Segmentation by Job-To-Be-Done (JTBD): A Smarter Way to Slice Your Market

In today’s crowded market, traditional segmentation methods—age, gender, income, geography—are often too blunt to capture why people choose one product over another. Segmentation by Job-To-Be-Done (JTBD) offers a sharper, insight-driven alternative: grouping customers by the jobs they hire products to do. This approach can unlock fresh growth, reduce churn, and create deeper customer alignment.

“Customers don’t buy products — they hire them to get a job done.” — Mr. Phalla Plang, Digital Marketing Specialist

In this article, you’ll learn what JTBD segmentation is, why it works better than traditional methods, how to apply it (step by step), real examples, risks and challenges, and tips for getting started.

Why Traditional Segmentation Falls Short

Most marketers begin with demographics or psychographics—who the customers are. But that often fails to explain whythey act. Two people of the same age and income may hire totally different solutions for the same goal. JTBD flips this: it starts with what customers want to achieve, not who they are.

Research on JTBD methods shows that focusing on customer struggle points and outcomes reveals hidden segments that demographic models miss (Thrv, 2024) Thrv. AYTM notes that JTBD “seeks to identify your customers’ specific goals or unmet needs” rather than broad groupings. aytm.com
When segments are built around unmet needs (or “jobs”), you can target them more precisely with solutions that truly resonate.

What Is Segmentation by Job-To-Be-Done?

Jobs-To-Be-Done is a framework that sees customers as “hiring” products or services to get progress in their lives. (They might also “fire” a product when it fails the job.) Built In+1

A “job” in JTBD can be functional (a task), emotional (how you want to feel), and social (how you want to be perceived). Product Teacher+1

Segmentation by JTBD divides your market into groups based on which jobs they need to complete and in which contexts or circumstances.
Rather than segmenting by “women age 25–34,” you might segment by “busy professionals wanting healthy lunch in 10 minutes” or “parents needing quick but nutritious snacks for kids after school.”

Each segment “hires” a product to do a job, and you tailor features, messaging, and positioning around that job.

Why JTBD-Based Segmentation Works Better

1. Focused on progress, not profile

People’s lives change, but their jobs often remain stable. You may be 22 or 52, but the job “finish work tasks efficiently” stays relevant. JTBD helps you anchor on constant motives, not shifting demographics.

2. Reveals underserved needs

Because you cluster based on struggle points, you can see which jobs are poorly addressed in the market. Thrv’s process suggests clustering customers by customer effort scores (how hard they find parts of a job) to find segments with large, unmet needs. Thrv

3. Better alignment across teams

When product, marketing, and sales all speak in terms of jobs and outcomes, internal alignment improves. JTBD segmentation gives teams a shared language around what matters to customers. Thrv+1

4. Future-proof and innovation friendly

Because you’re solving for jobs (not features), you open the door to new solutions that may disrupt your own offerings. As Christensen advocates, customers maintain the same jobs while solutions evolve. Christensen Institute+2Built In+2

5. Enhanced targeting and repeatability

Once you’ve identified segments by jobs, you can refine messaging, product variants, onboarding flows, and retention tactics to speak directly to those jobs. This leads to higher conversion and retention.

The Step-By-Step Process of JTBD Segmentation

Here’s how to segment a market by jobs:

1. Define your goal

Decide what you want segmentation to achieve—product design, prioritizing features, marketing messaging, etc. (Wunker, 2021) Branding Strategy Insider

2. Identify the job(s)

Conduct qualitative interviews, field work, or contextual inquiry. Ask customers:

• “What were you trying to get done when you bought this?”
• “Why now, and what prompted you?”
• “What other options did you consider?”
  Focus on functional, emotional, and social layers.

3. Create a job map

Break the job into steps (defining goals, preparing, executing, monitoring, finishing). Strategyn’s “Job Map” is useful here. Strategyn

4. Discover and quantify customer needs / outcomes

For each step, ask: what makes the step easier or harder? What outcomes matter most? Use surveys or interviews to collect scores (like “effort” or “importance”).

