Segmenting a venue’s members from its own records

The question

A sports venue sells membership to individuals and to companies, and its account managers, membership services, sales, operations and marketing teams all serve those members.

Each team knew the members well, in its own way. The brief set one condition above the rest: every member had to be placed in a segment, accurately, from data the venue already held, so any team could look a member up.

Our approach

We built the segments twice: first from what members told us they need, as the target to aim for, and then from what the venue already knew about every member.

With the venue’s data team, we merged its member records with the survey and tried one way after another of rebuilding the segments from fields held for everyone, judging each attempt by how closely it reproduced the needs-based target and stopping when the next attempt no longer came closer.

We kept the solution deliberately simple, a small number of clear segments, because account managers and sales teams would need to use it quickly.

What the team came away with

An allocation tool placed every current member in one segment, so any team could look a member up. New members can be placed once the venue has enough history on them.

Data tables and segment portraits sat behind it, with each segment described in terms of what members need and what the venue already records about them.

A full shareout took the segments to the leads of hospitality, account management, membership services, sales and marketing, with a view for each team of what the segments would let it do differently.

Senior managers now had member evidence to refer to in business decisions, alongside what their teams know from working with members every day.