How To Segment Leads For Better Marketing

If you’re segmenting based on engagement, you’re already behind. Everyone does 30/60/90 day engagement windows. It’s not advanced. It’s basic hygiene. Here’s the real segmentation play most marketers miss: Segment by intent signals, not just opens/clicks. Examples: • Viewed shipping/returns policy? ➝ Hit with reassurance focused CTA • Time on product page > 30 seconds? ➝ Trigger a cart based reminder • Opened 5+ product emails but never clicked? ➝ Try plain text emails with a customer story • AOV based segments - low priced vs high priced ➝ show them the right products • FAQ viewers ➝ Give them more trust • Recent abandon carts/checkouts ➝ Leverage their interests • Time since they opted in for a coupon ➝ Remind them about it • Time since last purchase ➝ Show them complimentary products The list goes on and on... THEN add your engagement for best deliverability Engagement ≠ intent. Intent = actual buying behavior. Stop treating every click the same. Treat the reason behind the click differently.

Not all leads are created equal. Treating all inbound leads the same kills go-to-market efficiency—think reps wasting time on under-qualified demo calls, SDRs adding job seekers to email sequences, over-exuberant forecasting, and so on. So, let’s stop following up with leads in the same way and get more efficient. To do that, I’ve found it helpful to map out a quadrant (<3 quadrants) and establish rules of engagement for each quadrant square. Here’s the approach: Y-AXIS = INTENT Top of the axis is 🙋 Hand Raisers (high intent) and 🛞 Tire Kickers (low intent) on the bottom. Deciphering between the two depends on the expectations of the user. Hand Raisers expect a reciprocated response, whereas Tire Kickers dread one. 🙋 Hand Raiser actions: demo requested, product usage ceiling hit, support ticket created, live chat initiated 🛞 Tire Kicker actions: registered/attended webinar, video watched, product login, email clicked. === Far right axis is 🎯 High Fit and 🪫 Low Fit leads/accounts on the left. Determining who falls into which cohort depends on your product and GTM motion. But the gist here is to draw a line in the sand for what should go to sales and what to qualify out. 🎯 High Fit examples: director+ title at Fortune 500, HR lead at 50+ person company 🪫 Low Fit examples: student at local university, product signup from personal email, job applicant === With our quadrants defined, we can now establish rules of engagement to triage each. Let’s start with highest urgency on down: 🙋 Hand Raiser + 🎯 High Fit Action: Drop everything and book the meeting (even better if the requester can book a meeting directly with the rep mapped to their account) Owner: Calendar automation tool (e.g., Chili Piper) OR Inbound BDR/SDR SLA: < 5 mins 🙋 Hand Raiser + 🪫 Low Fit Action: Qualify in/out to book time with a rep Owner: Inbound BDR/SDR (ideal for user experience) SLA: Same business day (faster the better) **Note:** this quadrant stack ranked higher in the triage queue due to the expectation of a response on the user end) 🛞 Tire Kicker + 🎯 High Fit Action: Non-prescriptive (sorry). In most cases, a human should review and use the action as a signal to inform their approach to connecting with the account. Common Room can help with this. Owner: Outbound SDR team (because these leads are typically MUCH lower intent, they require an approach that’s closer to the outbound motion to generate pipeline. SLA: Ideally, under 48 hours. Hard to say. 🛞 Tire Kicker + 🪫 Low Fit Action: One of the following—qualify out, keep in automated nurture (e.g., product onboarding emails for self-serve), do nothing. Owner: Marketing automation SLA: ∞ === A final word… With all of the above mapped out, you’ll have a starting point for addressing inbound leads. As new leads enter your funnel, you can: plot them onto the quadrant, deliver clear guidance on rules of engagement, and stop wasting time on leads that will never result in revenue.

Teams who take a “boil the ocean” approach to outbound will fail. Here’s how to fix it and build sequences that actually drive results: Step 1: Focus your team on accounts most likely to buy now, invest at a premium, and become long-term customers or referral sources. This means moving beyond “anyone who fits the ICP” and zeroing in on high-priority targets. Step 2: Create deeper, more meaningful segments from that refined group. Traditional segments are great for organizing territories but fall short for crafting sequences that resonate. Instead, you need segmentation that helps your team speak the language of specific sub-groups. Use multiple layers of data—firmographics, intent signals, and contact-level insights—to break your TAM into smaller, actionable groups. Step 3: Launch micro-campaigns that target those precise segments with messaging designed to feel tailor-made. When you take this approach, personalization becomes scalable because it’s rooted in segmentation. Your reps don’t waste time on one-off customization, and your messaging feels 99% relevant to the prospect. I've been teaching this process as #ValueBasedSegmentation for the better part of a decade. It’s the key to building sequences that drive higher CTRs, replies, and engagement without tedious manual effort. ➡️ With this approach, you’ll: - Improve email performance - Write copy that prospects actually care about - Give your team a clear roadmap for focused outbound 📌 How are you helping your team build relevance into their outbound sequences?

