You likely segment your current customers into groups for marketing and other purposes, but a recent Harvard Business Review blog post explains why also segmenting non-customers will help you innovate.  According to “Implementing Innovation: Segment Your Non-Customers” the key to advancement is understanding why hypothetical people are not already customers. The post says that most non-customers fall into these categories.

• Economic:  People lack access to cash or credit
• Functional:  The product does not help people achieve what they want to achieve
• Educational: People don’t know how to use the product or even what it can do
• Access: People can’t buy the product because it is not readily available to them
• Social: The product doesn’t conform to religious or social norms
• Emotional: The product triggers negative emotions.

Analyze these segments and decide which are most pertinent to your business. Then, try to identify innovative methods for breaking through each roadblock to new customers.

Click here to read the blog post from Harvard Business Review.