Segmenting B2B customers allows businesses to understand who their audience is.
When businesses know exactly who their customers are, they can easily improve marketing and engagement strategies. Segmenting customers is just that - grouping customers together based on certain characteristics from demographic information to industry data.
It's recommended to run this research frequently or semi-frequently based on the type of business.
What Is B2B Market Segmentation?
Market segmentation refers to the grouping of customers into different segments based on certain factors such as demographics, psychographics, purchasing behaviors, and geography.
Grouping them into these different areas will allow businesses to understand how to improve marketing and outreach strategies.
Market segmentation is a fantastic and simple way to enhance customer satisfaction and experience.
Improved satisfaction often leads to increased rates of customer loyalty and customer retention - both key aspects of a successful brand!
Why It’s Important For Your Customers
We're all customers. When you're doing business with a brand, no matter the interaction, doesn't it feel better if you have a personalized shopping experience?
Of course it does! This is a direct effect of market segmentation, as it allows businesses to cater to specific customer needs based on actionable data.
Therefore, it's no surprise that 60% of customers will return to a company that prioritizes personalization.
Additionally, by learning how to group your B2B customers into market segments, businesses can learn what common pain points are and correct them. Doing this also helps to greatly enhance the customer experience.
Types of B2B Segmentation Methods To Know
There are many ways to go about segmenting customer groups.
Since there is no "correct" way to segment, we suggest carefully weighing the needs of your business so you can choose the best method.
Common types of B2B segmentation include:
- Firmographic
- Technographic
- Needs
- Sophistication
- Buyer journey
We dive into each below.
1. Firmographic segmentation
This type of segmentation focuses mainly on the characteristics of an organization.
The ultimate goal of running firmographic segmentation is to discover data around the marketing and outreach methods of a business. This information will then be used to help improve these tools.
Firmographic segmentation typically includes information on:
- Type of industry
- Size of company
- Annual revenue
- Employee count
2. Technographic segmentation
As you can gather from the name, this form of segmentation measures how a business uses technology.
This type of segmentation allows businesses to measure how audiences use tech and what they prefer. Technographic segmentation is especially helpful when it comes to troubleshooting issues within an audience.
Technographic segmentation covers:
- Analyzation of software/tools used in a company
- Technology adoption rates
- Integration of technology
- Use of mobile technology
3. Needs segmentation
This type of segmentation focuses strictly on the needs of customers versus other common segmentation points like demographics and so on.
Segmenting an audience by needs allows businesses to fully understand what other businesses they partner with require.
This grouping will include data on:
- Different needs/requirements of customers
- Improving product development strategies
- Boosted customer experience outreach
- Customized marketing strategies
4. Sophistication segmentation
This segmentation group refers to the level of sophistication and knowledge a business has on a product/service.
Often, sophistication segments take into account the varying levels of knowledge an audience has about these products/services.
The key idea is to ensure the right messaging gets to the right group based on their familiarity with products/services.
Sophistication segmentation includes:
- Knowledge of product
- Level of technical proficiency
- Familiarity of brand
- Preferred channels to receive information
5. Journey stage segmentation
Focusing on creating customized content, journey stage segmentation works to improve marketing messaging and interactions with customers.
Journey stage segmentation will take into account the varying needs of customers throughout their shopping process. Since every need of a customer is different, this segmentation method is key to developing personalized strategies.
This segmentation often includes information on:
- Tailoring content
- Preferred communication channels
- Use of lead nurturing campaigns
- Customer data to improve personalization
Other segmentations
While the above segmentation groups are most commonly used, there are many others businesses can use to help target their approach.
Some of these include:
- Life stage segmentation: Customers are divided into segments based on their shopping journey.
- Personality segmentation: Just like it sounds--this tool segments B2B groups based on shared personality traits and characteristics
- Attitude segmentation: Segmentation based on common attitudes among customer groups--this is especially helpful for marketing strategies.
- Social segmentation: Groups are divided based on certain societal factors. Common topics include education and occupation status.
Contact Our Market Segmentation Research Company
Transform your B2B strategy with precision by unlocking the power of market segmentation.
Our market research company specializes in crafting tailored market segmentation studies that unveil nuanced insights about your customers.
Contact Drive Research today as we can help your business to align seamlessly with the unique needs and preferences of your B2B customer segments.
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- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
