Six Steps to Using Jobs to be Done for Market Segmentation

Jobs to be Done is a hot concept. Companies as wide ranging as Nestlé, Clorox, and Cisco have been using the theory to double down on customer centricity. Given that I co-authored one of leading books on the topic, this development is good news. However, I’m dismayed to see how people struggle with using the framework for market segmentation. They tend to over-simplistically bifurcate markets, define segments around jobs that are actually universally important, or frame the analysis from the wrong starting places (e.g., what people are buying today). There is a much better way.

To use Jobs to be Done for market segmentation, follow these six steps:

1. Establish what you will use the segmentation for
2. Define your independent and dependent variables (i.e., the causation that you’re seeking to understand)
3. Undertake a jobs-based analysis to determine functional and emotional jobs, as well as the attitudinal and contextual drivers that lead people to prioritize different jobs or distinct occasions
4. Sort out which variables are useful, due to having data sufficiently available, having a straightforward relationship to your chain of causation, and having as little overlap as possible with other variables being used
5. Create a way to frame the market in a clear fashion
6. Determine so-what implications

Read the rest of Stephen Wunker’s article — including a detailed example that illustrates these six steps — on his Forbes blog.

Learn more about Jobs to be Done thinking in practice at www.newmarketsadvisors.com!