The STP framework: Building customer-centric marketing strategies

The STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) framework is a key marketing model that helps businesses fine-tune their strategies for better results. Rather than focusing on the product, it shifts attention to the customer, making it easier to identify specific audience groups, tailor messages for them, and establish a strong brand presence. When the inputs come from unfiltered social chatter, STP turns from theory into a real-time GPS.

Marketing strategies have evolved significantly, with one of the biggest shifts being the move from product-centred to customer-centred approaches. STP plays a central role in this evolution. It follows a three-step process: segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

Segmentation breaks the market down using factors such as demographics, geography, psychographics, and behaviour. Today, that list should also include sentiment drivers, meme vocab, and emerging community rituals discovered in comment sections. Then, in the targeting phase, businesses select which segments to focus on by evaluating their size, profitability, and how easy they are to reach. Finally, positioning involves creating marketing messages that resonate with the specific needs of the selected audience.

Take Apple, for instance. They use demographic segmentation to focus on high-income individuals and position their products as premium offerings. And now, thanks to AI-powered platforms like Sence, those connections can be strengthened by understanding what audiences are actually saying in social media comment sections. This helps brands align not just with who their audience is, but with what matters to them.

Understanding the core components of STP

The STP framework is made up of three interconnected stages. Each one builds on the last, creating a streamlined and effective marketing strategy.

Segmentation, powered by conversational intelligence

With tools like Sence, segmentation can incorporate insights from large-scale social media conversations, letting brands go beyond demographics and segment based on emotional drivers, intent, or recurring themes.

Targeting, prioritise communities, not spreadsheets

Conversational intelligence reveals which communities are actively expressing unmet needs, recurring pain points, or emerging interests in real time. This helps brands prioritise which conversations, and therefore which groups, deserve attention.

Positioning, speak your community’s language

Modern platforms provide context-aware insights. Brands can fine-tune messaging to reflect the real language, sentiment, and cultural nuance expressed by their communities, making positioning more precise and relevant.

STP Framework Components

Why STP is essential for modern marketing

The STP framework is far more than just a theory. It’s a practical tool that gives businesses a competitive edge. In the age of misinformation and hyper-fragmented platforms, it is also a guardrail that protects communities by ensuring brands show up with relevance and respect.

By understanding the specific needs of different customer groups, brands can create more personalised experiences. This leads to greater satisfaction and engagement. Add comment-level insights and you also catch toxicity early, reducing moderation costs and safeguarding brand trust.

Market segmentation that actually drives results

Effective STP goes beyond simply dividing your market. It's about identifying the segments that genuinely drive business growth. Conversation-led segmentation surfaces hidden needs before they appear in sales dashboards.

Four key segmentation approaches

• Demographic: Age, gender, income, education, occupation. May miss values or frustrations.
• Geographic: Location or climate. Works for logistics-bound offers.
• Psychographic: Values, lifestyle, interests. Best enriched with comment sentiment for depth.
• Behavioral: Purchase patterns and on-site actions. Layer in frustration or delight signals from reviews for a full picture.
  
  

Choosing the right segmentation approach for maximum ROI

Different strategies produce different outcomes. Start with one traditional lens, then overlay conversation themes in Sence to validate or refine it.

Common segmentation pitfalls

• Segments too broad – weak messaging.
• No test or validation – outdated assumptions.
• Ignoring community discourse – you miss fast-moving micro-needs.

Strategic targeting: Selecting segments worth pursuing

Once you've segmented your market, the next key step is targeting. Use Sence’s Community Insights solution to score segments by volume of conversation, sentiment and other key indicators of opinion.

Positioning that creates genuine competitive advantage

Positioning is about defining the unique place your brand holds in the minds of your target audience. Leverage perceptual mapping plus live comment heatmaps to identify whitespace you can own.

Personalisation at scale: The ultimate STP payoff

Consumers anticipate a personalised experience. Fifty-nine percent of shoppers purchase after a personalised interaction – source: Deloitte 2024 CX study. Conversational intelligence fills the gap between static data and living context.

Ready to turn unstructured chatter into growth?

Book a Sence demo to see how conversational intelligence plugs into your STP workflow in under one day. Or explore our Community Protection checklist for moderation best practices.

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