I've talked with over 50 teams last year - every one of them got this wrong. Here's how you can avoid their same mistakes: 1️⃣ Target audience = people relevant to your product solution For vertical products, this might seem easy if you're providing 1 solution to 1 type of demographic. But if you've got a horizontal solution, this quickly becomes "we're something for everyone". Pro tip: even horizontal products have target audience focus 2️⃣ Once you have your target audience, it's time to break it down into bite-size segments Segments allow you to organize your target audience into categories Typically these categories are either industry Verticals or Departments [for example, Marketing teams might be a segment for Sprout Social whereas Carta bucket their segments by vertical such as Healthcare and Finance] 3️⃣ Once you have your segment buckets, it's time to break down personas Personas are individuals within your segment Bouncing off the examples above, you'd want to target a Social Media Manager inside a Marketing team for the Sprout Social product 4️⃣ Lastly, it's important to understand how these roles show up in User vs Buyer roles Perhaps the Marketing Director is the official buyer while the Social Media Manager is the champion and user Now, this is where things get fun... use your target audience framework to identify the buying process Social media managers might prefer to try your product and see results first before they go asking their boss for budget Perhaps this means a self-serve product would be beneficial in the buying cycle Has anyone else used a similar framework before? #productmarketing #gtmstrategy #segmentation

How should you segment B2B markets? (Hint: you need more than firmographics) Here are the elements we recommend including in your segmentation: 🟨 Firmographics What are the attributes of a company that might need your product? (employee count, industry, team sizes, location, revenue, etc.) These are easy to find, but they aren’t very useful on their own — because companies can look the same from the outside and have very different situations, goals, and problems on the inside. 🟩 Champion Who is the person or team that actually cares about the problem you solve? These are the people that you’ll be creating content for in your marketing and targeting in your channel strategies. 🟫 Job-to-be-Done A good JTBD definition answers the question “What is the champion trying to do?” and it consists of two parts: 🟤 The activity the team is carrying out. 🔵 The outcome(progress) they are trying to achieve. This is the crux of good customer segmentation — and it sets the stage for identifying channels and creating quality content to reach your champion. ⬛️ Current Tools or Methods How are they carrying out this activity to achieve their outcome today? This could be a specific tool, a collection of tools, or a method. This is the competitive alternative to your product (what you are competing with) 🟥 Problem What challenge(s) is your champion running into in relation to the tools and methods they’re using to carry out the JTBD? It’s important to frame the problem in the way the champion frames the problem (not how you see the problem). ——— Check out the example shown for what a good customer segment definition could look like for Linear (related to selling product development software). 👉 When you segment in this detailed manner, you’ll likely have a large collection of customer segments — And you’ll realize that B2B markets are incredibly fragmented. The startups that ignore this fragmentation usually fail. 😬 They’ll try to go to market at the firmographic level with broad messaging across every channel. The startups that embrace this fragmentation usually win. 😎 They recognize that the way to win a big market is actually by winning many small markets. Which segmentation approach is your startup taking? #startups #customersegmentation #b2b #marketing

I learned this the hard way. A while back, I thought I had segmentation figured out. I pulled CRM data, built ICPs, and refined personas. Like many of us, I believed segmentation was a marketing exercise - something that I could fix by tweaking messaging or targeting. But then I watched deals stall. Sales kept chasing wrong accounts. Marketing campaigns felt scattered. And leadership? They kept pushing for more pipeline instead of better pipeline. The big shift? Segmentation isn't about who you want to sell to. It's about who actually buys and why. I used to believe I could expand my market by testing new segments. In reality, the more I broadened the weaker my conversions got. My learnings: - If sales isn't focussed, pipeline turns into a mess of "maybe-fit" deals. - If leadership isn't aligned, segmentation becomes a guessing game. - If marketing optimizes for lead volume along with the above two, it creates pipeline bloat. Sounds obvious when you read it. But not easy to operationalize it. Especially if you're in the weeds of day-to-day work. Here's what I did to separate the good pipeline from the bad. I broke them down into four categories: - Winner Segment; This segment is driving high demo volume and has high conversion rates. These were my REAL ICPs. Double down here and find what channels these folks came from, the pages they landed on, the content they read. - Opportunity Segment: This segment doesn't look great initially because you're not getting a ton of conversions. So they don't pop in your reports. But if you dig deep these convert as well as your winner segment. These were our hidden gems — niche but valuable. Now the question was, does this segment make sense for us? And do we have more people, time, and money to prioritize this and double down on this? - Bleeder Segment: This is the exact opposite of the Opportunity segment. They look good in reports but they're actually creating a ton of false positives and end up burning your resources. Sometimes these are also the ones that end up draining your support/success teams. - Pause Segment: This one is obvious. These are people who never convert further in the pipeline. Sometimes it's channel specific. But in most cases these kinds of demo requests slip in every once in a while. These are the folks we needed to politely decline It was eye opening once I made this segment based view of what was happening But the hardest part? It was getting the leadership team to buy into it. So before you do another segmentation exercise, ask yourself (and even the extended team): - Are we optimizing for revenue or just for more meetings? - Are we prioritizing these segments across the org or is it just being talked about during your weekly sync ups? - Are we cutting bad-fit prospects fast enough? Because segmentation isn't about shrinking your market. It's about scaling smarter I wrote my process in detail in my newsletter. You can read it by clicking on the link in my profile