When HP, the information technology company, introduced a new line of secure printers, it presumed it knew the target audience: chief information officers (CIOs) and IT managers.
But as marketing research tested different approaches – segmenting and analyzing response data throughout the customer journey – the Palo Alto, California-based enterprise discovered it had identified the wrong target.
“One of the big learnings we had was the person who really responded to us was not the CIO or the IT manager, who we thought would be the guys who would respond,” admitted Shuchi Sarkar, global marketing head for HP’s graphics solution...