5. Cluster respondents by unmet needs

Use clustering algorithms (e.g. k-means) on the outcome/effort scores to group customers who share struggle patterns (Thrv recommends this). Thrv

6. Profile segments

Once clusters are formed, you can map descriptive data (demographics, attitudes) to them to help target and reach them (but profiling is secondary). Branding Strategy Insider+1

7. Validate & size segments

Estimate how many customers fall into each job-segment and how much they’d pay to solve the job. Use price sensitivity techniques or willingness-to-pay surveys. (Thrv suggests customizing van Westendorp style methods to job context). Thrv

8. Design interventions

Tailor product features, messaging, promotions, onboarding flows to each job segment. Monitor adoption and refine.

Examples in Practice

Milkshakes at McDonald’s

One classic case: McDonald’s studied why people bought milkshakes in the morning. Most buyers were commuting—the job was “something to keep me full and entertained until lunch, easy to consume in a car.” By adjusting texture and delivery, McDonald’s increased sales. (Christensen’s original example) Christensen Institute+1

Email apps

Basecamp’s Hey email was conceived by reframing email as a job: “help me receive what matters, avoid overload, and manage my attention” rather than just “send and receive messages.” Built In

B2B software

In B2B, segments might be “teams trying to forecast demand precisely at quarter-end” versus “teams aiming to reduce planning time while remote.” Each segment hires different tool features, data sources, or automations. Changemastr describes how functional, emotional, and social jobs apply in B2B contexts. ChangeMastr

Challenges and Pitfalls

• Over-focusing on tasks, not real jobs: Avoid treating superficial tasks as jobs; dig deeper into the progress customers want.
• Universal jobs: Some jobs are so broad that everyone has them; such segmentation is meaningless (Wunker warns about universal jobs). Branding Strategy Insider
• Data limitations: Quantifying emotional or social outcomes is harder than functional ones.
• Evolving contexts: Jobs can shift over time or across contexts—segmentation must be revisited.
• Neglecting reachability: Even if a job segment is distinct, it must be addressable via marketing/communications to be useful.
• Team buy-in: Getting product, marketing, and leadership to adopt a jobs mindset can require training and change management.

Tips for Getting Started

1. Start with a pilot job—don’t try to resegment your entire portfolio at once.
2. Mix qual + quant: interviews to discover jobs, surveys to validate and scale.
3. Ask the right questions using prompts like: “Help me …”, “I wish I could …”, “I want to avoid …”.
4. Iterate often—jobs and priorities evolve.
5. Train your team in JTBD language and thinking.
6. Use tools like survey platforms (Typeform or SurveyMonkey) and clustering tools (Excel, R, Python).
7. Document job maps and share them across teams so everyone sees the same structure.

Segmentation by Job-To-Be-Done transforms how you see customers. Rather than trying to predict behavior from who they are, you align with what they’re trying to achieve. That shift unlocks clearer targeting, better product design, and sustainable growth.

References

AYTM. (n.d.). Jobs-to-be-done segmentation in consumer research. AYTM.
Changemastr. (n.d.). B2B Market Segmentation Using The Jobs-to-be-done Framework. Changemastr.
Christensen Institute. (n.d.). Jobs to Be Done Theory. Christensen Institute.
Built In. (2024, November 22). What Is the Jobs to Be Done Framework (JTBD)? Built In.
Material+ (n.d.). Mastering Jobs To Be Done – A Customer Segmentation Framework.
Strategyn. (n.d.). The Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework For Customer Research.
Thrv. (2024). How JTBD Improves Market Segmentation.
Thrv. (n.d.). Unlock Customer Segments: JTBD Strategies for Real Sales.
Wunker, S. (2021). Using Jobs To Be Done For Market Segmentation. Branding Strategy Insider.
UserPilot. (2025). Behavioral segmentation examples you can use to boost your product