How To Carefully Segment Your Market – B2B Marketing Ideas 2020

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B2B market segments

Are you thinking about how to segment a market and identify B2B market segments carefully?

Segmentation caters to effective and precise targeting. Apparently, the accurate the targeting, the higher will be the chances of conversions. However, the market is fairly broad for B2B marketing professionals. For proper B2B market segments to be made, you need to know about innovative B2B marketing strategies.

Market Segmentation

The target market is divided into particular groups grounded on distinct or similar purchase needs for given products or services. Therefore, each segment has different needs and buying behavior.

Notably, the marketers identify audience segment based on the following features:

  1. Identifiable: Easily recognizable group within a marketplace.
  2. Sustainability: The customer group must have profitability in size.
  3. Accessible: Reaching out to the customer group for marketing and sales communication is quite easy.
  4. Responsiveness: The client group should respond to the marketing strategies that are shared by the marketing and sales team.
  5. Actionable: The customer group can easily take actions upon the guidance shared by the marketing team. These actions include paying money for the purchase or use of product or service in a particular manner.

B2B Market Segmentation

Generally, when we speak of the market segmentation, the particular framework in B2C strikes the mind. However, B2B market segmentation is very narrow scoped as compared to B2C.

Segmentation Spot Description B2B Practices
Demographic SegmentQuantifiable market size is classified according to the income of company or entrepreneurEstimating the size of the company and its aggregate income. Besides, education and family size also matter in B2B marketing strategy.
Geographic SegmentRegion (city or country or town etc.)B2B marketers lookout for the target regions
Geo-demographic Segment Combination of geographic & demographic variables.E.g. Non-manufacturing countries like the UAE can be a right segment.
Psychographics Segent Lifestyle and personalityIn this segment, the B2B marketer has to identify a sensitive spot for relationship building with the client.
Behavioral Segment Need-based benefit sought. (Other features of behavioral segmentation are rarely considered in B2B)1. B2B segments are quality, price, and time conscious (delivery). Generally, they demand quantity, quality, distribution, and convenience as well as less risky payment modes.
2. B2B marketers make separate customer and market profiles concerning different products and services.
Contextual and situational B2B clients are approached on different platformsB2B clients are usually approached online on social media platforms, transaction exchange on WhatsApp groups, and so on.

Also, we have seen such practices ruling over online B2B marketplace. In light of the above classification and B2B practices, we can draw the following features of B2B market segmentation.

Features

  • B2B market segments are usually smaller than the B2C target audience.
  • The relationship building and personal relationship are critical to succeed in B2B markets, especially for cross-selling and B2B repeat purchase behavior.
  • B2B clients are usually long-term clients.
  • When it comes to B2B segmentation, there are fewer need-based segments and behavioral segments. Other important B2C segmentation factors are either rarely considered or totally avoided in the B2B market.
  • B2B segments concerns company and revenue size plus purchasing strength of the B2B client.
  • It is hard to sustain a competitive advantage for 5 years because B2B buyers seek low price and high quality as they opt for bulk purchasing. Therefore, upon finding similar quality products at a lower price, they switch supplier.

Factors Shaping The B2B Segmentation

Generally, the B2B market segments are not descriptive and wide scoped like B2C. Therefore, buyers who belong to B2C segmentation purchase for personal purposes rather than commercial. This means lower quantity and the smaller amount involved.

However, in B2B markets, usually purchase transactions are done on bulk quantities, e.g. factories sell bulk quantities of fabric and clothes to wholesalers and distributors as well as importers.

In this way, B2B market segments are classified with short names or description like:

  • Price Negotiators: The client who bargain on price where it is hard for the supplier to receive a reasonable profit margin.
  • Range Clients: The buyers who ask you to drop your MOQ to a certain level or ask you to sell as per their budget.
  • Delivery Buyers: The buyers who are concerned about the delivery and safety of the product
  • Quality Buyers: These buyers do not compromise on quality and will pay the price to the supplier for the given quality. It’s an ideal segment for B2B marketers.

Final Thoughts

B2B buyers are educated and well-informed about the B2B marketplace. Also, they prefer a product or service that not only benefits in terms of ROI but also caters to their brand image. Therefore, lower price but the cheap quality may cause them to lose existing customers. On the other hand, quality, quantity, and cost are the primary considerations of an average B2B buyer.

When it comes to segmentation, the audience is classified in groups as per the extent of importance they give to each factor, i.e. price and quality. Other than that, segmentation based on geographic and demographic factors also plays a crucial role in precise targeting.

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