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Firmographic Segmentation: Neglected but Essential B2B Marketing Strategy

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firmographic segmentation

Businesses are now attempting to develop the perfect marketing strategy so that the products or services they provide appeal to potential customers. As the audience expands, so does the number of people with unique requirements and preferences.

In this situation, businesses try everything to make their marketing message relevant to their audience and find their customer. As a result, segmenting the target market is essential. This approach enables the company to build a more precise image of its client base to satisfy its specific desires and needs. The more personalized your ad is, the more successful conversions you get.

In marketing, segmentation is the separation of your target market into accessible and understandable groups. Demographic, firmographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors are the typical bases for market segmentation. You may also categorize customers based on their priorities and interests. Knowing your company’s market segments will allow you to use this information for efficient targeting that will influence sales. To reach your corporate goals, you will need the assistance of a marketing professional, if not more than one. Business process outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular as a way to recruit marketing experts at a reasonable cost. The choice of segmentation type directly depends on the needs of your company. But for B2B organizations, firmographic segmentation is a must.

In this article, we will discuss firmographic segmentation, its characteristics, main variables, and benefits. We’ll also explain the distinction between firmographics and demographics, as these two segmentation approaches have some similarities.

What Is Firmographic Segmentation and Why Is It Important?

Before we go into firmographic segmentation, it is necessary to understand what firmographics is. This term refers to the characteristics of any firm, including companies, organizations, nonprofits, and corporations. These descriptive attributes can help identify the target audience and categorize individual companies into key market groups. Firmographics allows companies to target their marketing messages towards organizations that tend to be interested in what they offer. In short, firmographics for companies are the same as demographics for individuals.

While demographics and psychographics are segmentation methods that focus primarily on B2C organizations, B2B companies need a different approach. In essence, firmographic segmentation is a fundamental practice for B2B or ABM marketing. This type of segmentation is the process of evaluating and classifying business-to-business clients based on the general attributes and characteristics of the company or organization.

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Source: Freepik

Organizations may better understand their audience, effectively build and target their marketing efforts with the help of B2B firmographic segmentation. At the same time, the process of analyzing and dividing the market into segments is remarkably similar to how B2C marketers employ demographic segmentation. Firmographic segmentation will pay attention to criteria such as the size of the company, the number of employees, or the industry in which it operates.

The Difference Between Firmographics and Demographics

Demographics remain one of the simplest and most commonly used forms of segmentation in B2C companies. The products and services that customers choose and use often depend on demographic factors. Firmographics provide a similar approach, but on a bigger scale, covering entire companies. For a more detailed comparison of these approaches, let’s have a look at the table.

Demographics (Individuals) Firmographics (Businesses)
Gender Industry
Age Location
Income Performance
Occupation Company size
Family status and structure Status and structure

In general, demographics concentrate on the personal traits of the client that distinguish him into a separate group. This method allows you to examine your customer’s appearance, preferred activities, occupation, income, education, and nationality. You may segment the market based on these characteristics. Firmographics essentially combine demographic and geographic factors and apply them to businesses. The firmographic data you will need may vary depending on your product. Each product or service will necessitate its specific strategy.

7 Common Variables in Firmographics

This market segmentation strategy defines customer categories primarily via the use of seven variables. We’ll tell you all about them.

1. Industry.

Since it is directly related to the company’s activities, industry firmographics is a reasonable variable. Segmentation by industry allows you to narrow your target audience, but at the same time, increase the effectiveness of advertising. This method is practical because you look for clients in related fields or areas that require your products or services.

2. Location.

Location firmographics involve the classification of businesses according to their location. Geographic factors can include places such as city, state, country, region, or continent. By applying this variable to market segmentation in your marketing campaigns, you may analyze your consumers’ reactions. You can check, for example, which regions show the highest support for your product.

3. Performance.

Performance in firmographic segmentation is a metric that measures how well an organization operates over time. It is necessary to consider the company’s existence, its pace of growth or decline, earnings, and losses to assess this characteristic. Later, based on the collected data, you can compare information about your firm with other companies. You may locate businesses with similar performance this way. And performance similarity attracts the need in a shared solution, whether it’s a product or a service.

4. Company size.

Size is another variable in firmographic segmentation. This feature determines the company’s capacity. What is the purpose of it? Because various sized businesses are likely to respond differently to various messages and advertising techniques. For a large corporation, advertising focused on small businesses will not be as successful. Business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions may be effective in resolving potential issues.

5. Status and structure.

A firmographic variable representing the link of one business to another or the legal status of an organization is the status and structure of a company. Independent enterprises, subsidiaries of larger organizations, standalone entities, franchisees, limited liability corporations, partnerships, privately or publicly-owned companies are just a few examples of your potential clients. You may substantially increase the quality of your marketing strategy by identifying what sorts of companies could be interested in your product.

6. Executive title.

Companies, particularly the large ones, consist of many people of different specialties. You may segment the groups of people who are most likely to require your product or service based on their occupation. To do this, you’ll need to figure out which specialists in which fields are most willing to buy your goods.

7. Average sales cycle.

This variable in firmographic segmentation exists to determine where your potential client is in the buying process. The average sales cycle depicts how long it takes in general to close a deal, what the line is between potential customers willing to buy and those who do not intend to purchase anything.

5 Benefits of Firmographic Segmentation in B2B Marketing

There are many benefits to implementing firmographic segmentation in your company. Here are a few of them:

1. Understanding of B2B marketing.

Firmographics can assist in answering queries like what firms are out there, what goods they’re launching, and where they’re based. Getting to know companies in the market will allow you to find new customers sooner.

2. Cost-efficiency.

Applying a firmographic segmentation marketing strategy will boost your ROI and reduce expenses on targeting the wrong audience. The cost of incorporating firmographics into your marketing strategy is minimal, so you may get a good outcome without spending a lot of money. And for significant savings, we recommend business process outsourcing services.

3. Increased marketing effectiveness.

It is the most significant and crucial benefit of well-implemented firmographic market segmentation. You may discover more effective methods to meet your clients’ demands and improve their engagement and experience with your company by better understanding their needs.

4. Increasing customer engagement.

You may create a marketing strategy that gives clients solid reasons to purchase your goods and services again. Firmographic segmentation will help you boost your customer engagement and loyalty.

5. Making your brand stand out.

The goal of market segmentation is not only to help you reach your audience but to allow your customers to see the genuine value of your brand through marketing that speaks to them – and thereby puts you ahead of the competition.

Conclusion

Firmographic segmentation is a complex marketing strategy for your business. You may end up with many conversions and new clients if you do a comprehensive study of all the variables and modify them to your unique product. Segmentation will also help you identify your target market and sell your products or services more efficiently. Firmographic segmentation is a great way to segment your business and narrow down your targeting. You will be able to offer companies a personalized approach instead of a standard one, which will boost your financial return and revenue.

Main image source : Freepik

 

Kossi Adzo is the editor and author of Startup.info. He is software engineer. Innovation, Businesses and companies are his passion. He filled several patents in IT & Communication technologies. He manages the technical operations at Startup.info.

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