Open Market Segmentation
Who we're building for, and how we reach them. Choose where to start.
Purpose & Objectives
Why segmentation matters
Segmentation is how we decide who Open Market is built for. Done well, it aligns every team around the same audiences, focuses investment where it matters most, and gives the go-to-market strategy something real to build on.
Rather than treating every potential member the same, segmentation helps us identify the audiences that matter most, understand their unique needs, and prioritise where we should invest our time and energy first. This work creates the foundation for our go-to-market strategy, wave planning, product direction, marketing, partnerships and member experience - ensuring every team is working towards the same priorities.
Objectives of segmentation
Five goals that guide the work
01
Focus our time and energy
Not every audience creates the same opportunity or requires the same level of investment. Segmentation helps us focus our time, energy and resources on the audiences that will create the greatest impact for Open Market.
02
Understand real member needs
Different members have different aspirations, motivations, behaviours and barriers. Segmentation provides the insight needed to understand who they are, what matters to them, and where 2gthr can create the greatest value.
03
Create a better go-to-market strategy
A successful launch needs more than a great product. Segmentation helps us determine which audiences to target first, how to position the value proposition, which channels to prioritise, and how to sequence our waves of execution over time.
04
Align teams around a shared audience
Every team - Product, Marketing, MI, Partnerships, Rewards, Benefits and Community - should be designing for the same audiences. Segmentation gives them a shared definition of who we serve, so decisions stay consistent.
05
Reach our Open Market targets
Our growth ambitions depend on reaching the right members in the right way. Segmentation provides the strategic focus to prioritise opportunities, sharpen decisions and maximise the impact of every investment.
What we are working towards
The road to 350,000 members
Segmentation exists to help us hit a clear commercial goal: Open Market's staged ten-year ramp of retained members - paying members who stay past the two-month free trial. Because only about 80% of trials convert, the number we must acquire runs roughly 1.25× each retained target.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 10
Retained = paying members past the two-month free trial. At ~80% trial conversion we must acquire ~1.25× each target - roughly 437,500 gross sign-ups across the ten years to retain 350,000. Segmentation is how we focus the effort needed to get there.
What success looks like
A shared strategic framework
Once this work is done, every Open Market team will be able to:
- Prioritise the highest-value audiences.
- Design targeted go-to-market strategies and wave plans.
- Understand the needs of every priority audience.
- Align product, marketing and commercial decisions around a common audience.
- Make more consistent, evidence-based decisions.
- Accelerate progress towards our growth targets.
Our Approach
How people participate and progress
We built a segmentation model that reflects how people participate in the economy and progress through life - rather than starting with traditional demographics.
By combining economic participation with progression stage, we move beyond broad demographic categories to identify segments that have strategic purpose and commercial weight - and that can directly inform our go-to-market strategy, wave planning and product direction.
Step 1 · The structural foundation
Build the Strategic Cohort model
Our first objective was a conceptual model describing how people participate in the economy - the foundation for every segmentation decision that follows. It is built across three levels.
The primary way an individual earns, accesses or sustains economic participation.
Who specifically is this person within that economic relationship?
A Sub-Cohort is not a Segment. It is a strategic audience that informs our route-to-market and acquisition strategy.
Observable characteristics that influence how an individual accesses, engages with and experiences the 2gthr ecosystem.
These provide additional context that helps us understand the variation within each Sub-Cohort.
Step 2 · The behavioural layer
Layer in progression needs
Economic participation alone does not explain member behaviour. People with similar careers or income can have completely different motivations depending on where they are in their progression journey. So we mapped every Strategic Cohort against five Progression Needs - how members evolve over time, and what they are trying to move forward on.
The Seeker
Looking for direction. Still finding their footing.
The Striver
Pushing hard. Hungry for momentum and results.
The Builder
Building something real, with others depending on them.
The Shaper
Established and influential. Shaping outcomes for others.
The Giver
Contributing back. Passing on what they've built.
Step 3 · The intersection
Create Strategic Segments
A Segment sits at the intersection of a Strategic Cohort and a Progression Need. The result is an audience with strategic purpose, commercial weight, and a clear use across Product, Marketing and Commercial teams. Unlike a Strategic Cohort, a Segment is designed to guide investment, prioritisation and execution.
