Segmenting sales accounts means dividing a group of potential customers or current customers into smaller groups based on certain criteria. This process allows sales teams to tailor their approach and messaging to specific groups of customers rather than treating all potential customers the same.
There are various ways to segment sales accounts, such as:
- Demographic segmentation: This type of segmentation is based on characteristics such as age, gender, income, and education level.
- Geographic segmentation: This type is based on where customers are located, such as by region, city, or country.
- Behavioral segmentation: This type of segmentation is based on how customers behave, such as their purchasing habits, loyalty, and preferences.
- Psychographic segmentation: This segmentation is based on customers’ lifestyles, personalities, and values.
The goal of segmenting sales accounts is to identify specific groups of customers that have similar needs and characteristics so that the sales team can create targeted marketing campaigns and sales strategies that are more likely to resonate with those customers. By segmenting sales accounts, sales teams can increase their chances of closing deals and improve their return on investment by reaching the most promising leads and accounts.
Understanding Account Segmentation
Account segmentation drives growth strategies, the customer journey, and investment (both financially and time-based) for different customer types. As a company, we tailor our approaches to each customer’s needs to help them succeed, which in turn helps our business grow.
Example: Sales Segmentation is based on the Employees field of the Global Account.
- If a Global Account has a lower segment than any of its child accounts, it will adopt the most significant sales segment of any of its child accounts.
- If the employee count is unknown or blank and manual research cannot confirm, Sales Operations will typically mark the account as SMB
Account Segments:
- Enterprise = 4,001+ total employees
- Commercial = 501-400 total employees
- SMB (Small Business) = 0-500 total employees
- (FED / SLED) = Public Sector (Federal, State, Local & Education)
Salespeople and teams should prioritize their accounts within each segment by sorting them into A, B, and C accounts.
Example Sales Regions
- AMER-FED
- AMER-W (west)
- AMER-C (central)
- AMER-E (east)
- AMER-CMCL (commercial)
- SLED/CAN
- LATAM (Latin America)
- APJ (Asia, Pacific, Japan)
- EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)
- EMEA-N (north)
- EMEA-C (central)
- EMEA-S (south)
- UKMEA (United Kingdom, Europe)
Product Led Growth
A product-led growth (PLG) strategy is a business model and a go-to-market approach that uses the product as the primary driver of customer acquisition, engagement, and revenue. It is a way of growing a business by focusing on creating a product that is so compelling that it attracts, retains, and delights customers, leading to organic growth and word-of-mouth referrals.
A product-led growth strategy typically involves:
- Building a product that is easy to use and provides value to customers from the start, without the need for a sales team to close deals.
- Offering a freemium or free trial model, where users can try the product before committing to a purchase.
- Prioritizing product development and user experience over sales and marketing.
- Using data and customer feedback to inform product development and make data-driven decisions.
A PLG strategy can be especially effective for businesses that sell software, SaaS, mobile apps, or other digital products that can be easily distributed and adopted by users. Some examples of companies that have successfully adopted a PLG strategy include Slack, Zoom, and Grammarly. A PLG strategy can help companies generate sustainable growth, reduce customer acquisition costs, and increase customer lifetime value by focusing on creating a product that customers love.
Sales Strategy 1: A “Bottom Up” and Inbound Approach
A company takes a bottom-up approach when it casts a wide net to capture multiple leads, invites those leads to use their product or service, and encourages them to introduce the platform to their companies. This approach utilizes one-to-many marketing; the marketing team targets a larger crowd to buy, use, and benefit from the product or service. This leads to an “inbound” sales strategy, where sales teams respond to the demand created. This is a marketing-driven approach. Not a sales-driven system.
By the nature of what salespeople do, we must focus on one-to-one interactions. This means our sales conversations are critical to the “up” in Elastic’s bottom-up strategy. If we cannot have the right conversations, we will not move “up” to decision-makers and focus on only serving end-users and what they are looking for. Additionally, as sellers, we must also go “outbound” and generate new demand for Elastic from people who may not have heard of our company. This is a sales-driven approach to co-create with prospects and help them define their vision.
Our sales strategy focuses on having the right conversations with the right buyers across their agreement network to help them buy our solutions.
Sales Strategy 2: “Outside-In” and Outbound Approach
Outbound sales result from prospecting efforts to potential customers who have not yet expressed interest in a product or service offered by Elastic. Outbound sale is a strategy that presumes direct and immediate contact with prospects through channeling the messages outward. This is an active method of attracting potential clients. A salesperson establishes the first contact with a potential customer who fits the company’s ideal customer profile through cold calling, emails, paid ads, targeted landing pages, etc. The critical feature of outbound sales is that to be successful, the campaign has to be well-researched and highly personalized. To do that, salespeople need to be more “outside-in” focused on the customer and their definition of success, regardless of whether they buy from them.
Land and Expand Strategy
- New logo: A company that has never had access to our software before is a new business(/logo) for our application. It’s often said that we “hunt” for new logos. We want to increase the number of “logos” we can say is one of our clients. Therefore, we wish to LAND a new logo.
- Existing Account: This is a client account. It’s often said that we “farm” in existing accounts. We want to grow them more considerably (organic growth). Therefore, we wish to EXPAND in existing accounts.
Finding New Opportunities
Here are some steps to help find new opportunities in existing accounts:
- Review customer data: Take a close look at your existing customer data to identify patterns and trends in their behavior and purchasing history. This can help you identify new products or services they may be interested in and provide a starting point for your sales pitch.
- Engage in regular communication: Regular communication with existing customers is critical to identifying new opportunities. Stay in touch with your customers through phone calls, email, and face-to-face meetings to understand their current needs and identify any unique challenges they may face.
- Ask for feedback: Ask existing customers for their feedback on your products or services and what new offerings they would like to see. This can help you identify new opportunities and areas for growth.
- Stay current with industry trends: Stay informed about the latest developments in your industry and how they may impact your customers. This can help you identify new opportunities for selling additional products or services in demand.
- Offer value-added services: Consider offering value-added services, such as training, technical support, or ongoing maintenance, to enhance the value of your existing offerings and create new opportunities for revenue growth.
- Expand your product offerings: Consider expanding your product offerings to meet the changing needs of your customers. This can help you capture new business and retain your existing customers.
Following these steps, you can identify new opportunities in existing accounts and increase your sales potential. By staying in regular communication with your customers, understanding their needs and challenges, and being proactive about offering new products and services, you can build solid and long-lasting relationships and grow your business.
What does Greenfield mean?
- A greenfield sales territory is a region that a salesperson is selling to where there has not been much penetration of the company’s product or service. The greenfield territory salesperson loves the opportunity to open new land where others have not sold much.
What does white space mean?
- White space is the gap between what products or services your customer has invested in and the other products or services that your company or business has to offer.
VIDEO: Whitespace Analysis
Chasing new business is always exciting. Here is an example of how salespeople discover white space and create additional selling opportunities.