Market Segment Penetration

Does Insurance need to stop calling itself “Insurance” to grow in Africa? Yes - in customer facing language and product packaging. No - in legal and #regulatory classification This post is inspired by a discussion on the topic we had yesterday at the AXIAN Digibank & Fintech Annual Forum in Senegal. This is Post 1️⃣ of 2️⃣ The binding constraint in most Sub-Saharan markets is not “lack of risk”, its lack of trust, low comprehension, and high friction at the moment of value (claims). The word “INSURANCE” often encodes - paperwork, exclusions, delayed payouts, and disputes If you want penetration, you sell “protection” embedded into products people already use weekly: payments, savings, credit, merchant tools and not insurance The practical principle that I am proposing is simple: ☑️ Call it “insurance” to the regulator. ☑️ Sell it as “protection” to the customer. ☑️ Design it so the customer exp value without a PhD in policy wordings ⸻ Should #mobilemoney players pursue an #insurtech pillar? Yes - if they treat it as a distribution + claims experience business, not an #underwriting business Mobile money players should not wake up and decide to “become insurers”. They should build a #Protection pillar that does four things: 1️⃣ Bundles simple covers into high-frequency journeys (loan, savings, device, merchant acceptance, remittances) 2️⃣ Collects premiums frictionlessly (wallet auto-debit; pay-as-you-go; tiny ticket sizes) 3️⃣ Wins on claims (fast, predictable, transparent) 4️⃣ Push the innovation in the product structure (think parameteric, embedded, etc) ❌ Avoid: launching a “marketplace” of 12 insurance products. That’s a catalogue, not a penetration strategy ⸻ Where to play and who to target 🎯 Pick markets and segments where “embedded” is structurally advantaged. What does that mean? Prioritise countries/ business lines where you have: ➖ High active #wallet usage, not just registrations ➖ Existing #digitalcredit or savings motion (strongest embed points) ➖ Dense agent/merchant network (cash-in/out + servicing + trust) ➖ Regulatory clarity for #microinsurance distribution ➖ At least one capable insurer/ #reinsurer partner willing to design for digital claims SLAs Segment priority (who to target) Start where pain is frequent and willingness-to-pay is real: ➖ Digital credit users: Embed loan protection / credit life / disability cover as the default “repayment resilience” feature ➖ Mass-market families with volatile income: Embed hospital cover inside “savings goals” or “family wallet plans” ➖ Micro and small merchants (your merchant ecosystem is your moat). Embed business interruption micro-cover, fire/theft micro-cover, liability lite, and device/POS protection ➖ Gig / informal workers: Embed income #protection proxies (hospital cash, accident) tied to regular wallet activity. ➖ Remittance recipients (if you have corridors): Embed funeral/health micro-covers triggered by remittance receipt patterns Part 2 next

🧠 How do tiny brands (<1% share) actually grow? A new study from Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (Alicia Barker-Trowse, Steven Dunn, Charles Graham, Byron Sharp, Armando Maria Corsi) looked directly at that question using 5 years of shopper panel data across 20 CPG categories. It’s one of the first papers to study tiny brands on their own instead of lumping them into “All Others.” Here’s what they found — and what it means for brand marketers. 📌 The setup Researchers analyzed more than 400 brands, grouped by market share: ‣ Tiny: <1% ‣ Small: 1–2.9% ‣ Medium: 3–9.9% ‣ Large: 10%+ They compared each brand’s penetration and loyalty to the patterns you’d normally expect for brands of different sizes. Then they tracked how penetration, loyalty, and market share changed over five years. 🧪 What they found 1️⃣ Tiny brands don’t have niche loyalty. Most have deficit loyalty. 69% of tiny brands had lower repeat rates than expected. Only 16% showed any excess loyalty. So the idea of “lean into your superfans” isn’t backed by the evidence. 2️⃣ Loyalty deviations don’t predict outcomes. Whether a tiny brand had excess, expected, or deficit loyalty… About a third grew About a third declined Many disappeared entirely Loyalty wasn’t the differentiator. 3️⃣ Growth comes from penetration — not loyalty. Growing tiny brands: +135% penetration +26% frequency Declining brands: shrinking penetration and deepening loyalty deficits. 4️⃣ Loyalty improves as brands grow. Not because teams “fix loyalty,” but because loyalty naturally moves toward Double Jeopardy norms as penetration increases. 💡 What this means for brand marketers ‣ Penetration is the growth lever, even for the smallest brands. ‣ Niche loyalty plays rarely work — tiny brands behave like all brands. ‣ Mental + physical availability matter most. ‣ Loyalty follows scale, not the other way around. In short: Even the tiniest brands win by reaching more category buyers, not by deepening loyalty with a narrow base. 📚 Full study: https://lnkd.in/g4vHUXdG

