Strategic Market Segmentation

Segmentation beats personalization. Personalization is terribly inefficient... (and oftentimes unnecessary outside of highly strategic enterprise selling). Think about the ads that really grab your attention. None of them have your name in them. Or mention podcasts you were interviewed in or posts that you wrote. These ads work because they're segmented based on patterns amongst small-ish groups of people. Outbound should be treated similarly. Pro tip: this approach works WAY better over the phone than via email. The expectation for personalization and quality is much higher in emails than over the phone. Here are a few ideas for segmenting your lists so you don't have to personalize so much: ✅ By region/location If you sell anything brick & mortar, SLED, etc—segment your accounts by geographic region. You really don't have to personalize much when you can: - Name-drop local businesses/organizations - Drop the location This sounds like: "Hi David, we work with Fit & Fashion right down the road in SLU. It's Jason with ________. Ring a bell?" ✅ By tech stack Let's say you sell a tool that enhances Salesforce. Or Jira. Or some other specific tool. Segment your accounts by tech stack. This sounds like: "Hi Katie, we're partnering with engineering teams who wish sandboxes were way easier to set up and use in Zendesk. It's Jason with ________. Got a min?" ✅ By persona Let's say you sell to ecomm solutions to SMB retail business owners. This sounds like: "Hi Tom, we're working with several retailers in the Seattle area. It's Jason with ________. Heard our name tossed around?" (H/T Armand Farrokh) ✅ By trigger This list gets pretty extensive. Hiring, job changes, customer/champion change, M&A, expansion/contraction, promotion, etc This sounds like: "Hi Dave, congrats on the promotion. It's Jason from __________. Was just talking to a new HR leader yesterday who's running into all kinds of complications scaling international hiring. That by chance something you're running into?" ✅ By niche One of my favorites. Take a well-recognized logo like Rippling. You could go after direct competitors, but it's even better to focus on non-competitive products selling to the same personas. This sounds like: "Hi Cierra, we're working with Rippling to help scale their product suite for HR leaders. It's Jason with ________. Thought you might want to hear how they've doubled ACV in the last 6 months. Have a min?" ~~~ Before you think of personalization, start with segmentation. Do the work upfront to avoid having to customize too much. Agree or disagree? We're training entire sales orgs at companies like Shopify, Rippling, Zoom, and many more on how to land more meetings with outbound. Interested in custom training for your team? DM or email me jason [at] outboundsquad.com for more info.

If I was running ABM at a fast-growing security company (like Wiz, Snyk, or Netskope), here's how I'd avoid wasting money on bad-fit accounts. 👇 AI Segmentation. Most companies segment by industry. They say something like: "We target Tech, Retail, and Hospitality companies with 1,000+ employees." Motel 6 and Airbnb show why this breaks. Same firmographic profiles. But very different business situations, needs, and priorities when it comes to information security (or any tech purchase). You wouldn't sell to them the same way. AI Segmentation helps you uncover and target the highest value segments for your business, beyond basic industries. Here's how I would do this for a security company: 1.) Segment on business situation (not industry). -- Analyze your best customers (high NRR, high ACV). -- Group by specific situations that align to your value prop. e.g. Security Maturity Level, Security Use Cases, Compliance Sensitivity, etc.  -- Find the *natural* clusters based on value, not generic industry labels. 2.) Identify segments with AI. -- Use Keyplay AI to categorize every account in your market. -- Backtest segments against historical data to find which segments have the highest NDR, ACV, and Win Rates. -- Find new ICPs, outside generic vertical groups. 3.) Action the data -- Create ABM plays at intersections with highest win rates. -- Develop content specific to each segment combination (e.g., "Cloud Security for Advanced DevSecOps Teams in Retail") -- Refine your segmentation models as you grow. This process can reduce non-ICP Spend (waste) by 20-30% and help you find thousands of net new target accounts. Don't just throw your budget at industries. Find the segments where your solution resonates most, where you win often, win fast, and win big. That's strategic segmentation. p.s. If you want me and my team to kick-start this process for you, we're offering a free strategic segmentation analysis to CMOs at SaaS security companies with >$20M ARR. Get your report here --> https://lnkd.in/gMezS4Zk #ABM #ICP

