segments that support better positioning, messaging, and channel decisions
  • Use demographic, behavioural, psychographic, and needs-based methods with confidence
  • Apply Audience Targeting and Segmentation across the customer journey to improve results

A practical framework for turning audience data into actionable Marketing segments.

This course begins with the foundations of audience strategy, helping you understand why segmentation matters and how to move from a broad market view to a defined audience focus. You’ll explore the core models used in Marketing and learn when to apply each one, so your targeting choices are grounded in purpose rather than guesswork.

As you progress, you’ll examine demographic and geographic segments alongside psychographic and behavioural approaches, giving you a well-rounded toolkit for understanding different types of audiences. The course also covers needs-based segmentation, data sources, and the criteria that make segments useful, so you can create groups that are both meaningful and actionable.

You’ll also learn how personas relate to segments, how to use audience insights across paid and owned channels, and how to match messaging to each segment with the right tone, offer, and proof points. With lessons on segmenting the customer journey, testing your assumptions, avoiding common mistakes, and operationalising your process, this course helps you turn strategy into everyday practice. By the end, you’ll be able to build smarter audience frameworks, make more confident Marketing decisions, and create campaigns that speak more directly to the people you want to reach.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations of audience strategy

1 lesson

Why segmentation matters is the foundation of effective audience strategy. When you treat a market as one large group, you usually end up with generic messaging, inefficient spend, and weak conversion…

Defining the people you serve

1 lesson

Lesson 2: From Market to Audience

18 min
This lesson explains the shift from thinking about a market as a broad commercial space to defining a clear audience you can actually reach, study, and serve. You will learn how to distinguish a total…

Core approaches and when to use them

1 lesson

Lesson 3: Segmentation Models Explained

20 min
This lesson explains the main segmentation models used in marketing and when each one is most useful. You will learn how to choose between demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioral, firmograp…

Basic variables with practical limits

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Demographic and Geographic Segments

18 min
This lesson explains how to use demographic and geographic variables to define audience segments in a practical, limited way. You will learn which factors are useful, which ones are too broad or too r…

Values, attitudes, motivations, and lifestyle

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Psychographic Segmentation

20 min
Psychographic segmentation groups people by what they value, believe, want, and how they live—not just by who they are on paper. In this lesson, Professor David Grant explains how to identify meaningf…

Actions, usage patterns, and buying signals

1 lesson

Lesson 6: Behavioural Segmentation

20 min
Behavioural segmentation groups people by what they do , not just who they are. In this lesson, Professor David Grant shows how to use actions, usage patterns, and buying signals to identify segments …

Grouping people by problems to solve

1 lesson

Lesson 7: Needs-Based Segmentation

20 min
Needs-based segmentation groups an audience by the problems they are trying to solve , not just by who they are. In this lesson, Professor David Grant shows how to identify customer needs, turn them i…

Using first-party, second-party, and third-party inputs

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Data Sources for Segmentation

18 min
This lesson explains where segmentation data comes from and how to choose the right inputs for practical audience targeting. You will learn the differences between first-party , second-party , and thi…

Criteria for useful and actionable groups

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Building Segments That Work

20 min
Useful segments are not just descriptive; they are actionable . In this lesson, Professor David Grant shows how to build audience segments that are clear, measurable, and tied to decisions you can act…

When to use each and how they connect

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Personas Versus Segments

18 min
This lesson clarifies the difference between personas and segments , and shows when each one is the better tool. Personas help teams picture the motivations, goals, and barriers of a specific type of …

Applying segments across paid and owned channels

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Targeting Channels and Media

20 min
This lesson shows how to turn audience segments into channel decisions. You will learn how to match segment intent, behavior, and value to paid and owned media so each group sees the right message in …

Matching offers, tone, and proof points

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Messaging for Each Segment

20 min
This lesson shows how to turn audience segments into clear, usable messaging choices. The goal is not to rewrite your entire brand for each group, but to adapt the offer , tone , and proof points so e…

Awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Segmenting the Customer Journey

20 min
This lesson shows how to segment an audience by where people are in the customer journey : awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. You will learn how to recognize the needs, questions, an…

Checking whether segments improve outcomes

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Testing and Validating Segments

18 min
In this lesson, you will learn how to tell whether a segment is actually useful, not just interesting on paper. We will focus on practical testing methods, the right metrics to compare, and how to sep…

Overlap, complexity, and weak assumptions

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Avoiding Common Segmentation Mistakes

18 min
This lesson shows how segmentation goes wrong in practice and how to avoid the most common traps: overlapping segments, overly complex segment models, and assumptions that are not supported by data. Y…

Embedding audience strategy into daily marketing

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Operationalising Segmentation

20 min
This lesson shows how to turn segmentation from a planning exercise into a working part of day-to-day marketing. You will learn how to translate segments into campaign rules, content choices, channel …
About Your Instructor
Professor David Grant

Professor David Grant

Professor David Grant guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.