Business Case: “The Power of the Tiny SKU” Context: GT retailers in underdeveloped urban and rural belts often deal with: • Limited working capital • Limited shelf space • Customers asking: “Aur chhota packet hai kya?” So how do we get penetration without punching the retailer’s wallet? Answer: Hyper-localized SKUs. What is a Hyper-Localized SKU? • It’s not just a “small pack.” • It’s a smartly designed product based on: • Local affordability levels • Usage patterns (daily vs occasional) • Storage constraints • Regional tastes Real-Life Examples: 1. Shampoo Sachets in Tier-3 Towns • Before: 180ml shampoo bottle (Rs. 120) — dead stock for months. • After: 1 Re sachet — gets sold daily. • Result: 1 bottle = 120 rupees, 1 sachet daily x 30 days = Rs. 150 revenue/month + faster rotation. Funny Insight: Retailer: “Sir, bottle ka dhakkan to bhi kholne ka mann nahi karta… sachet bikta hai roz!” 2. Biscuits in Rural Andhra • 10 Rs. pack didn’t move. • Introduced: Rs. 5, 3-piece pack = instant hit. • Reason: Tea stalls and school kids love small-time snacking. Funny Insight: Consumer: “Rs. 10 mein tea aur biscuit dono aana chahiye, nahi to vote nahi milega!” 3. Pickle Sachets in North India • Large jar was expensive + risky (goes bad). • Sachet of 20g @ Rs. 5 = high trials + fast repeat. Retailer POV: “Sir, ghar le jaake dabbe mein daal deta hoon, customer ko lagta hai home-made hai!” Benefits: Metric Before (Standard SKU) After (Localized SKU) Penetration 30% 65% Retailer Purchase Frequency Once a month Weekly Return Rate High (expired) Near zero Offtake Slow Zoom Zoom How to Build Localized SKUs: 1. Use Sales Data + Local Intelligence “What moves in Bihar may get stuck in Kerala.” 2. Talk to Retailers They know which product is the hero, and which one is the zero. 3. Field Trials in Micro Markets Test your Rs. 2 snack pack in 20 outlets before full rollout. 4. Adjust MOP without Affecting Margin Rs. 5 pack may have 40% margin but looks ‘cheap’ to the consumer. Final Punchline: “In rural GT, size matters — but smaller is sexier!” Big brands often win not because of advertising budgets, but because they speak the language of the local dukaan. And nothing speaks louder than a Rs. 2 or Rs. 5 pack flying off the shelf like hot samosas.

17% of banks reported no loan growth over the last year. Meanwhile, banks between $250M–$1B outperformed many larger institutions. Here’s how the winners are finding profitable loan growth: Many CEOs assume that loan demand dried up. The data says otherwise. Response rates have returned to long-term norms - and credit unions are seeing even higher response than banks. The opportunity exists. Most institutions are just looking in the wrong places. After analyzing hundreds of portfolios, one pattern is constant: Every bank has untapped loan opportunities inside its existing customer base. Here's what I look for first (and what we quantify): 1) High-deposit households In one community bank segment with $10k+ in deposits: • $42,562 average checking balance (capacity) • Only 1.7% had a home-equity product • ~28% gap to peer norms That’s balance-sheet growth sitting idle. 2) Capacity → Propensity “sweet spot” Deposit tiers predict usage. As balances rise from <$2,500 into mid-tiers, credit usage climbs (capacity) before tapering at the very top (propensity). The target: strong capacity households still actively using credit. 3) Mortgage + Checking linkage Mortgage customers with checking are 2–3× more likely to open home equity. One institution: 47.6% checking penetration among mortgage households (~2% above norm). Their home-equity penetration was 22% above norm. Connect the dots, you grow the book. The discipline: 1. Benchmark your portfolio vs. peers 2. Identify penetration gaps by segment/product 3. Target high-capacity customers with propensity indicators 4. Create awareness before they enter market 5. Track booked accounts and balances (not apps and clicks) Results when this is played correctly: • A Northeast bank: $268M in booked balances in one year; $76 effective CPA • Another program: $44 CPA with ~2-month payback • 990k-member credit union: $58M added; $114 CPA What doesn’t work: rate blasts that attract price shoppers who leave for 25 bps elsewhere. What does: mining your own data with intent. (Ours is built on 15B+ data points across community FIs.) I’ve sat in your chair. As a 2× bank CMO, I learned to make marketing earn its seat at the table: funded accounts, balances at 90 days, retention/LTV. That’s how you turn marketing from a cost center into a growth engine. At Infusion Marketing, we’ve run this model for 17 years and generated $25B+ in deposits and loans for community institutions - performance-based. If it doesn’t show up on your balance sheet, we don’t get paid. Every bank we analyze has these gaps. The question isn’t if they exist. It’s how quickly you’ll capture them. If you want loan growth that improves margin - not just volume - let’s talk.

