Segmentation Strategies Tap Into Trend Data On Customer Wins To Spot Sales Opportunities

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Written by Andrew Gaffney

Monday, 04 August 2008 19:00

In the new world of efficiency-first marketing, segmentation and targeting are becoming cornerstones of demand generation strategy. As evidence, leading research consultancy SiriusDecisions has designated target marketing as one of four key building blocks of its Demand Ecosystem.

While most marketers had traditionally focused on all possible prospects, the focus is quickly shifting to more defined markets and even deeper analysis of business functions and roles of specific buyers. Now, as organizations are looking to utilize those segmentation strategies at all phases of the sales funnel, there is a growing practice of applying data on “customer wins” to forecast future opportunities.

Pam O’Neal Mickelson, VP of Marketing at BreakingPoint Systems, Inc. had been one of the early adopters of customer wins analysis in her recent role in marketing at NetQos. O’Neal says the data was a great tool to help drive alignment around the sales funnel. “I could get instant visibility into my best buyers and identify additional prospects with the same characteristics to precisely target my campaigns."

The solution Mickelson had been using at NetQos was Reachforce’s Insight tool. A SaaS predictive analytics application, Insight analyzes customer win data and sales pipeline flow to provide recommendations of market segments which are ripe for further lead generation campaigns.

“The Insight application really confirmed for us a lot of the market assumptions we had been making instinctively, but it also uncovered other segments,” O’Neal said. “The Reachforce application is great because it not only helps you identify markets and segments where you have further opportunities, but then provides you with targeted contacts within those markets. We uncovered opportunities in financial services and at least two other verticals.”

Since BreakingPoint Systems is only one year old and targets a defined group of manufacturers, O’Neal has not been able to apply the Insight application in her new role. “It works really well when you have a critical mass of customers across different verticals,” she added.

ReachForce Insight is designed to align sales reporting into insights for the marketing department, with reports on "in-funnel" sales data, turning static information into actionable campaign insights based on a company’s deal flow. O’Neal said the application not only helps validate if marketing campaigns are targeting the right companies, but also which kinds of companies are moving through the sales funnel the fastest and generating the most revenue.

ReachForce has recently introduced a new version of the application called Insight Lite, which is being offered free to qualified marketers, through Salesforce.com’s AppExchange platform. The Lite product also highlights target market “sweet spots” that are currently not in a company’s Salesforce.com database.

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