The Ultimate Guide to Segmentation in 2024

What is segmentation?

Segmentation is a fairly broad concept, so let’s explain it for the sake of the rest of this article.

We speak of either marketing segmentation or sales segmentation:

• Marketing segmentation: Is a marketing strategy that divides a broad target market into subsets of consumers to work on brand positioning.
• Sales segmentation: On the other hand, refers to the process of dividing a business’s sales prospects or existing customer base into groups of consumers who have common needs, interests, and priorities. The goal here is to personalize sales efforts and improve the efficiency of the sales team. This is also known as B2B segmentation.

In both cases, the principle remains the same. The aim is to break down something voluminous and generic into something manageable and personalizable. The difference lies in the segmentation objectives, which are not the same in sales and marketing.

In this guide, I’ll be talking mainly about B2B segmentation.

What are the advantages of segmentation?

In this section, I’ll discuss the main advantages of segmentation, which are:

• Performance
• Brand relationship
• Cost management

Segmenting for better performance

In sales as in marketing, it’s absolutely inadvisable to approach your target with a single message, thinking that because it’s voluminous, the leads will fall in. This was the case during the 30 Glorieuses, but it’s no longer the case today.

On the contrary, we’re now in a phase of hyper-personalization: we want to consider each prospect as a unique individual, with his or her own specificities and sensitivities to the sales message.

And to achieve this, we need to segment!

Segmenting for a better image

By segmenting, you’re pretty sure you’re addressing the right leads with the right messages. And if the segmentation and copywriting have been well done, even if that prospect doesn’t buy from you, you’ll at least have introduced an approach that generates awareness and makes sense.

I’ll leave you to imagine the extent to which a prospect is solicited on a daily basis. And often in completely the wrong way – with the wrong message, the wrong wording, etc.

If you approach your prospect in the right way, thanks to segmentation, the brand image is preserved. Better still, outreach can become a marketing channel, as is the case with our LinkedIn network expansion campaigns.

Segment to better manage your costs

Segmenting means to stop wasting time on the wrong targets.

And in my experience, that time really can be a considerable metric!

By spending a few extra hours on clean segmentation, you’ll save an enormous amount of time on the rest of the outreach process.

As you can see, segmenting is no longer an option, it’s a must. But segmentation in B2B is far from simple, and you still need to know how to do it!

That’s what we’ll be looking at in the next section 🙂

How to get started with your segmentation?

Segmenting the whole market you’re addressing is complicated. But, trust me, it’s worth it!

That said, it doesn’t have to be a daunting task if you follow these steps:

• Step 1 – Create your ICPs and personae.
• Step 2 – Define your segmentation criteria
• Step 3 – Create your lead lists
• Step 4 – Build your segmentation strategy

Let’s dive deeper into each step to really grasp what segmentation is about. 👉

Step 1 – Create your ICP and Personae:

First things first, in order to start segmenting properly, you need to have an idea of who you’re targeting and how they value your product. This gives us two notions to define:

• ICP: Aka the Ideal Customer Profile, is a semi-fictional representation of your perfect customer. Think of it as a synthesis of the characteristics, needs, preferences, and behaviors of your most valuable market segment.
• Persona: Personas are the people -albeit still fictional, who represent your ideal customers, based on demographic and behavioral data.

So now that we’ve established our basis. Let’s see how to actually define both your ICP and Persona:

1. Define objectives:

What are you getting out of defining your persona? What do you want to achieve with this process?

This is the sort of question that you need to be asking yourself. But, in order to have those answers, you need to understand your why -or, more commonly know as your value proposition.

Hence, it’s crucial to define the purpose of using personas from the start, which could be for:

• Developing marketing strategies.
• Adapting your copywriting.
• Influencing the product roadmap
• etc.

Based on your company’s goals and its development cycle, you can see how you can come up with 100 different persona analyses.. But no matter! Because I’m here to guide you. 🧙‍♂️

2. Gather data:

If you haven’t already come out with your product, you have to do some market research to figure out these characteristics for your ICP:

• Company size
• Industry
• Activity
• etc.

And among your ICP results, you’ll be able to understand the typology of your current customers:

• Job and responsibility (Managerial, Operational?)
• Business sector
• Type of structure (Startup, Scale-up, Agency, etc.)
• Average shopping basket
• Average decision time
• etc.

