Esri Tapestry Segmentation: Who & Where Your Customers Are

What is the Tapestry Segmentation System?

Esri Tapestry provides geo-demographic intelligence on how clusters of people make lifestyle choices.

It profiles consumers into 68 distinct market segments in the United States.

These market segments are typical lifestyle choices that each cluster of people is more likely to make.

This could be anything from the type of car they’re likely to buy or if they are more likely to have their newspaper delivered or to read online.

The Clustering of America

Michael J. Weiss discusses the ideas of geo-demographics and segmentation in his book “The Clustering of America”.

Segmentation is the idea that people within a certain lifestyle group move to the same neighborhood. In other words, people in the same neighborhood will look the same and have similar characteristics.

A segment could consist of retirees, urban chic or laptops and latte type of people. What Esri Tapestry does is add that distinct layer for those lifestyle or life stage choices each market segment typically make.

Geo-demographics combines demographic data (income, education, gender, household, ethnicity, etc.) with geography (where people live). Using a proven regression and clustering method, segments are also validated against actual consumer data.

Esri has 68 distinctive neighborhood segments. But if 68 groups are too detailed, you can use the 14 life mode groups based on lifestyle.

Who Is Esri’s Tapestry Data Intended For?

Who are your best prospects for customers? You can use tapestry to find this.

Esri’s tapestry data is about targeting the right customers. Because it captures the diversity of the whole US market, this helps businesses make wiser and more informed decisions.

For example, if you were to send advertisements blindly to every neighborhood, this creates a lot of waste and is money down the drain.

Alternatively, you can market to a lifestyle group with the tapestry data with a clear focus. If you know the lifestyle of the neighborhood, it makes sure that you’re reaching the right customers.

You get to know customers a bit better and hit the right people you want to reach. For example, you can apply Huff’s Gravity Model, location-allocation, and the concepts of distance decay to optimize business locations.