1) What approach did you take to "truly understand" your target segment (there are 100s of them)
2) How were you able to reach them to "very little cost" due to "really understanding them"?
I really like the abstract idea of "understanding your target segment so well that you're able to detect where they are", but seen no one so far provide concrete examples on how they did it.
For us, it's pretty simple to talk about our product because we're helping improve sleep. It's such a common problem in today's society, and the existing "solutions", focus on comfort, other physiological changes (cool pads, weighted blankets), ear plugs, eye masks, etc etc. We're using neuro-feedback to alter your sleep state. It's pretty magical. If you want to find out more, check out https://soundmind.co
So, we talk to people and not only about their sleep, but about how it affects their life, what do they do about it, what do they try, what works for them, what doesn't. From here, we were able to build comprehensive user personas, and those personas describe where our users are.
It was also super interesting for us to find that almost nobody talks to their doctors about sleep, very few people we spoke to had been to a sleep lab+.
When you say there are 100s of target segments, yes, you're right, but you don't care about those. I think you care about two things.
1) can you create a customer persona or two, which are large enough to be viable to get the business started
2) is there a common thing that they do, or place where they congregate to reach them?
Don't make a checklist of all the places they could be or all the possible segments, just talk to people, and look for the commonality, let them self-suggest.
That's my 2 cents anyway.
You've mentioned asking people about their sleep, what they do about it, what did they try.
Have you tried something like:
a) Asking: What are the last 10 places on the web (related to improving your sleep) that you visited?
Another way to formulate the question:
"What sleep-related sites/communities/etc. did you visit over the past 10 days?"
b) This is just my idea, but wanted to hear your opinion: Give them a gamified experience (top 100 resources on the web for improving your sleep), but before they see each "section" (1 section=1 acquisition channel, like a FB group, subreddit, etc), they need to shortly type the answer to "What [section] (related to sleep) have you visited?". Can be a simple quiz-like experience using a input box.
Curious to hear your thoughts.
To answer your questions, no, we specifically did not ask questions in a survey style like you're suggesting. No "what are the last 10 places on the web", or anything of the sort.
I've taken a very conversational approach, so there is nothing specifically structured there. I knew I was trying to create a customer persona, and there are a few specific questions I knew I wanted answers to, but not a survey, a conversation.
I'll lead the conversation along the lines of "what have you tried to help you sleep", then based on that "how did you hear about that", "how did you decide what eye mask to buy", "I haven't heard of that solution before, where did you find it?", "who do you talk to about your sleep issues, why them, do they have sleep trouble as well?"
I was looking to understand the customer, not specifically looking for a channel, but in those discussions we found some very surprising consistencies which made us go...what?...that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! but then...yeah, it's a thing I guess :)
I see a few issues with the "What sleep related sites..." questions, which I think many people would likely ask.
1) If you're in the market, you should know those sites without them telling you. So you're kinda wasting your time and theirs. Specific to sleep, most people don't even speak to their doctors about sleep, so their isn't a "place they go", it's more a "what do you do", and then pulling on that string.
2) Competitors are likely at any site related to your community, so you're just adding to the noise (same as being the noise in a facebook advertisement, etc).
I don't know what you mean about a "gamified experience", your customers are people, treat them that way. I don't think you need 1000 answers. Speak to a few people a day, and in a few months you've got more than 100 people, and you should be able to spot the necessary threads.