If your product/service is already on the market, that’s even better! This is simply because you’ll get more accurate data from your own customer base!

This preliminary work will enable you to formulate different hypotheses that you’ll then validate or reject by talking directly to your personas.

Let’s see how!

3. Engage your personae:

Here comes the fun part!

Now that you got the theoretical out of the way, it’s time to take action and talk to your personae in order to actually test your hypotheses.

We’ve detailed this well in our guide on How To Establish Your Personae in 8 Steps, but here are the cliff notes:

• Select 2 to 3 personas to interview: Your company can have 5 or more personas. I suggest you limit yourself to 3 groups to interview so as not to spread yourself too thin.
• Prepare 2 types of interviews: You’ll need to interview two types of people in each persona; customers and non-customers. This allows for a non-biased research process.
• Try a multi-channel approach: I recommend you focus your efforts on LinkedIn first and then fall back on Email in case of no reply.

• Interview the personae: When I say interview, that’s not really what I mean. Think of it as an exchange of information. you’re not here to sell anything.

4. Sketch the ideal profile of your persona:

You’ll gather a ton of information from all the interviews that you’ll be doing. Now is the time to actually start creating a portrait of your persona:

• Make sure to centralize all the data you’ve gathered.
• Look for patterns, trends, recurrent elements that will make up your persona. These are your insights that’ll differentiate the personae from one another.
• Sketch a persona sheet with a detailed profile for each persona. Give them a Name, Job title, Career, Education, etc.

It’s quite simple really, building these fictitious profiles is the basis for everything else. So make sure you really focus on this part and do it right!

Step 2 – Choose the right segmentation criteria:

Defining and creating your persona is segmentation criterion number 1. 📜

In fact, you can actually stop there since you already have access to the basic segmentation criteria. The ones we know all too well:

Despite its popularity, this traditional approach quickly reveals its limitations because it overlooks one crucial detail; the intention of the lead.

• Are they in the market for your product?
• Are they even interested?
• Can you make them switch from their well-known processes?

Yes, you might know how old they are and what job they have, but based on those criteria alone, you have absolutely no clue whether they’ll actually give you the time of day when you try to pitch a new product to them.

How to properly use segmentation criteria -The modern way:

It’s high time for you to learn a new, superior strategy: Segmentation based on intent.

Now, with this method, you switch your focus out on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ aspects of customer interactions.

There is a plethora of indicators of intent. It depends on so many factors surrounding your business, industry, job position, etc.

Well now you know! So make sure you decide on what signals are worth your interest, meaning: Which actions should the lead take in order to be considered a qualified lead?

If you’re in a bind and can’t find the inspiration, here are some examples from LGM:

• Lead’s company just installed HubSpot or Pipedrive. (We have a native integration with both of them.)
• Lead is recruiting salespeople.
• Lead attended a competitor’s event.
• etc.

We go much more into detail in our Segmentation Criteria Guide, so make sure to check it out!

Step 3 – Create your lead database(s):

Now that we got our bases covered, i.e. all the prerequisite work is now done, it’s time for you to actually create your segments -not just in your head. 🤯

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s explore some actual ways you can create lead databases.

Sales Navigator:

Sale Navigator has a wealth of information present on its platform that matches no other! If you’re in B2B, getting yourself a subscription is a must!

There’s an abundance of strategies you can use to get leads on Sales Navigator. But I have one favorite one that simply outshines the rest: Account-Based Targeting, and it’s the best for two main reasons:

• It further focuses your segmentation thanks to the macro criteria that the “Account” view offers.
• It makes sense to start with the companies of your personae and then trickle down. You can’t really blunder your segmentation when you do it this way, while you really risk messing it up if you do it the other way around.

Want to learn how to go about using ABM fully to your advantage? Check out our Founder and CEO, Brice, explaining how to fully use Sales Navigator for your segmentation:

Inbound Marketing:

Inbound marketing is when you perform actions in order for your target market to come to you and signal their interest. As opposed to outbound, which requires you to go outreach leads.

Think of it as laying the groundwork that pulls your leads in through:

• Premium content.
• Optimizing your SEO.
• Social Selling.
• etc.

