Posted by Kevin Bondelli in Chapter Tips In his TED lecture,
Malcolm Gladwell talks about horizontal segmentation as applied
to the food industry. Instead of trying to find the one thing
that the majority of people like, you should discover the
different varieties of something that people like in order to
reach everybody. The concept of horizontal segmentation is also
applicable to political communication. Campaigns have often used
horizontal segmentation in their message, but not often enough
in their method. Micro-targeting and sending issue specific
mailers to different demographics is an example of horizontal
segmentation at the message level. Horizontal segmentation at
the method level involved sending your message using multiple
forms of communication in order to reach everyone. For a while
standard operating procedure was to send your message via direct
mail, by phone, and through email. That was about it. The reason
was that the majority of voters at the time could be reached
that way. Nowadays with c