A comprehensive guide to audience segmentation

Gone are the days of blanket marketing strategies or one-size-fits-all outbound; it’s all about precision targeting. 

That’s where audience segmentation comes in. Instead of spraying and praying with generic messaging for your entire target audience, breaking your audience down into segments means you can create more compelling campaigns to engage your prospects.

If you’re looking for guidance on how to segment your B2B audience and create more sophisticated marketing or outbound campaigns, you’re in the right place!

What is audience segmentation?

Audience segmentation is the practice of dividing your target audience into smaller, more manageable groups based on shared characteristics. 

Your segmentation criteria could be based on: 

• Demographics
• Location
• Psychographics
• Behavior
• Intent
• Technographics
• Etc.

It should be obvious that the more detailed your prospect data, the more specific and nuanced you can be with your segmentation. This is something you may want to take into consideration when choosing data enrichment or lead generation tools.

Why does audience segmentation matter?

Segmenting your overall target audience allows you to deliver more relevant and meaningful messages to all your prospects. 

Rather than bombarding everyone with the same generic content, segmentation enables you to speak directly to the unique interests and pain points of different interest groups. This, in turn, increases engagement, conversion rates, and ultimately, ROI.

That’s not to say that all segmentation criteria are universally relevant, nor that more segmentation is better. 

When creating your segments, you should be thinking about how you can tailor your message to each group in a way that adds distinct value to them. You’ve probably gone too far with your segmentation if your value proposition messaging is identical across groups.

How to define audience segments

Your goal is to create distinct profiles of your target audience that you can then tailor your marketing efforts around.

If your sales team already has buyer persona profiles mapped out, this is a great place to start. From here you can add or merge audience segments according to your marketing approaches.

Techniques for segmenting audiences

Demographic segmentation

This involves dividing your audience based on quantifiable characteristics such as age, gender, income, education, job role, or seniority.

Company segmentation

This is the equivalent of demographic segmentation for companies which takes into account factors such as headcount, funding rounds, industries, or age.

Geographic segmentation

Geographic segmentation divides your audience based on their location, such as country, region, city, or zip code. This is particularly useful for businesses with location-specific products or services.

Psychographic segmentation

Psychographic segmentation focuses on the psychological traits and lifestyle characteristics of your audience, such as values, beliefs, interests, hobbies, and personality traits.

Behavioral segmentation

Behavioral segmentation divides your audience based on their past behaviors, such as purchasing history, brand interactions, website visits, and engagement with marketing campaigns.

Intent segmentation

This involves creating audience groups around triggers that imply reasonable buying intent. These could be recent job changes or promotions, companies that are currently hiring for specific roles, people interacting with specific content, demo page visitors, or prospects engaging with specific competitors.

Technographic segmentation

You can leverage this form of segmentation if your prospects tend to use specific tools, or if you know their contracts are up for renewal and they’re likely to be reassessing tech solutions soon.

Remember, not all of these example criteria will necessarily be relevant to your go-to-market strategy. 

The criteria don’t have to be mutually exclusive, either; you can combine them to create more detailed audience segment groups.

Audience segmentation examples

Segment 1: Professionals working in the technology sector, aged between 30 and 45, with roles such as IT managers, software developers, and tech entrepreneurs. They are early adopters of new technologies, often residing in major tech hubs like Silicon Valley or Austin. With a keen interest in innovation and cutting-edge solutions, they hold college degrees in computer science or related fields and have a household income ranging from $80,000 to $120,000 annually.

Segment 2: High-level executives and decision-makers in large corporations (companies with 1001+ employees), aged 45 to 60, holding positions such as CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs. They are based in urban centers and financial districts, overseeing business operations and strategic initiatives. With advanced degrees and extensive experience in their respective industries, they command household incomes exceeding $150,000 per year. Their priorities lie in efficiency, scalability, and ROI, making them ideal prospects for enterprise-level solutions and services.