The Most Underrated Strategy in Partnerships? Market Segment Planning. Most partner leaders obsess over partner types GSI, ISV, marketplace, SI, PE. But they skip the most important question: Who are we actually trying to reach and where are we most likely to win together? Market segment planning is the unlock. Think: - Enterprise vs mid-market vs SMB - Digital-led vs sales-led motions - Industry verticals or buyer personas - ICP overlap by geography or maturity When you map your GTM segments with your partners, a few things happen: 1. The noise disappears, you stop chasing “logo partners” and start building pipeline. 2. You sell faster, because both teams know exactly who to go after. 3. You scale smarter, with repeatable plays, not random acts of co-selling. So before you build your next partner program or campaign… Ask: Where are we most dangerous together? That’s your wedge. Curious, does your partner strategy start with the partner… or the market?

Your total addressable market slide is the least useful page in your deck. Investors have seen it a thousand times, and the number is always large enough to be meaningless. A $47 billion TAM tells investors nothing about whether you can win your next twenty accounts. What actually matters in diligence and in deal reviews is penetration. What percentage of your defined ICP have you closed? What is your win rate in the segment where you claim dominance? How many of the accounts you say you own could name you as a vendor without a prompt? The companies I advise that raise well and grow efficiently almost always have a small, clearly bounded market they can demonstrate ownership of. They do not lead with the size of the ocean. They lead with the depth of their hold on a specific harbour. TAM is a hypothesis. Penetration is evidence. Investors, board members, and acquirers are buying evidence. If you cannot answer "what percentage of your core niche do you own" with a specific number, you do not have a GTM problem. You have a measurement problem. And measurement problems become pricing problems, then valuation problems, then existential problems.

STOP Using Broad Targeting on Meta Ads (If you want a higher ROAS) After auditing $100M+ in ad spend across premium 8-9 figure e-commerce brands, here's the framework that's actually driving profitable scale: The Cascade Targeting System Most brands get targeting backwards. They deploy mass market messaging that no one listens to. Instead, they need to speak to many niche groups—personally. Optimize for resonance before reach. Here's the 3-layer framework that's generating a 3X-10X MER: → Level 1: Market Segments (Highest Impact) → Level 2: Personas (Secondary Impact) → Level 3: Angles (Tactical Impact) The AG1 Example: Instead of "Get healthier today" mass-market messaging, here's how they stack segments: Level 1 | Market Segments: → Travelers → Athletes → Busy Parents Let's use the busy parents segment as an example. This may breakdown into multiple personas as follows. Level 2 | Busy Parents Personas: → The Nutrition Research-Oriented Busy Parent → The Convenience-Focused Busy Parent → The Wellness-Minded Busy Parent Now we'll create different angles for each persona, let's just use the first one here. Level 3 | Nutrition Research-Oriented Busy Parent Angles: → "Nutrition you can trust for your family" → "Simple ingredients, 3rd-party tested, pediatrician-approved" → "Efficacious absorption for all gut biomes" To scale this, we can just add more angles, personas or market segments. The Data That Changes Everything: Mass appeal creative: Hits 15% of audience at 25% message resonance Hyper-targeted creative: Hits 100% of audience at 85% message resonance The Scaling Hierarchy (By Account Impact) 1. New Market Segments → Unlock entirely new customer pools (highest ROI) 2. New Personas → Deeper penetration within existing segments 3. New Angles → Tactical optimization within proven personas (lowest ROI) Here's what most brands miss: The biggest impact on account performance doesn't come from better creative execution. It comes from strategic market expansion. Most premium e-commerce brands are sitting on 5-10 untapped market segments. They're optimizing the wrong variable. The breakthrough happens when you stop asking "How do we appeal to more people?" and start asking "Which specific group haven't we spoken to yet?" Each new market segment you unlock is a step-function increase in addressable audience. Each new persona is incremental growth within that segment. Each new angle is tactical optimization towards converting that persona. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Start being everything to someone very specific. Then stack another segment. And another. That's how you build a $100M brand from targeted creative strategy.

