3 steps to better leads: Step 1 Segmentation

Improving campaign results

Over the last three years I have worked with more than 20 technology organisations, of different sizes and with different offerings, to review their  demand generation campaign results to find areas for continuous improvement.  The following post is the first of a three part series to introduce the most prevalent issues that I have uncovered, irrespective of company or deal size.  My findings and insights are accompanied by  personally tried and tested recommendations for improving results. 

The issues largely relate to first principles of marketing, Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.  I have  followed this structure to unpack and explain the issues and this first post focuses on market segmentation. 

 Segmentation

There is no one best way to segment an audience however, when we are selling, we are typically trying to position ourselves as having the solution to a problem of a particular group.  Typically, the technology sector has segmented on size (turnover or employee count) or industry.   The problem that this can create is that when marketers  pass leads to sales, some won’t be relevant.  This might be because a high employee count doesn’t always translate to a requirement for a high number of devices or the creation of large amounts of data.  Furthermore, procurement rules, profitability, incumbent relationships and current priorities might not be a match for what your organisation is trying to sell.   

To compound this, lower barriers to market entry for start ups has created a newer challenge when segmenting on turnover or employee count.  We find ourselves with the good fortune of a growing market of well-funded tech-centred 4 or 5 person start ups who might have lots of budget to spend.  If we simply cut data by employee count or turnover we risk not targeting fast-growth firms.   

From an industry standpoint, lines are also blurring.  Retailers like Tesco have developed banking and telco divisions, tech firms are setting up automotive lines of business and insurers like Aviva are spinning up wholly owned subsidiaries dedicated to innovation.

Ineffective segmentation results in conversion rates from marketing leads to sales qualified leads that are too low, leaving marketing feeling disenfranchised – all that effort for nothing - and sales feeling that marketing don’t generate quality leads.   So what can be done to remedy this? 

 Insight

Increasingly, segmenting by business activity seems to be a more relevant approach.  A utility company, logistics firm and airport may all find themselves deploying mobile devices to employees that haven’t been regularly connected to the corporate network before.  They share something in common – the challenges of equipping and enabling employees with tech, overcoming any cultural resistance to change, deploying a virtual desktop infrastructure, securing communications and so on.

Similarly retailers, banks, leisure and travel companies are adopting mobile first strategies, adapting and building applications to create and foster loyalty.

In addition, many organisations are engaging in joint venture partnerships to deliver on initiatives to retain or gain competitive advantage.  For example, Auto-Tech partnerships are springing up everywhere, to build the software defined autonomous cars of the future.  Tesco has long had a joint venture with O2 to deliver the successful Tesco Mobile.   In construction and engineering, Alstom, Babcock and Costain have formed ABC Electrification.  Seen from this perspective, these industries, which on the surface appear so different, share a common challenge, and therefore a very common need, with each other.

 Recommendation

When planning your next demand generation campaign, why not consider grouping your prospects by area of common interest and tailoring your messaging accordingly?   For example, you might focus on organisations that are undertaking continuous mobile application development and position your product or service in the context of how it addresses the problems that these initiatives can create.  Or you might think about those who are forming collaborations to improve time to market and increase global reach.  Inter-company collaboration has a whole host of technology requirements from video and voice communications, to securing data to training end users to adopt new tools, to increasing network and datacentre infrastructure capacity.

Once we have segmented our audience for our campaign, we then need to make sure we are targeting the right people with the right message in the organisations we want to reach.  Targeting is the focus of my next post.

 If you have any comments on your experiences of applying different types of segmentation to improve campaign results, please post them below.

 Want more ideas on ways to segment a market?  Drop me a line.   

 [email protected]