Why Defining and Segmenting Your Market is Crucial for Sales Success

One of the biggest challenges women business owners and entrepreneurs face is they find it challenging to land new clients. Of course, for any budding entrepreneur, getting more clients is the recipe for success and survival. However, most of them lack sales confidence, experience, and training to target the right clients through segmenting, approach them with the most appropriate sales message, and eventually earn their business.

If you’re a business owner who’s finding it difficult to land new clients and you’re unsure as to why, you need to come up with a robust sales strategy and create a lasting impact. You need to figure out who you should be selling to and assure them that they really matter to you through clear messaging and a consistent sales strategy.

The key to a successful sales strategy is to target the right market and send out the right message to your prospects. Aiming too broadly would mean you’d reach only a few people who might show interest in your offerings and will convert eventually. In fact, a large number of people who receive your message won’t even be interested in your products and services. This wastes a significant chunk of your marketing budget.

Therefore, to make the most of your marketing efforts, you must start by defining your target market and then segmenting it based on certain client characteristics to craft sales messages that resonate.

What Is Market Segmentation?

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market of potential clients into groups or segments based on different characteristics that are important to you. You are essentially sectioning your target market into sub-groups with similar characteristics, like age, personality traits, income, behavior, needs, interests, or location.

You can then use these segments to better optimize your products, marketing, and sales efforts. With effective segmentation, businesses can create different strategies for various groups of prospects based on the way they perceive the inherent value in certain products and services. It helps them better personalize their marketing message and be certain that their target market will receive the message successfully.

Different Types of Market Segmentation

Before you start defining your market and segmenting it, it’s important to understand the different types of market segments and the criteria they are based on. You can then classify your target audience in one of these market segments based on the underlying characteristics.

1. Demographic Segmentation

It is the most widely used type of market segmentation, and most of us are familiar with this particular type. Demographics look at the background variables that are easily measurable, like gender, age, social class, and geography.

Companies use it for creating broad groupings of population based on factors like age, sex, location, religion, family size, etc. They know how their customers will be using their products and services and what they’re willing to spend for them.

2. Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation is also a subset of demographic segmentation. It groups people based on their physical location.

The needs of your potential clients may differ from one region to another. Your product or service may specifically appeal to urban individuals, for instance, or people who live in rural areas or maybe in seaside communities where they have access to boats or fishing, etc.

This understanding lets you better decide where you should be selling and advertising your products and in which regions you should consider business expansion.

3. Behavioral Segmentation

This is about classifying people into groups based on their behaviors and decision patterns over time, like consumption, purchase, usage, etc.

For example, older consumers might prefer using soap bars, while younger customers may opt for bottled body wash. Behavior variables include the benefits being sought, who the user is and what’s their status, and the type of usage.

Market segmentation based on buyers’ purchase behaviors allows marketers to target their marketing efforts better to generate the desired response.

4. Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation taps into personality factors. It’s an important strategy and is considered one of the most effective market segmentation strategies. It requires you to figure out how your client thinks. This type of classification is based on the lifestyle, interests, and activities of individuals who make up the client segment. It is suited for all markets.

The fitness market, for instance, can be divided into segments of individuals who care about exercise and healthy living.

5. Firmographic Segmentation

This is the process of analyzing and classifying B2B businesses, their audiences, and clients based on similar characteristics that matter to your business. It is more like demographic segmentation, but for organizations rather than individuals.

The variables here include the industry, the annual revenue, company size, performance, location, etc. For instance, you might be interested in connecting with entrepreneurs and businesses with a hundred or fewer employees and should tailor your sales message for them.

How to Segment Your Target Market and Why Segmenting Is Important

Segmenting your target market is something you should be thinking about before even landing your very first client. It helps you gather information, analyze it, and make informed decisions on who you want to serve and what kind of sales messages you’d like to propagate.

Let’s look into how you should segment your market and build a robust sales strategy.

1. Defining Your Target Market

The first step in the process is to define your market. Do this by identifying the different types of clients your specific product or service is for. Think about the industry your product/service belongs in. See if people need your product or service and how big or small the market is. Once you know your market, you can start segmenting it.

2. Segmenting the Market

Decide on the criteria you’d like to use for market segmentation. Your market segments could be any combination of the segment types described above.

3. Understanding the Client Segments

In the next step, choose specific client segments and try to map their WHY.

Each client will likely have a different WHY. For instance, a single working mom will have a specifically different WHY for pursuing career coaching than a woman who is just getting started with her career. Maybe she’s struggling hard to get the promotion and recognition she deserves, whereas the new starter is just looking to have a quick start and climb the ladder doing it right the first time. They have a whole different perspective.

Similarly, in the B2B world, an IT manager would look at a product or service differently than a CFO.

So, it’s all about actually getting into the head of your target customers and figuring out how they’d be approaching things and how your product or service would make a difference for them. It’s their WHY that drives their decisions, and it should help you figure out who is the ideal client for your product or service.

4. Tailoring Your Message to Answer the WHY of Your Clients

Finally, you need to craft your sales message in a way that tells them how your product can benefit them. Give them the answers upfront to get their objections out of the way. Create client-centric products and communicate sales messages that resonate with the subconscious needs of your clients. Address the psychographic variables to generate lasting and impactful sales and marketing strategies.

Now that you know the different types of market segmenting you can do, and how you should tailor your marketing message for them, you should be better placed to land more clients. Give it a try now, and keep experimenting until you get it right!