Complete guide to B2B segmentation

If you run a B2B enterprise, you’re likely aware of how difficult it is to create standout marketing content that targets your customers’ unique needs. B2B segmentation can help you. 

By dividing your audience into smaller segments, you can fine-tune and tailor your marketing efforts more effectively, so you avoid wasting time and resources on marketing activities that miss the mark with your potential customers. 

In this guide, we cover why B2B segmentation is important and show you how to get started with creating B2B segments. We also take a closer look at different segmentation methods. 

What is B2B segmentation?

B2B segmentation involves dividing your target audience into smaller groups that share common characteristics or needs. This could be based on industry, company size, buying behaviour, geography, or the technical solutions companies use.  

By focusing on these smaller segments, you gain a better understanding of customers’ specific needs, which is key if you want to succeed with targeted marketing. Later in the article, we dive into various segmentation methods.  

What are the benefits of B2B segmentation?

B2B segmentation lets you tailor your communication and marketing activities towards your specific audience. This boosts your chances of acquiring and retaining customers.  

Skipping B2B segmentation could mean missing out on opportunities to increase sales. Let’s take a further look at some benefits of B2B segmentation. 

Understand your clients’ needs

When you segment your market, you get a much clearer picture of what different potential customers expect and need. This insight allows you to tailor your products, solutions, and services to meet these needs and build brand trust. 

Tailor your marketing

The insights you get from B2B segmentation let you work in a more targeted way with marketing efforts such as newsletters, social media campaigns, and Google Ads.  

By creating content and using storytelling that is directed to the unique needs and challenges of your different segments, you maximise your chances of capturing their interest and achieving sales. 

Optimise your website

Your website will give many potential customers their first impression of your business and products, so it plays a crucial role in your chances of success. If you already have a website, you can use the insights from your B2B segmentation to tailor your web content, images, product descriptions, and the overall design to your key segments. 

Don’t have a website yet? You can quickly make a website using our user-friendly Website Builder – it takes only 5 minutes if you choose our AI-onboarding! 

How to do B2B segmentation – step by step

B2B segmentation requires a lot of initial work with collection and analysis of data. This is time well spent, because in the future you increase the chances of hitting the spot with your communication and marketing.  

Below we go through the process step by step before moving on to different segmentation methods. 

1. Data collection

The first thing you need to do is gather as much information as possible about your current and potential customers. You can gather insights from your customers’ purchase history, data from Google Analytics, industry analyses, websites, location information, and company size.  

It’s also a good idea to find out who the decision-makers are within the companies and what technical solutions and platforms they use. 

For U.K.-based companies, you can find a lot of useful data and statistics from Companies House. If you have already identified your target groups, you can naturally build on the information you previously gathered and supplement it with your new discoveries. 

If you host your website or online shop with one.com, you always have access to a summary of important statistics and data that provide a good overview of customers, website traffic, purchasing behaviour, etc. 

2. Data analysis

The next step is to analyse and compare the information you’ve gathered about the different customer groups. When you analyse the information, you will likely find that several companies have some things in common, while others differ significantly. This could be because they are in a completely different industry or simply need products that solve a unique problem.  

You can start by asking the following questions: 

• What do the companies have in common? 
• Which companies differ the most from each other? 
• What needs and challenges does the largest group have? 
• Does any group have entirely unique needs? 

Compile your findings in a document, a spreadsheet, or another place where you can easily get an overview, and search and add new information. It can be a good idea to include images that illustrate different aspects and provide insights about the customers. 

3. Segmenting

The final step is to divide your market into B2B segments based on the different patterns, differences, and unique needs you have identified. 

Each segment should be large enough to justify targeted marketing efforts. There’s not much to gain by tailoring your marketing to a segment with very few customers, but you can still keep them in mind when developing a marketing strategy.  

In the next section, we look at four different methods you can use when segmenting your B2B customers. 

Segmentation methods

The segments you divide your customers into largely depend on the industry you are in and what you want to achieve with your marketing. Let’s take a closer look at four of the most common B2B segmentation methods. 

Firmographic segmentation

Firmographic segmentation involves creating segments based on characteristics that define companies, such as industry, size, geographical location, number of employees, and revenue. 

Technographic segmentation

Technographic segmentation categorises B2B customers based on the technical solutions they use. This method is very suitable if your company offers software, hardware, or other technological products or systems. 

Persona-based segmentation

Segmenting based on personas involves creating detailed profiles of company decision-makers and individuals who can influence purchasing decisions.  

This segmentation method is ideal if you want to tailor your marketing to the people who have the greatest influence on whether your solutions are chosen by the company. For instance, your solution might be well-suited for specific departments within a company, such as HR, sales, or finance. 

Behavioural segmentation

This method is best suited for existing customers or leads where you already have access to data. Here, you can use your customers’ purchase history, feedback, customer service inquiries, and any requests.  

You can also look at whether these customers have opened your newsletters or interacted with your campaigns. If they are leads, you can see which of your landing pages these potential customers have visited and interacted with to better understand what interests them. 

B2B segmentation: 2 examples

Above, we have discussed B2B segmentation and various segmentation methods. To illustrate how your company can work with segmentation, we have created two concrete examples: 

Example 1:  Workforce Pro

Workforce Pro offers workforce management software. Using firmographic segmentation, Workforce Pro segments target groups based on industry and company size. They identify relevant industries, such as restaurants and hotels, and retail, which they then divide into smaller segments: small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and large businesses. 

Now, Workforce Pro can tailor their marketing as follows: 

Restaurants and hotels: In marketing aimed at small restaurants and hotels, Workforce Pro emphasises user-friendliness and low prices. In communication targeted at larger restaurants and hotels, they highlight scalable solutions and the ability to perform advanced scheduling, planning, and task tracking. 

Retail: Smaller shops receive marketing that focuses on simple inventory management and scheduling, while marketing to larger shops and retail chains focuses on the ability to plan and coordinate schedules and track employee data across stores at different locations. 

Example 2: GreenOffice

GreenOffice offers organic and sustainable office supplies such as printer paper, pens, and cleaning products. GreenOffice uses behavioural segmentation and segments existing customers into the following three segments: 

Loyal customers: These customers are presented with products they might be interested in based on their purchase history. They are also rewarded with special offers and the opportunity to join a loyalty programme. 

Occasional buyers: Marketing to these customers highlights the benefits of a range of different products they haven’t bought before. 

One-time buyers: GreenOffice focuses on keeping these customers engaged by sending email marketing with great offers, social proof, and informative content that communicates the benefits of choosing sustainable office supplies. 

Better target your B2B marketing with segmentation

B2B segmentation is essentially about gaining a better understanding of your customers’ unique needs and challenges. Armed with the insights that B2B segmentation provides, you can target your marketing and convey your key messages in a way that shows customers you understand their industries and issues. 

Marketing based on customer insight is far more effective, and although segmentation requires both time and planning, you will experience a positive difference going forward in everything from the open rates of your newsletters to website traffic and, ultimately, your conversion rate.