Counterintuitive as it sounds, alienating customers can be your brand's secret weapon. Today, blending in isn't an option. At the same time, understand that not everyone is your ideal customer. When you try to please everyone, you might end up pleasing no one. Your message will become generic, boring and not appealing or connecting with anyone. Brands should do the following: → Segment the market → Identify your core audience → Understand their problems and pain points Those underserved by the market or your competitors can offer strong market potential. Begin associating with them through products and features that address their needs. Remember, "Riches are to be made in the niches" - that's your starting ground. Because, your competitors' weaknesses should be your brand's strengths. Do what others cannot do for this segment in the market. Big players are often too focused on broader markets to care about small segments. This presents a great opportunity for you to establish and grow further. By daring to alienate, you do something powerful: you resonate deeply with your true audience. These loyal customers don't just buy a product or a service; they buy into an idea, a lifestyle. They become brand ambassadors, spreading the word far more effectively than any advertisement could. So, don't cast a wide net at the beginning. If you try to appeal to everyone, you risk becoming insignificant to everyone. Your brand doesn't need every Tom, Dick, and Harry as a customer. Keep your strategies focused and targeted. ------------------------------------------ 💬 Let me know what you think 🔗 Share if helpful! ------------------------------------------ #brand #strategy #niche #segment

Hugo split from Boss. And no, that’s not a metaphor. It’s one of the boldest (and smartest) branding strategies I’ve seen. For decades, Hugo Boss tried to be everything at once: Luxury, but also urban. Formal wear, but also casual. One name… trying to speak to too many people. And when that happens? The style gets diluted. The story gets lost. The message stops connecting. So in 2022, they made a brave move: They split the brand in two. ► Boss stayed with the classic, premium, elegant aesthetic. ► Hugo reinvented itself with a younger, urban, and accessible vibe. Two brands. Two tones. Two targets. Zero confusion. The result? A radical rebrand that’s already paying off: Clearer positioning Higher engagement from specific audiences Double-digit growth in new segments they weren’t even competing in before The lesson is clear: Expanding the message ≠ Expanding the brand. Sometimes, growth means choosing who not to speak to. A brand with no focus might sell everything. But no one truly cares about it. #BrandStrategy #MarketingInsights #Rebranding #Positioning #CustomerSegmentation #HugoBoss #Branding #FocusWins

I've talked with over 50 teams last year - every one of them got this wrong. Here's how you can avoid their same mistakes: 1️⃣ Target audience = people relevant to your product solution For vertical products, this might seem easy if you're providing 1 solution to 1 type of demographic. But if you've got a horizontal solution, this quickly becomes "we're something for everyone". Pro tip: even horizontal products have target audience focus 2️⃣ Once you have your target audience, it's time to break it down into bite-size segments Segments allow you to organize your target audience into categories Typically these categories are either industry Verticals or Departments [for example, Marketing teams might be a segment for Sprout Social whereas Carta bucket their segments by vertical such as Healthcare and Finance] 3️⃣ Once you have your segment buckets, it's time to break down personas Personas are individuals within your segment Bouncing off the examples above, you'd want to target a Social Media Manager inside a Marketing team for the Sprout Social product 4️⃣ Lastly, it's important to understand how these roles show up in User vs Buyer roles Perhaps the Marketing Director is the official buyer while the Social Media Manager is the champion and user Now, this is where things get fun... use your target audience framework to identify the buying process Social media managers might prefer to try your product and see results first before they go asking their boss for budget Perhaps this means a self-serve product would be beneficial in the buying cycle Has anyone else used a similar framework before? #productmarketing #gtmstrategy #segmentation

