I attended an event recently where we discussed the role of segmentation for B2B marketers. One of the speakers, from a large alcohol conglomerate, discussed how the company re-designed its marketing strategy to specifically address what motivates different channels to market. What struck me most was the difference that the introduction of B2B segmentation made to that organisation’s bottom line.
Categorising its B2B customers by distributors, bars, restaurants, local retailers and supermarkets makes a lot of sense since each group is motivated by very different attributes. Using SAS analytics the company was able to quickly categorise its customers and spot new trends and patterns. For example, the project revealed that supermarkets are most interested in large volume discounts compared with local independent retailers who are mostly concerned with educating their children.
Offering promotional large volume discounts to the larger retailers and setting up university scholarship programmes for independent shops had an immediate positive impact on sales. Re-focusing on segmenting by groups with similar interests and attributes, rather than simply by geography, enabled the company to gain immense customer insight to really understand what motivates each group.
I’m keen to find more examples like this – can anyone else point me in the direction of good segmentation case studies for B2B marketers?
