Segmenting Audiences using Apollo.io

Understanding Customer Segmentation

In business, it's crucial to define your target market accurately, as a couple of aspiring entrepreneurs found out the hard way when they pitched their business idea to a venture capitalist. They had planned to enter the Chinese market and had a simple strategy: with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, they only needed to reach 1% to be successful. But this vague strategy failed to impress the venture capitalist, leading to the failure of their pitch.

The lesson here is clear: it's not enough to target a large market. You need to narrow down your customer base to an obtainable target. One way to do this is through customer segmentation, a process that allows sellers to organize their operations and personalize messaging in a scalable manner, reaching the right people who need their services.

What is Customer Segmentation?

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing your prospective customers into different categories based on common characteristics such as job title, industry, revenue, company size, location, and more.

Types of Customer Segmentation

• Demographic Segmentation
  • This involves segmenting customers based on characteristics such as age, gender, income, education level, and marital status.
• Firmographic Segmentation
  • This includes segmentation based on company characteristics such as revenue, number of employees, funding, and industry.
• Geographic Segmentation
  • This involves segmenting customers based on their location, which could be country, region, or zip code.
• Psychographic Segmentation
  • This involves segmenting customers based on their interests, values, and personality traits.
• Technographic Segmentation
  • This involves segmenting customers based on the technology they use, which could include software and apps.
• Behavioral Segmentation
  • This involves segmenting customers based on their buying patterns and product usage.

Customer Segmentation Strategy

To define an audience segment, the first step is to define your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) to ensure that your sales reps know who to reach out to, have the right contact information, and can focus on initiating conversations.

You need to go deeper than just basic information. You should segment your prospects into different buckets based on your product or service.

Customer Segmentation Examples

Customer segmentation can be based on various factors such as sequence activity, persona, industry, job change event, fund raise event, prior conversation, increased growth, product behavior, or technologies used.

Using Sales Intelligence Tools

Without the right tools to gather detailed information about your prospects, it's hard to do in-depth customer segmentation. Apollo is a tool that provides not just basic data like job titles and company size, but much more:

Why Choose Apollo?

1. Advanced Filtering at no extra cost: With Apollo, you don't need to spend extra money for additional data points like technology, funding, or employees by department.
2. Sales intelligence and sales engagement in the same platform: Apollo lets you have your contacts, filters, sequences, and analytics in one single platform, saving time and avoiding costly mistakes.
3. Automated Sequences: Apollo allows managers to save search filters and sequence templates so the SDRs can apply them with a few clicks. This eliminates possible human error and automates the process.

Putting Marketing Segmentation into Action

Job Change Alerts: Apollo’s AI can inform you when someone changes their job. This can be used as a trigger to reach out to a prospect who fits your ICP.

Funding: Apollo can also track fundraisers for your customer segment. When there is a Series A, B or other type of funding, it could be a signal to generate opportunities with the right people.

Past Conversations: Apollo can filter people who had a prior conversation with you, but didn’t move forward for whatever reason. This can help generate customer engagement and book a new meeting.

Hiring Activity: If a company is posting a lot of SDR job openings, Apollo's hiring information can be a great asset.

Customer Lookalikes: Apollo can set up a rule to look up other customers that have a very similar profile every time you close a deal with a company.

Conclusion

Customer segmentation is a powerful tool for narrowing down your target market and personalizing your approach. By using advanced tools like Apollo, you can get detailed information about your prospects and automate your processes, making your marketing and sales efforts more effective and efficient.

FAQs

1. What is customer segmentation? Customer segmentation is the process of dividing your prospective customers into different categories based on common characteristics.
2. Why is customer segmentation important? It allows businesses to personalize their messaging, target the right customers, and organize their sales and marketing efforts effectively.
3. What are some types of customer segmentation? Some types include demographic, firmographic, geographic, psychographic, technographic, and behavioral segmentation.
4. What is Apollo? Apollo is a sales intelligence tool that provides detailed information about prospects and automates the process of customer segmentation.
5. How does Apollo assist in customer segmentation? Apollo provides advanced filtering, sales intelligence and engagement in the same platform, and allows for automated sequences. It also provides alerts for job changes, funding events, past conversations, hiring activity, and customer lookalike features.