I learned this the hard way. A while back, I thought I had segmentation figured out. I pulled CRM data, built ICPs, and refined personas. Like many of us, I believed segmentation was a marketing exercise - something that I could fix by tweaking messaging or targeting. But then I watched deals stall. Sales kept chasing wrong accounts. Marketing campaigns felt scattered. And leadership? They kept pushing for more pipeline instead of better pipeline. The big shift? Segmentation isn't about who you want to sell to. It's about who actually buys and why. I used to believe I could expand my market by testing new segments. In reality, the more I broadened the weaker my conversions got. My learnings: - If sales isn't focussed, pipeline turns into a mess of "maybe-fit" deals. - If leadership isn't aligned, segmentation becomes a guessing game. - If marketing optimizes for lead volume along with the above two, it creates pipeline bloat. Sounds obvious when you read it. But not easy to operationalize it. Especially if you're in the weeds of day-to-day work. Here's what I did to separate the good pipeline from the bad. I broke them down into four categories: - Winner Segment; This segment is driving high demo volume and has high conversion rates. These were my REAL ICPs. Double down here and find what channels these folks came from, the pages they landed on, the content they read. - Opportunity Segment: This segment doesn't look great initially because you're not getting a ton of conversions. So they don't pop in your reports. But if you dig deep these convert as well as your winner segment. These were our hidden gems — niche but valuable. Now the question was, does this segment make sense for us? And do we have more people, time, and money to prioritize this and double down on this? - Bleeder Segment: This is the exact opposite of the Opportunity segment. They look good in reports but they're actually creating a ton of false positives and end up burning your resources. Sometimes these are also the ones that end up draining your support/success teams. - Pause Segment: This one is obvious. These are people who never convert further in the pipeline. Sometimes it's channel specific. But in most cases these kinds of demo requests slip in every once in a while. These are the folks we needed to politely decline It was eye opening once I made this segment based view of what was happening But the hardest part? It was getting the leadership team to buy into it. So before you do another segmentation exercise, ask yourself (and even the extended team): - Are we optimizing for revenue or just for more meetings? - Are we prioritizing these segments across the org or is it just being talked about during your weekly sync ups? - Are we cutting bad-fit prospects fast enough? Because segmentation isn't about shrinking your market. It's about scaling smarter I wrote my process in detail in my newsletter. You can read it by clicking on the link in my profile

For my fellow ABM geeks 🤓 I've been chatting a lot with clients over the past few weeks about account segmentation in ABM. As many B2B marketers are deep in planning for 2025, identifying key segments across your prospective customer base can sometimes seem a daunting task. Like all things in marketing, there are multiple ways to carve a turkey, and creating unique target account segments can come from multiple data sources and tools. Most of the data you need to segment your accounts effectively is already sitting in your CRM, customer interactions, or sales intelligence tools. The key is to approach this data strategically to: ✅ Spot trends ✅ Prioritise high-value opportunities ✅ Align marketing & sales efforts To help anyone get started, here are a few different segmentation approaches to consider for your business: 1️⃣ Geographic Segmentation – Group by location (country, region, city) to tailor campaigns to specific markets. 2️⃣ Industry/Vertical Segmentation – Focus on industries like healthcare or finance to create personalised messaging. 3️⃣ Company Size Segmentation – Adjust strategies for SMBs vs. enterprise clients. 4️⃣ Revenue Opportunity Segmentation – Prioritise high-value accounts to maximise ROI. 5️⃣ Technographics Segmentation – Target companies based on the tools/tech they use (e.g., CRMs, ERPs). 6️⃣ Lifecycle Stage Segmentation – Differentiate between prospects, active customers, open sales pipeline opportunities or churned accounts. 7️⃣ Buyer-Intent/Relationship Segmentation – Identify accounts showing intent through website activity or third-party data. This list isn't exhaustive (I could go on for hours!), but it's a solid starting point. When you take a segmented approach, you’ll gain insights like: 🔹 Trends and opportunities in your target market. 🔹 Which accounts need sales focus vs. marketing prioritisation. 🔹 Opportunities to close pipeline deals faster. At the core, a solid ABM approach and account segmentation exercise is rooted in marketing & sales counterparts collaborating together. If you're building on ABM plans, grab your sales partner a coffee, pick their brains on the favourite (& least favourite accounts!) and you'll build a better plan for it. #B2BMarketing #ABM

