What is B2B Segmentation?
B2B segmentation is a marketing method that divides the market into segments according to certain criteria and creates marketing strategies tailored to the demands and behaviors of the audience. When applied correctly, this method is so powerful that it allows marketers to create a detailed picture of their customer base, group them according to similarities, and develop marketing strategies suitable for each targeted segment. These strategies can be so customizable that the rate of return can be very high in some cases.
There are many segmentation methods accepted in the marketing world today. Here, we would like to discuss five different methods you can use in the B2B segmentation process.
Segmenting Customers by Firmography
Marketers engaged in B2B segmentation use company information in the same way that B2C marketers use demographic data. This is a method of segmenting customers based on their common attributes. Firmographic segmentation groups customers based on factors such as business size (number of employees or annual income), company location, industry, and even other technologies used by targeted companies.
On the downside, firmographic segmentation has the same limitations as demographics for B2C marketing. Just because a customer is a 40-year-old woman doesn't mean she wants to buy dish soap, and just because a company has 1,500 employees and annual revenue of over $5 million doesn't mean it needs a cloud service provider. The conclusions you can draw from firmographic segments are limited.
Segmenting Customers by Tiering
Customer tiering is a segmentation method based on how well the customer matches your business goals. For example, you can use customer tiering to segment customers based on how much revenue you expect them to bring to your business over the course of your relationship or how closely this customer aligns with your sales and marketing strategies.
Segmenting Customers According to Needs
Need-based customer segmentation groups your customers based on what they're looking for in a product. This model segments customers according to their specific needs. Of all segmentation methods, this offers the marketer the most accurate way to target customer segments. It is a highly scalable method, as the marketer can determine as many needs-based segments as preferred.
Needs-based segmentation often stems from what drives your business in the first place. For example, if you're a cloud service provider and a site visitor comes to you via a blog post about file sharing, you might determine that this prospect needs a solution that simplifies file sharing. As a result, you can target this prospect with additional content surrounding this concept to help move them further in your sales funnel.
Segmenting Customers Based on Customer Sophistication
As the name suggests, segmentation based on customer sophistication means dividing your audience based on product or industry knowledge. Like the other methods mentioned in this post, segmentation by customer sophistication provides the opportunity to tailor your campaigns to a potential customer's specific needs. However, instead of separating customers based on their needs, firmographic information, or potential value for your business, customer sophistication focuses on the target company's awareness of the problem your product solves.
Segmenting Customers According to Behavior
For demand-driven marketers, behavioral segmentation acts as a powerful complement to tiered segmentation to maximize the value of your existing customer base.
Behavioral segmentation examines the ways your current customers interact with your product or solution to identify two critical things:
- Could this customer benefit from expanding their existing solution?
- Is this customer at risk of discontinuing our solution?
We have compiled for you five prominent and widely accepted segmentation methods that can help take your B2B business model one step further. Considering that the success of B2B segmentation is directly proportional to the variety and depth of the data you have, it is clear that Trizbi B2B e-commerce ERP software is your biggest ally. Thanks to its modules that can effortlessly provide a wide variety of data, it largely or completely meets your needs in segmentation studies.
