Engagement and readership matter more than ever under OA, but getting content seen by the right eyes at the right time is no easy feat. 

Over-promote irrelevant content or blast it out to readers that aren’t interested, and you’ll lose their attention and trust. 

Under-promote it, and it’ll go unnoticed entirely. 

The solution? Smart audience segmentation. 

Dividing users into distinct groups based on common behaviors, interests and attributes is the key to efficient content distribution. By understanding your users' differences, you can tailor messaging and campaigns to only those who are likely to be interested and engaged. 

Done right, segmentation helps you:

  • Increase content engagement
  • Reduce subscriber fatigue from irrelevant notifications
  • Drive event registrations or sign-ups for special programs
  • Spend marketing dollars more efficiently 

Here’s how publishers and media companies can get started crafting targeted segments for smarter content marketing.

Lay the Foundation with Data

The best segments begin with rich, connected user profiles. 

Essentially, the more you know about each individual audience member, the better you can group similar users and predict their interests. Useful profile data includes:

  • Contact info like name, email and location
  • Demographics such as age, gender and education
  • Firmographic details - industry, title, company size
  • CRM interactions and purchases
  • Content behaviors - articles read, topics with high engagement, downloads

Hum brings together data across these disparate sources and builds it into a “golden record,” or unified profile, for every reader, author, reviewer, member, and librarian in your audience. This single view makes it easy to analyze trends and build detailed segments without wrestling with multiple platforms.

Keep Segments Dynamic

Recycling the same list that worked last time? 

Marketers that use segments based on out of date or incomplete profile information run the risk of messaging the wrong people at the wrong time, which can be annoying to readers (at best), and catastrophic for your organization (at worst.)

Dynamic segments adjust based on real-time incoming data from your website, social platforms, and more - meaning segments stay current as users continue to engage. 

For example, if a user reads 4 articles about cell biology this morning, their content recommendations may shift dramatically. If a member registered for a webinar 4 minutes ago, they’ll automatically be enrolled in a registered members segment and prevented from receiving further promotional emails about it. 

Keeping segments dynamic ensures messaging remains relevant as interests change.

A Segmentation Secret Weapon: Profile Search

Hum’s Profile Search feature makes it simple to find the right audience for every piece of content. Paste a webinar description or article summary into Hum and use AI to generate a segment of readers whose interests match.

Alchemist, Hum’s AI engine, understands the context and theme of your content, and does an audience deep search to predict which readers or members are likely to be interested in that content based on their past behavior.

Turn Insights into Action

Of course, identifying the perfect segments is only step one. Activation is key. 

Marry segments to campaigns through:

  • Targeted social media promotions
  • Segment-specific newsletters or content recommendations
  • Personalized on-site messaging or pop-up live engagement campaigns
  • Tailored email outreach and advertisements

Looking for a data and AI-backed way to improve the way you segment and personalize for your audience? Hum delivers business-critical intelligence to content-driven organizations like publishers, media organizations, and associations.