Young women, families with young children – we’ve heard about these segments within the frozen yogurt market, but how much do we really know about them beyond demographics? We recently took a closer look at our data from the National Frozen Yogurt Consumer Survey. The survey includes many questions about frozen yogurt attitudes and preferences, including interest in new flavors, interest in innovative flavors, importance of the self-serve format, desire for a wide variety of frozen yogurt flavors, etc. Those questions allow us to create customer segments that go beyond demographics. The survey focused on frozen yogurt shops.
We found four customer segments using cluster analysis.
Indifferent Froyo Eaters (6%): This is the smallest segment, accounting for 4% of respondents. People in this segment don’t hate or love frozen yogurt, so they do not have strong preferences for yogurt or shop attributes. They’ll eat frozen yogurt if it’s convenient but they won’t go out of their way for their yogurt fix. They go to get frozen yogurt because they’re with someone who wants froyo. They spend the least amount per month on frozen yogurt and froyo quality is the least important to them. There isn’t much that shops can do to appeal to this group. Note, this segment is likely larger than 6% because the members are probably less likely to respond to a frozen yogurt survey as well. We also didn’t measure how many people do not visit frozen yogurt shops.
Old School Froyo Crowd (35%): The customers in this segment strongly prefer sweet to tart froyo. They stick with the few flavors that they like and are not drawn to the self-serve format. Having a wide variety or innovative flavors is not as important to them. Of all the segments, they’re the most likely to get froyo with someone else; 64% said that they get froyo with someone else over 75% of the time.
Adventurous Froyo Lovers (20%): This group likes a wider range of froyo flavors and they prefer sweet to tart froyo. They’re the most likely to try new flavors and they like the self-serve format. They tend to be middle aged, from 35-54 years old. They spend the most per month on frozen yogurt.
Mainstream Froyo Lovers (39%): This is largest segment of the market. The consumers in this group like trying new flavors though they’re not the most adventurous when it comes to innovative flavors. They like sweet and tart froyo and prefer the self-serve format. They tend to be younger (under 35 years of age) and spend more than the Old School Froyo Customers per month on froyo but less than the Adventurous Froyo Lovers.
The challenge is to appeal to the Adventurous Froyo Lovers and Mainstream Froyo Lovers. Keeping the classic flavors in stock might be enough to keep the Old School Froyo Crowd coming back. New flavors seem to be the key to catching the interest of these desirable market segments.
