B-to-B Cataloging: Jump-Start Your Segmentation Strategy

¥ Talk to your sales staff. Anecdotal information from your sales and customer service staff about your customers can be invaluable, since they can offer insight on customer behavior you may have overlooked, says Valentino. These insights can provide the basis for alternative segmentation strategies. Do certain types of customers place more orders at a particular time of year? Has your sales staff noticed that customers who buy a certain product follow up with a related purchase in subsequent months?

If you want to know the role each customer contact at a company plays in making purchases, your staff may even be able to point to the decision makers and end-users within those customer organizations. “You need to use these insights to pull apart your database to see what segmentation is best for you,” she states.

¥ Use your database to its fullest potential. “As databases become more agile, more nimble, a cataloger can increase the number of fields in his database,” Valentino says. Use your database as a decision-making tool that allows you to see not only how often and how much companies buy from you, but what products they buy and where within their organizations these products are sent.”Each cataloger should have different fields that are relevant to their organization. And that’s the critical thing about segmentation,” she adds.

Valentino can be reached at (816) 444-5439 or via e-mail at gina@hemispheremarketing.com.