Target A Business Market Segment to Improve B2B Marketing

Selecting the best business market segment for your B2B business doesn’t have to be a statistical nightmare. It’s really as simple as discovering a few characteristics that distinguish businesses from one another and using those characteristics to select business with characteristics that make them good potential business customers.

Do you know what firmographics are and how to use them to select the best business market segment for your target market?

Both demographics and firmographics are facts. Firmographics provide facts about businesses that help to group them into target markets, just as demographics enable business-to-consumer businesses to select a consumer target market.

This article covers three broad categories of firmographics that provide numerous ways that you can select a specific business market segment to target. These include:

Selecting a Business Market Segment With Organizational Firmographics

Select a Business Market Segment by Financial Firmographics

Select a Business Market Segment by Industrial Firmographics

Select a Business Market Segment by Organizational Firmographics

The first organization firmographic to consider in selecting a business market segment is size. You separate potential business customers into sizes by considering how many employees they hire, how many plants, stores or branches they include at where they are located.

Size distinguishes businesses in several ways. Number of employees can help you determine whether the business owner or an employee is in charge of purchasing. Number of plants, branches or stores can mean that each makes individual purchasing decisions. Thus, knowing size helps to determine how many people and the type of people B2B business owners have to contact and build relationships with.

Age distinguishes businesses in other ways. For example, young businesses need more help in choosing the right products and services for their businesses. They will respond best to marketing directed at helping them to make good decisions, rather than just selling to them. Older businesses are more likely to know what they need, but those needs may require customized products and services.

Location also helps to select the best business market segment because their needs, business cultures, economic influences, regulations and tax laws all differ by location.

Organization firmographics such as size, age and location can help you to separate the best business market segment from all the others so that you can concentrate your marketing efforts on businesses most likley to provide good return on your marketing investments.

Selecting a Business Market Segment With Financial Firmographics

A business market segment also differs by sales volume, profits and market share. These financial firmographics can help a you to determine the businesses most likely to buy your products.

For instance, if you sell an accounting system capable of handling thousands of transactions a day, a business with small sales volume is not in your target market because a simple, readily available, accounting program will handle its needs.

A business market segment also differs by ownership factors. These factors include whether the business leases or owns its office, plants, stores, warehouses, and equipment. By knowing these ownership factors, B2B businesses can often predict businesses needs and purchases.

Selecting the business market segment with financial firmographics that match you B2B business products and services can help you to target businesses most likely to become customers.

Using Industrial Firmographics To Select a Business Market Segment

Selecting a business market segment by industrial firmographics requires understanding different industries’ regulations, standards, inspections and expectations. These industrial differences cause businesses in one industry to want and need different types of products and services than a business in another industry. Selecting an industry where firmographics create a market for what you sell helps to pick your best target market.

The following example illustrates how industrial firmographics influence what businesses need and want and what kinds of customers they will be.

Manufacturers differ in the equipment, components and supplies that are used in high-tech production compared to low-tech production. Their processes and facilities also differ.

A business that produces high-end items for the luxury market will use different components than one that produces in mass for discount stores. The former will spend more for quality components and buy add-ons to upgrade features.

Also consider the information industry. Books publishers and consultants are both in the information industry, but what they sell and what they earn differs considerably. Consultants sell their time and their knowledge. Their income is limited by what they can charge per hour. Publishers sell products – books, and their incomes are limited only by the number of books they can sell at a profitable price.

So knowing industrial firmographics of businesses, helps you to select those with industry characteristics that make them good potential customers.

In Conslusion

B2B business owners can improve their marketing with organizational, financial and industrial firmographics.

B2B business owners can enhance their business market segment decisions by keeping good records on which segments have been the best customers for their business and within their industries. Then they can target those best customers.

Knowing which business market segment has proved the most profitable in the past and targeting those customers with products and marketing designed specifically for them, can improve sales and profitability for any B2B business.

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