For instance, the most common inbound marketing technique is lead magnets.

Once created, you share this lead magnet on your blog, your LinkedIn profile, your LinkedIn company page, etc., and people will sign up to access this content.

Now that you have access to all these emails, all you have to do is reach out with something along the lines of:

This is a little abrupt, so make sure to adapt your copywriting and ideally personalize it to every lead you’re reaching out to!

Don't know how?

Use La Growth Machine To Automate Every Step of the Process!

Step 4 – Create your segmentation strategy:

We’re done with all prep work, and it’s time for you to actually develop your strategy for segmentation!

There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. If you’ve done the work outlined in the previous steps and really put in the time, you should have a proper idea of:

• Who you’re going to target.
• Where you’re going to target them.
• And what copywriting to use to talk to them.

So, instead of regurgitating the same steps we just went through, let me give you two strategy templates that’ll shed a new, more tangible light on this process.

Strategy 1 – Segmentation by Product Complementarity:

The first example I want to highlight is segmentation based on the complementarity of other products with yours.

Think about it, if you know your product enhances the experience of another product that your target market already uses, you’re sitting on a treasure trove of potential leads!

But, you don’t need to be in Sales in order to benefit from this technique, here are some other examples that may fit what you offer:

• Cloud Storage Services: A Cloud Storage company can target Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace users since they would eventually benefit from additional cloud storage options that integrate well with their existing tools.
• Sporting Goods: Say you’re selling Camping equipment. You’d want to target individuals who are looking for hiking gear, GPS devices, etc. since these are clear indicators that they might be in the market for some new camping equipment.
• Gaming Industry: A Gaming Equipment manufacturer can segment and target consumers who have recently purchased specific gaming consoles or PCs, offering compatible gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets designed to enhance the gaming experience with those systems.

Strategy 2 – Competitive Segmentation:

On the flip side, you can also segment your audience based on competitor companies in the market.

This isn’t about poaching or laziness. It’s more about strategic targeting wherein you find a gap that your product fills that competitors don’t.

But, of course, we’re not just going to try it with every single one of our competitors’ client profiles!

Remember, always start with the basis: Does this person match my persona? Did they express interest in switching products?

Only then can you add the extra layers of segmentation we just mentioned.

There are tons of other segmentation strategies that you can check out in our article: Top 5 Best Segmentation Strategies in 2024.

How to automate your segmentation with LGM – A real-life example:

Still in need of some inspiration? I got you! Here’s a real campaign run by a real client of ours.

For privacy reasons, I’m not able to disclose in full detail the industry and exact copywriting but don’t worry! I’ll provide you with actionable templates for you to adapt to your own target! 😉

Our customer is a Fundraising Company looking for new customers (companies) who are:

• Newly founded
• Open to fundraising
• In the Data Software field.

Thanks to LGM’s integrated Sales Navigator interface, they perform their segmentation on the app and upload the leads directly into an LGM audience.

And within those companies, we simply want to reach Upper Management (CXOs):

This search yields around 130 leads, of which our client selected 105 that exactly match their criteria.

Here’s the sequence:

Now that the leads are uploaded and the sequence chosen, the leads are automatically enriched and that’s why the customer can fully exploit La Growth Machine’s multichannel capabilities!

Now, all that’s missing is the copywriting. Brace yourselves, they use a very straightforward, no-nonsense, copy. Take a look! 👇

• LinkedIn/Email 1st Message:

• LinkedIn/Email Follow-Up:

Again, because of privacy reasons, I can’t share the full message. But the idea is that they don’t beat around the bush.

“Here’s what we offer, here’s why you should consider, and here’s what to do if you’re interested. Let’s talk about it?”

• Email Break-Up:

Like I said, direct, short, no hesitation to be just straight to the point! 🫥 They simply ask when would be a good time to get back to the lead.

And as promised, here are the results. A 36% reply rate is with these kinds of campaigns is amazing!

So how about you try it out for yourself and see how La Growth Machine will help you reach new heights with your sales prospecting.

Still not convinced? Read this article and maybe you’ll change your mind. 👇

Don't know how?

Use La Growth Machine To Automate Every Step of the Process!