Strategies to target your audience segmentation

Once you’ve defined the segments you want to target, it’s time to start building your marketing and outreach campaigns to engage them.

There are two key things to ensure you tailor your campaigns effectively:

1. What you say
2. How you say it

Let’s look at those in more detail:

1. Personalized messaging

You need to create tailored messages and content that speak directly to the needs and interests of each audience segment. This involves understanding the pain points, challenges, and business goals of your different audience segments and generating messaging that resonates with them on a personal level. 

‍

For example, for the segment 1 example above, you might highlight the innovative features and cutting-edge technology of your product or service; for segment 2, you might emphasize the ROI and scalability benefits.

2. Multi-channel approaches 

To maximize your chances of getting a response, we always recommend utilizing a mix of channels such as email, social media, content marketing, and paid advertising. 

Different audience segments may prefer different communication channels, so it's essential to diversify your approach to ensure maximum reach and engagement. 

For instance, while younger, tech-savvy professionals might be more responsive to social media ads and content campaigns, corporate decision-makers might prefer more traditional channels like direct email or industry publications.

Best practices for B2B audience segmentation

By identifying and playing to the unique characteristics and preferences of your audience segments, you can create personalized campaigns that resonate more closely with your prospects - and drive better results.

Once you’ve cracked the formula for effective audience segmentation, you’ll never go back to spraying-and-praying!

You can certainly reuse your segment templates, but it’s important you regularly review and refine your groupings according to the latest data and market insights. Continuously analyze the performance of your segments, gather feedback from sales teams and customers, and adjust your segmentation criteria accordingly. 

Build and save target audience segments and persona lists

Effective segmentation depends on excellent data. Amplemarket provides you with the most reliable B2B contact and company data in the industry, combined with 40+ sophisticated AI-enhanced filters to help you build hyper-specific lead lists. You can even save specific persona criteria for effortless and repeatable segmentation! 

Sign up for a demo to see how Amplemarket can boost your targeted marketing campaigns!

‍

FAQs

What are the disadvantages of audience segmentation?

While audience segmentation can be highly effective for targeted marketing campaigns, it also has its drawbacks. Some potential disadvantages include:

1. Complexity: Managing multiple audience segments can become complex and resource-intensive, especially if you have limited resources or data.
2. Overgeneralization: Over-segmentation or incorrectly defined segments can lead to overly generalized messaging that fails to resonate with any particular audience.
3. Narrow Focus: Focusing too narrowly on specific segments may cause you to overlook potential customers outside of those segments who could still benefit from your product or service.
4. Data Management Challenges: Maintaining accurate and up-to-date data for each segment can be challenging, especially as customer preferences and behaviors evolve over time.

What is the most common audience segmentation mistake?

One of the most common audience segmentation mistakes is failing to properly define and understand your audience segments. This can lead to ineffective targeting and messaging that doesn't resonate with your prospects. Other common mistakes include:

1. Over-segmentation: Creating too many segments without a clear strategy can lead to unnecessary complexity and dilution of resources.
2. Underestimating data quality: Relying on incomplete or inaccurate data can result in poorly defined segments and ineffective campaigns.
3. Ignoring behavioral data: Focusing solely on demographic or firmographic data without considering behavioral data can result in missing valuable insights into customer preferences and intent.

How do you drive profits with customer segmentation?

Customer segmentation can drive profits by enabling you to:

1. Tailor marketing messages: By understanding the specific needs and preferences of different customer segments, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate more strongly with each group, leading to higher conversion rates.
2. Optimize product offerings: Segmenting your customers allows you to identify trends and preferences within each group, enabling you to tailor your product offerings to better meet their needs and preferences.
3. Improve customer retention: By delivering more personalized experiences to your customers based on their segment, you can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to higher retention rates and lifetime customer value.
4. Optimize resource allocation: By focusing your resources on high-value customer segments, you can maximize the return on investment for your marketing and sales efforts, leading to improved profitability.