Each 1% of Market Penetration = 1 Billion Dollars: What I'm Really Building At The WUI-er & Surviving Wildfires. Printing a newspaper in 2025 and sending it out in the mail? A Facebook Group full of exurban SUV-driving soccer moms? A daily YouTube show about keeping your kids safe from mountain lions and what other families have successfully done in a flash flood? From the outside all of this can look like madness. Here's the thinking explained. As we stand here today, national wildfire prevention brands - folks who manufacture, distribute and service goods and services made to help homeowners stay safe in the event of a wildfire - don't have a direct way of communicating and selling their products to residents of the WUI, those 110 million Americans in more than 35 million households who live in wildfire-prone areas. If I want to sell a $5000 handbag I can go to Vogue or Haper's Bazar or The Cut. If I want to sell compound bows I can run mid-rolls ad Cameron Hane's channel or have Joe Rogan read an ad. A new banking service for startups? I advertise across TBPN, The All In Pod or even Techcrunch and Hacker News. But if I want to sell ember-resistant vents and wildfire sprinklers and fire retardant and wildfire pumps to homeowners, I don't have a direct way of communicating with them. Efficient channels in this category simply do not exist. At present, the market penetration for wildfire protection gear in the WUI stands around 0%. There are most likely several thousand homes that have paid for wildfire mitigation products and equipment. Someone might argue that there's 10,000 or 20,000 of these households out there but that is still statistically insiginicant (there are 35 million households in the WUI). On the other hand, we know that the market penetration of sump pumps in homes with basements in areas with risk of flooding and/or high-water tables is north of 80%. Snow tires have a market penetration of 10%. 16% of all American homes have a video doorbell. Every $2500 worth of sprinklers, pumps, nozzles, tanks, retardant, shovels, Pulaskis, fire detection cameras, hoses, gloves, leaf blowers, adapters, values & couplings, portable generators, tool boxes, go-bags, ladders, fire blankets & foils and extinguishers sold to 1% of households in the WUI is a billion dollars of revenue. If we get to the market penetration of snow tires that's $10 billion. Sump pumps? Edging towards $100 billion. Sure, there's no expectation of reaching 80% market penetration, but 2% or 4% in channels with no competition and therefore reasonable CAC (customer acquisition costs) and CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) is an amazing opportunity for brands to reach the tens of millions of homeowners living in wildfire-prone areas. And that's what I'm building at WUI Media and The WUI-er and Surviving Wildfire channels in hardcopy and digital across the internet - that direct access to homeowners in the WUI.

New pure electric BEV passenger car registrations hit a new quarterly record during the most recent quarter (Q2 2025), according to the latest Schmidt Automotive Research data. As new CAFE targets for 2025 hit across EU markets and the UK (ZEV mandate), passenger car manufacturers are increasingly seeing their BEX mix, and consequently BEV volumes, increase. 🇪🇸 A faster uptake in Southern European markets is contributing to higher volumes as LFP battery models are rolled out across these more price-elastic markets, helping OEMs exposed here offer more price-competitive models compared to their higher-emitting ICE model-line-ups, such as Stellantis and Renault Group, benefit from seeing CO2 averages fall. A one-off anomaly in the flooded Valencia region from 2024, and the government funding being provided in 2025, is helping the Spanish market achieve a top-four plug-in volume H1 market finish across the Western European region, according to our latest study. Q3 2025 is expected to be the first quarter in which quarterly volumes are expected to exceed 0.6 million, as the UK contributes to the twice-yearly registration plate changeover positive effect. Annual West European regional volumes are expected to surpass 2 million BEV units and a 20% market penetration for the first time on an annual basis during 2025, with total plug-ins (inc. PHEVs) set to surpass 30% penetration for the first time. 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 Meanwhile, the UK's electric car grant is expected to add further momentum in Q4 2025 as orders are converted to deliveries alongside a positive impact from France through the reintroduction of the social-leasing scheme and Germany seeing a notable uptake on a cyclical effect of consumers returning to the market that benefited from €9,000 EV subisdes during 2022 return to the market. A change in the price ceiling for corporate fiscal benefits from H2 2025 should also benefit premium OEMs in seeing BEV penetration levels increase during the final half of the year. More market intelligence like this can be found in our monthly European Electric Car Studies available from the link in the comments. Source: https://lnkd.in/eu6xEKN9

A principle that I learned over the last 8+ years: Broadening household penetration is far better than focusing on driving loyalty amongst current buyers. It's counterintuitive. Often times loyalty driving programs show up in ways that subsidize buyers who would buy your brand otherwise. Broadening penetration brings new users into the brand and lots of research out there shows that's a better way to grow. Search Double Jeopardy principle from Byron Sharpe for reasons why. The biggest most dominant market share brands in any category have a ton of light and infrequent buyers. There's nothing wrong with that. This is true for #emergingbrands looking to scale too. Years ago Dan Stangler from Mills/Annie's taught me the principle of HH penetration. There's a block, and you are in these 2 of 30 HH's. The power of adding that 3rd and 4th house is massive.