How to Improve Your B2B Customer Segmentation Strategy

If your company wants to truly provide a world-class customer experience, you will need a way to segment and personalize at scale.

HubSpot defines customer segmentation as “the process of separating your customers into groups based on certain traits and factors.”

A reporter recently asked for my insight on the importance of B2B customer segmentation strategy, the value of segmenting leads, and best practices for effective segmentation.

Why You Need a B2B Customer Segmentation Strategy

Lead segmentation and customer segmentation is crucial so you can:

• Attract the right leads
• Engage with those leads in a way that educates and builds trust
• Delight those leads and customers to deliver more value as you help people achieve their goals

Good segmentation starts with understanding your buyer personas and the buyer's journey stages that each persona progresses through on their way to achieving a goal.

Segmentation is the foundation of all effective content and sales personalization -- which are both super-important for relevance, differentiation, competitive positioning, sales cycle acceleration, and revenue growth.

The Value Of Segmenting Leads

Unless you already have a global household brand, your company's first job is to earn the right people's attention. 

In today's hypercompetitive, global marketplace, lead segmentation is the only way to have a chance at attracting the right people, in the right places, at the right time, and in the right context.

And once you do attract the right strangers, you’ll need additional ways to segment and personalize your approach to keep your content and brand top of mind.

Best Practices For Effective Segmentation

Lead segmentation strategies should start with segmenting into lists anchored by:

• Buyer persona (a semi-fictional representation of an ideal client based on actual research and select, educated speculation)
• Lifecycle stage (Subscriber, Lead, Marketing Qualified Lead/MQL, Sales Qualified Lead/SQL, Opportunity, Customer, and Evangelist)
• Behavior triggers (such as website visits, form submissions, webinar engagements, email opens, and or visits to strategically important website pages)

What are you doing to improve how you approach B2B customer segmentation?  Let me know in the comments below.