Know you customer. Intelligent segmentation and customer profiling

Do sales people know where their customers live? Marketing vs Sales profiling battles renewed.

We don’t want to know where prospects live so we can camp on their front lawn and, like setting up a medieval siege, ‘wait them out’ till they buy from us.

However, the debate continues about how to categorise B2B prospects better.

The urgency for leads vs the need for profile

Sales team to marketing, “We need more leads!”
Marketing to sales team, “Who from? We’ll contact them!”
Sales team, “HR Directors, and Airport Managers, and Security Directors, and Facilities Managers, oh and Chief Execs and MDs, and Clinical Directors.”
Marketing, “All of them?!”
Sales team, “Yes.”
Marketing, “Er, sounds expensive.”

If you were in the business of fixing leaky roofs, you wouldn’t go door to door asking the householders if their roof is leaking. At the very least, if you HAD to go door to door, you’d visit an area that had had a recent downpour coupled with high winds.

There have to be conditions that suggest the likelihood of a real need.

The 4 principles of marketing

In marketing, we employ 4 strategic principles: (1) know what you specialise in; (2) know how you are different; (2) know how customers are segmented; and (4) know where customers are concentrated.

In B2C marketing, segmentation usually revolves around classic demographics such as age, income, education, etc. In the B2B arena, smarter segmentation revolves around categorising who has the most pressing need to change something they are doing or to buy something to fix a problem.

If the need is not urgent or the problem is not apparent, then the sales cycle will be a long one, and may involve a need to educate the market (expensive).

Match the sales message to prospect motivations

The closer we can match the marketing message to the mind-set of the prospect and the business conditions they are experiencing, the better for sales.

Two Facilities Managers may be experiencing the same business conditions, but their outlooks could be very different. One might be change averse, they may even enjoy putting up with problems that they are familiar with and understand; while the other may be more progressive and open to new ideas.

One sales message does not fit all

To facilitate sales, we need two different marketing messages or we’ll fail with both prospect types. In this sense, we need to ‘know where the customer lives’ and how they think. 

Marketing, “Oy, Sales, what type of Chief Exec?”
Sales, “All of them.”
Marketing, “Give me the address of one, I’ll find out what’s important to them right now.”

Not everyone is your customer

Not everyone is our customer. Segmentation by vertical, job role, company maturity, growth plans, regulatory impacts, buyer outlook, sector trends, and other factors, help to turn a hopeful generic marketing message into a well-informed, warmly received offer of help.

Even if your product can help many different types of businesses or people, there are huge advantages to sounding like a specialist, with specific messages for specific people at specific times.

Segment leads and customers to provide better experiences

In the event that you have been affected by the recent storms in the UK, we know a true professional who does a great job on leaky roofs. However, if you enjoy the new experience of bathing or sleeping al fresco, you don’t fit our prospect profile.

Let Allround Creative help you take a closer look at prospect and customer segmentation so you can be more efficient and effective with your sales and marketing activity.

Market segmentation. Marketing vs Sales | Contact Sales | Reading Berkshire UK