So far, we have gone over market segmentation and customer segmentation, how they impact marketing strategies, the differences and their benefits. The time has come to take a peek into industry segmentation to round out a vital trifecta: customer segmentation, market segmentation, and industrial market segmentation.
Closely related to market and customer segmentation, industry segmentation also focuses on the process of breaking down and layering the industrial market for micro-analysis.
What that means is that, unlike consumer segmentation, the whole buzz surrounds B2B marketing efforts. Considering the digitalization of almost all aspects of today’s industrial sector and the fact that companies have to appeal and work with multiple other brands, a new landscape has emerged: the B2B marketing based on variants and criteria collected from an industry segmentation analysis.
Industry Segmentation Is Not Set in The Stone
The industry segmentation doesn’t follow fixed rules, and much needs to be considered before implementing one. For example, your company deals with the healthcare sector, the food industry, and insurance policy-makers. As complex as that may sound, nevertheless, you need to weaponize a marketing strategy that tends to each sector’s specific needs, wants, preferences, and ideologies. That brings us to the floating and dynamic nature of an accurate and reliable industry market segmentation.
Difference Between Industrial Marketing and Consumer Marketing
Industrial marketing focuses on B2B consumer goods and appeals to the needs of other related or unrelated companies. In industrial marketing and its subtext of industry segmentation, industrial goods/products/services are at the center of attention and play the most vital role in building the line between the supplier and the consumer. The consumers, on their own, are industry dwellers who cherish professional communication channels and offerings that suit their unique stance. Every step and effort taken in this space should be targeted at setting out personalized solutions that can resolve an industrial shortcoming, hardship, and need.
Consumer marketing, or B2C, however, specializes in delivering a product/service to the end-consumer in the market. Although much like industrial marketing in terms of heavily emphasizing customer taste and preferences and despite the fact that the two sectors present two completely different classes of customers – still some similarities can be found in the two methods. Consumer marketing creates demand through marketing tools such as advertising campaigns, attractive packaging, after-sales services, etc.
What’s The Influence of Industry Market Segmentation?
First and far most, the proper industry market segmentation strategy amplifies the targeting and marketing scheme. It means that it helps you locate and target suitable industries with the most effective and enthralling marketing strategy that blows the smarts out of everyone’s minds.
Plus, a segmented market synonyms a segmented plan and layering the market to great detail. You can shift your marketing strategies in gear with industry segmentation and avoid the time, energy, and manpower loss. In better words, industrial market segmentation has the potential to high-drive your decision-making skills and improve the overall marketing strategy stacks.
Industrial marketing also aids you with finding the next best niche market. A dissected market flourishes out uncharted territories that basic conventional marketing strategies fail to discover.
Another area that benefits bloomingly from industry segmentation is the product/service arena. As you gradually become more aware and vigilant about your B2B consumers’ desires, the altercations in company outcomes will inevitably be a thing. It’s thus a welcoming sight as products/services become more satisfying for the market, turn over max profits, and shapeshift into a beacon of trust and excellent personalized experience throughout the seas of brands.
All of this won’t phase into reality if you don’t understand the tools and how to manipulate them into a successful industrial marketing strategy. So, here’s a look.
The Tools for Industrial Market Segmentation
As industry segmentation is deeply personalized and detailed, so should its tools and software! Research has shown that more and more marketers and marketing teams are trotting into the fascinating land of advanced marketing technologies and mar-tech solutions. The time has come for you to adopt the same thoughts.
As you dive into more and more markets and stir things up, highly-personalized and regular content takes the top spot in the list of things to do. Achieving different content released in timed intervals could only happen if you’re equipped with the latest tools and technologies. This is the only way to ensure that the communication line with the B2B customers isn’t cut and target-audience content is sent out as it was scheduled.
Remember that, from the outset, incorporate a data-analysis tool; it’s integral to this plan. Use it to better know your audience and extract market data to personalize each customer experience step: website, content, social media platform, communication channels, emails, etc. Do this, and you’ll create a unique experience for hungry-for-personalized-feelings receivers who take in every second of it with unforgettable joy. And, as a result, you’ll be showered in golden outcomes and opportunities, pleasantries, and all that’s good and benevolent. That’s why you should know the tools for the perfect industrial marketing segmentation.
Types of Industry Segments
If you’re interested in knowing more, there are first some parameters of the industrial market segmentation to learn:
- Industry Type
Industrial marketing in a B2B atmosphere levels down to these industries:
- IT
- Chemicals
- FMCG
- Textile
- Iron and Steel
- Services
- Automobiles
- Geographic
We have local, international, domestic, and regional markets. Also, industry markets can be defined by the location of the buyer. Some customers are located around the city, in major metropolitans, or farther rural areas.
- Business Operation
The core of any industry operation is a milestone upon which industrial marketing segmentation fathoms. Some industries manufacture, others distribute, assemble, consult, retail, offer services, redirect, and so on.
- Consumption Rate & Size
This indirectly points to company size and capabilities. The larger the company grows, the more orders and products/services it releases into the market. We have small, medium, and large-sized industries for marketing efforts based on this description.
- Ownership
This is a simple explanation. Company ownership sets the tone for industry segmentation: private, corporations, governmental, public, proprietorship or partnerships.
- Buying Techniques
Different industries show different buying behavior or tactics. A personalized plan can see that each of the buyers of every industry enjoys a customized journey. Here are some buying techniques to think over:
- Leasing
- Direct Purchasing
- Agency-approved Purchasing
- Service Contracts
- Sealed-bidding
- Payment procedure
From industry to another industry, people feel more comfortable with a certain payment method and time. That can be a deciding factor in planning the industrial marketing segmentation strategy. Here are some examples:
- Cash
- Credit
- Full-payment on The Spot
- Installment-paying
Take Away
Overall, the new world needs new changes to happen in companies. Industrial market segmentation is the tool to analyze the new industrial world. It’s a widespread tool to meet B2B customer needs, build bridges, classify the market, find niche markets, and, in the end, turn up the profits. As with every new thing introduced to the marketing teams and marketers, the right industry segmentation strategy requires data and tools in order to extract those data. If you’re planning to make industrial market segmentation a routine activity, you will have to up yourself to the latest technologies and tools you need to properly implement them into your organization.