A common mistake made by sales leadership is not including segmentation in their territory planning process and overall sales strategy. The intentions here are usually good, namely not wanting to miss any great sales opportunities, but the outcome is often bad: lack of segmentation leads to wasted time and efforts on behalf of the entire sales organization on dead-end and poor-quality leads.
Although you may want to sell to a very large audience, "everyone" is not your prospect. Lack of segmentation results in an overly-general sales strategy that in its efforts to be all-inclusive, includes no-one, causing a misunderstanding on the prospect's end of what you are selling, and leading to lackluster sales for you.
In order to experience real sales growth, you need a segmentation strategy for your sales and marketing, and tailored messaging that resonates with target prospects and their pains/needs.
There are five critical actions when it comes to segmentation, which are:
- Prospect Selection: The first step is identifying your target “sweet spot” prospects. There are many characteristics to consider, such as prospect size, geographic location, demographics, unique needs/pains, and relationship with your company. Your unique business will guide what characteristics are most important, and your final prospects will determine the segments you want to pursue.
- Strategy Development: Once you have determined your target segments, a strategy with a campaign and targeted messaging is needed to reach each of them. Examples of messaging that needs to resonate with a segment include value propositions, elevator pitches, story-telling, marketing materials, and your website. Once messaging and a campaign are developed, determine goals and objectives to measure your strategy's success.
- Tool Selection: Campaigns and tracking tools are your best friends when it comes to segmentation. Campaigns that resonate with your target audience will bring in leads that are in your sweet spot, and a CRM database will allow you to track these leads throughout the sales process and measure the performance of your campaign.
- Precise Execution: You’ve worked tirelessly to develop prospects, segments, strategies, messaging and campaigns, but your work is far from done. In order to ensure the success of your segmentation strategy, you need buy-in from sales leadership/management, training for the sales team, alignment with all departments involved in sales (such as marketing, operations) and accurate reporting techniques to ensure the new segmentation techniques are understood and followed by the entire sales organization.
- Ongoing Testing: Never stop checking your segments. Things change, in industries, markets, and within your own company, so you can’t assume that your original segmentation will hold true forever. Continually review and update your segments to ensure you always know your sweet spot prospects and have sales and marketing strategies in place that resonate with them.
Sales Result is versed in helping sales leadership achieve sustained revenue growth through proper segmentation and territory planning. Let us do the same for you, and reap the benefits as your entire sales organization achieves clarity and focus when it comes to improved prospecting and quality lead generation.