The best gift your RevOps team could give you this Christmas is a clear view of account segmentation within your business. It’s a somewhat confusing topic, so let me break it down a bit. Most B2B companies can rattle off their Total Addressable Market (TAM). But far fewer have a clear definition of their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)—and that’s where the real opportunity lies. TAM is everyone you could sell to. ICP is who you should sell to. Getting specific about your ICP means focusing your time, energy, and resources on the right customers—the ones who bring the most value to your business and who benefit the most from your product. Once you know your ICP, the next step is account segmentation: breaking down your customer base into tiers or personas to refine your approach further. Think of it like sorting through a pile of gifts to find the perfect ones for the people who matter most. This is where metrics come into play. You need to analyze each segment to understand how they behave, how much value they bring, and how costly they are to serve. Here are a few to focus on: • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Which segments are the most expensive to acquire? Are they worth it? • Lifetime Value (LTV): Which segments bring the highest long-term value? • Deal size: Do certain segments tend to bring larger deals that justify more investment? • Sales velocity (sales cycle length): How quickly do segments move through the pipeline? Faster cycles mean faster revenue. • Churn rate: Which segments are the most likely to stay, and which ones churn out too quickly? Based off these metrics, you can prioritize the segments that deliver the best return on your time, energy, and dollars. You’ll be able to craft sharper messaging, target more effectively, and focus your resources where they’ll have the biggest impact. Yes, account segmentation takes time. It requires clean, reliable CRM data and a clear strategy. But the payoff? Massive. You’ll target better, lower churn, and build stronger relationships with the customers who matter most. As you wrap up the year, consider making account segmentation a priority for next year. It’s not the easiest gift to give your business, but it’s one that keeps paying off, year after year. Merry Christmas—and here’s to a successful 2025! 🎄🎁

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗼𝗳? Customer segmentation by size, industry, and geography. Why? Because when you stop treating all customers the same, you start growing 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿, more 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆, and with fewer 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀. This analysis is the unlock for: 📈 Smarter growth strategies 💰 Healthier margins 🤝 Happier customers 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲, 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘆? ✅ 1. Sales & service effectiveness • A $250M CPG distributor in the Midwest doesn’t need or want the same approach as a $7bn manufacturer in Germany. • Segmentation helps you sell and support the right way - for the right customer. ✅ 2. Better strategic & operational decisions • Want to know which customers are high-effort but low-margin? Which industries are expanding the fastest? Which region has the stickiest customers? • Segmentation brings that clarity. ✅ 3. Improved customer experience • Customers don’t expect to be treated equally - they expect to be treated relevantly. • When all your teams understand the nuances of the customer they're serving, retention and satisfaction go up. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹: 1️⃣ Group customers by: • Size (revenue or headcount) - a useful proxy for complexity • Industry (manufacturing & industrials, tech, services, life sciences & healthcare, CPG, etc.) • Geography (region, market, country) 2️⃣ For each segment, analyze: • Profitability • Support/service effort • Sales cycle and retention • Volumes, expansion or upsell potential 3️⃣ Find your high-leverage segments 4️⃣ Align GTM, finance, ops, and support around them 5️⃣ Refresh regularly - your base will evolve 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲 • Customer segmentation isn’t just a data exercise. It’s a strategic advantage hiding in plain sight. • When you know who your best customers really are - you build better, sell smarter, and scale faster. #CustomerStrategy #Operations #Finance #Growth #Segmentation #BusinessStrategy #fpanda

How do I segment accounts for ABM beyond just TAM or ICP? 🤔 This is a question I hear often from Field Marketers implementing ABM strategies across regions. And I get it—it’s a challenge. Neither sales nor marketing should rely on assumptions when prioritizing accounts. This year, I set out to let data guide our decisions. When the data speaks, it’s so much easier to validate, optimize, and scale our approach. Over the past two years of activating ABM programs, I’ve learned a ton about effective prioritization. Recently, I had the opportunity to share those lessons on the Let's talk ABM Podcast with Declan Mulkeen. In our conversation, I broke down how I’m piloting a new ABM scoring model that’s reshaping how we prioritize accounts, using five key dimensions: 1️⃣ Strategic Fit 2️⃣ Revenue Potential 3️⃣ Engagement Opportunity 4️⃣ Operational Readiness 5️⃣ Influence Potential Each dimension is weighted differently to help us move beyond surface-level ICP filtering. The result? Smarter, data-driven decisions that focus on the most critical accounts, driving faster ROI. 📊 The early results have been eye-opening and inspiring—and we’re just getting started! 🚀 👉Check out my episode with Declan Mulkeen here: https://hubs.la/Q033lT0d0, and I’d love to hear from you: How are you evolving account segmentation in your ABM programs? Let’s swap best practices! 💡 #ABM #AccountSegmentation #DataDrivenMarketing #LetsTalkABM #MarketingInnovation #Leadership