Strategic Cohort
How they participate
The economic relationship - how a person earns or accesses participation.
Progression Need
Where they are headed
The motivation - what they are trying to move forward on right now.
Strategic Segment
Who we act on
An actionable audience that guides investment, prioritisation and execution.
Step 4 · Prioritisation
Prioritise the opportunity
With the complete model in place, each segment was assessed across a broad set of commercial and strategic criteria - enabling us to identify the highest-priority opportunities for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.
- Market opportunity
- Strategic fit
- Acquisition potential
- Commercial value
- Growth potential
- Reachability
- Differentiation
- Long-term importance
Step 5 · Make it human
Humanise the segments
Finally, each priority Segment was translated into a Persona. A Persona is not a Segment - it is a representative individual that brings a Segment to life by giving it a human face, motivations, behaviours and aspirations. Personas help teams build empathy while keeping strategic decisions anchored in the underlying Segment.
Each Persona was built and validated using behavioural insights from the Media Team's Global Web Index (GWI) data.
Understanding the difference
Cohort, Segment, Persona
| Strategic Cohort | Segment | Persona | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Describes how someone participates economically. | A strategically prioritised audience, created by combining a Strategic Cohort with a Progression Need. | Humanises a Segment by representing a realistic individual with goals, behaviours and motivations. |
| What it informs | Our route-to-market strategy. | Business, product and commercial decisions. | Empathy - it helps teams design for real people. |
The outcome
A framework teams can actually use
This approach gives Open Market a segmentation framework that's grounded in how people actually live and earn, focused on commercial opportunity, and built to scale. Rather than broad demographic groupings, it gives every team a shared answer to the question that matters most: who we're building for, why they matter, and where to focus first.
Needs Mapping
Priority Segments × Value Proposition
Where each priority segment meets each component of the 2gthr offer. Every cell shows how we size, win, reward, build for, equip, bring together and benefit that audience.
Hover any cell to highlight its intersection - select to open it
Our Personas
Meet the people behind the segments
Nine representative South Africans - one for each priority segment - validated by leadership. Each persona is a research-grounded composite built from the Strategic Segment Reference and GWI audience data. Open any one to have a live conversation.
Personas are illustrative archetypes validated for strategy and testing, not real individuals. Built from the Strategic Segment Reference and GWI audience data (South Africa, 2024-25 waves). Conversations are AI-generated.
Our Segments
The segments that guide our open market strategy
Explore each segment, priority score, and recommended acquisition approach. Select any tile to open the full profile.
Segments showing Full profile are mapped across all seven VP components. The rest are part of our full 17-segment landscape - their detail is still being built.
Useful Links
The source material
The research and working artefacts behind Open Market. Open any item to see what it covers and jump straight to the file.
01 The Conceptual Model
The single visual map of how Open Market fits together - the strategic spine, the seventeen cohorts, the value proposition and the personas, all on one Figma board. Start here when you want the big picture or need to orient someone new: it shows how the pieces relate before you dive into the detail of any one segment.
Open the conceptual model Opens in Figma.02 Full Reference - all 17 Segments
The definitive, evidence-based profile of all seventeen strategic cohorts - who they are, how they earn, the reachable sizing and value-proposition fit, what they need from 2gthr, and the recommended acquisition channels and marketing approach for each. This is the source document the personas and segment pages are built from. Reach for it when you need the full depth behind a cohort, the exact numbers, or the channel and go-to-market detail to brief a campaign or partnership.
Open the reference document Word document - opens in Accenture SharePoint (sign-in may be required).03 Prioritisation & VP Mapping Workbook
The working model behind the rankings - the sizing, scoring and value-proposition mapping that ranks all thirty-eight coverage cohorts and sets the indicative year bands. Use it when you need to see, sense-check or challenge the maths: how each cohort was sized against Stats SA, DHET, SARS and Henley data, how the launch-year weighting was applied, and why the priority order came out the way it did.
Open the workbook Excel workbook - opens in Accenture SharePoint (sign-in may be required).