
Segmented pricing is the process by which an organization subdivides its broader target audience into several smaller segments. This way you can identify several smaller sub-target groups from one target group. All these smaller segments can be classified according to specific properties or characteristics. As an organization you can set an individual price for all these different segments, to anticipate the differences in the willingness to pay of the different segments.
One note: price segmentation only happens when the same product is offered for a different price to different customer groups, it should not be confused with product segmentation, when a slightly different product is offered for a different price.
You can use segmented-based pricing in several ways. This really depends on your use case. Let's give you some examples of how you could use it segmented-based pricing.
If you have no clue about what your product is worth, you can copy the prices of competitors or substitute products, to offer a price that would likely work in the market.
When you set your price at a certain point in comparison to the market, you can expect to maintain the same market share, when prices and demand stay constant, or even better, you can automate it for changes in the market.
The big advantage of segmented based pricing is that organizations can improve their profit margin and revenue per target group. Instead of offering one average best price, organizations can offer the optimal price for multiple sub-target groups.
This leads to a smarter target audience, as multiple price points speak to multiple different target groups. By doing this, companies are able to capture more value in comparison to scenarios where only one price is offered.
A classic example of segmented based pricing is the ticket sales system of cinemas. Usually, cinemas have different prices for the same movie ticket for different people. Seniors, students and young children usually get a discount, while normal working adults don’t. This way, cinemas segment the broader target audience into smaller segments based on age. By offering discounts to different target groups, they make it more attractive for these specific people to buy a ticket.
Tableau is a data visualisation and analysis software tool that uses segmented based pricing. Tableau offers different licenses to different users, but if you want to access all the features, one has to pay up to €840. However, they offer the entire software package for free to enrolled students. Tableau does this to make students get used to their software, so that when they start working professionally, they are more likely to continue using the software and start paying for it.
Many B2B companies segment, based on the size of the purchasing company. Most often, larger businesses order larger quantities than smaller sized companies and in order to incentivize larger orders, B2B companies often offer increasingly better discounts for larger purchases.
Incorporating segmented-based pricing in your company can be a challenging task for companies with a wide variety of clients. There are many variables to consider and it is really important to be careful when adjusting prices in order not to lose valuable customers. We suggest following these steps in order to successfully implement segmented pricing in your company:
Doing the segmentation for different target groups can be a difficult process since it can time-consuming and complicated. Furthermore applying the prices to different clients correctly can be even more challenging and error-prone. That is why we have created the segmented pricing strategy in SYMSON. We suggest to set it up following these steps:
Positioning your prices in your competitive landscape is challenging, because of the constantly changing market, conditions, and prices. Using tools like Symson really helps you to get insights into this pricing landscape. But the question remains for you as a company, how you should implement such a strategy. In order to do so, we recommend following these steps.
Define the logic in the Symson platform to get the prices of your competitors. You could decide to configure a list of your top 10 key- competitors. Symson can get all the pricing data from Google Shopping or specific imports or website scrapers can be used to get the prices of your competitors.
After this is configured you can configure your price position to your competitors. You could be the cheapest, most expensive compared to number xx in the market, but you could also add manual business rules, or use logic from other strategies in order to get your perfect price.