The tool has been developed from an analysis of the company’s whole database of projects to develop a set of measures to determine how good a segmentation solution is and these measures are combined to form a single score.

Each segmentation solution is compared with others developed for a project, and with the other segmentations in the Bonamy Finch database.

Leigh Morris, managing director of Bonamy Finch said: “We have run over 800 segmentations in more than 40 categories at the last count. One thing that has always struck us as seriously remiss within segmentation is the availability of simple to interpret, meaningful statistical indicators of whether or not a particular solution is any good. Our experience tells us that what really makes a segmentation successful is whether the segments themselves tell a good story.”

Morris added that there are two fundamental indicators: does each segment clearly stand out on some things, as opposed to nothing or everything; and are the things they stand out on actually important to what people do in the category?

The measures are weighted in BoFiLer and combined to form a single metric (similar to a % and interpreted as such) called the Segmentation Evaluation Net Score (SENS).

“We wouldn’t recommend choosing a segmentation solution based on the SENS metric alone, but we do believe it provides clearer guidance than has been available up until now on which ones not to choose,” added Morris.