Generating numerous leads is not sufficient unless you start converting them. The first step towards converting these leads into paying customers is segmenting these generated leads.
Your target customers are different, their pain points are different, and accordingly, the leads you generate are also different. If you want to deliver each prospect with what they want, you’ll have to fulfill their needs across different stages of their sales journey.
And the best way to do that is through lead segmentation. Here is a step-by-step guide to understand lead segmentation better and build a highly converting marketing strategy.
So, let’s dive in!
What is Lead Segmentation?
To put it simply, lead segmentation can convert your long list of leads into smaller and more specific groups. The basis of lead segmentation is your target audience’s actions and leveraging these to make more impactful marketing strategies.
Here is an example to clear this out.
Suppose your website suddenly shows a huge spike in traffic. In fact, this leads to a bulk of leads. But how do you segment these leads?
Simple! It is time to send triggers.
Let’s say, you start sending cold outreach messages to all these leads. You get responses from half of these leads and no response from the other half.
You can now create two segments: the ones who responded to your messages and the ones who don’t. Accordingly, you can send the next triggers.
Why is Lead Segmentation important?
Lead segmentation is important for multiple reasons. Here are a few:
- Lead segmentation helps you improve product targeting to improve marketing and sales campaign performance
- With lead segmentation, businesses can build a customized customer engagement & follow-up strategy across diverse channels
- According to a survey, 81% of business executives have considered lead segmentation a critical source of revenue. The same survey highlights that organizations with appropriate lead segmentation practices have acquired 10% greater revenue.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Lead Segmentation through Direct Marketing with Examples
Suppose you have a bunch of leads. However, you don’t have any prior information about the leads. So, how can you segment them?
The best option here is to apply direct marketing initiatives.
Here is a quick example for you to segment leads through direct marketing outreach:
Step 1: Send Automated Text Messages to the Existing Leads
You can start the lead segmentation process with automated text messages. Start sending SMSes to all the leads. These can be promotional texts that talk about your products and services.
Afterward, you can track the relevant metrics like text message success rates to find out the leads’ preferences. Suppose the Success rate of this outreach is 80%. Then it is time to build two lead segments.
Segment 1: Leads who successfully deliver text messages and who might be interested in your offerings.
Segment 2: Leads who didn’t successfully deliver text messages and who might not be interested in your offerings.
Now that you have two broad segments, you can start with the next step of the lead segmentation process.
Step 2: Send Ringless Voicemail to Segment 2
From the first step of lead segmentation, it is clear that the second segment is not interested in text messages. So, the next step can be sending ringless voicemails.
Now, you may wonder why ringless voicemail! Here’s why?
- Ringless voicemail allows you to reach the inboxes of these leads without interrupting them with calls and text messages.
- Ringless voicemails ensure that you never catch the prospects at a bad time. Your prospects are business decision-makers and naturally, they will be busy most of the time. With voicemail, you can just leave it to the prospects. They will listen to your message in their free time and take action accordingly.
- Ringless voicemails are easy to deploy and don’t involve any additional costs.
At the end of this step, you can again have two segments.
Segment 3: Leads that responded to your ringless voicemails
Segment 4: Leads that didn’t respond to your ringless voicemail
Step 3: Run interactive tele-survey campaigns on segment 1
Now let’s get back to segment 1. These are the leads who opened your text messages. It is time to send the next outreach trigger to these leads. A great outreach initiative can be tele-survey. Tele-survey is a great tool to receive instant leads without making manual calls.
It can also provide you an insight into which prospects are willing to talk to you and are interested in your products. For example, among those 80% leads of segment 1, say 50% respond to your tele-survey and you can connect these leads directly to your sales specialists.
The segments that you can create after this step are:
Segment 5: Leads that respond to tele-survey
Segment 6: Leads that didn’t respond to tele-survey
These are only three steps of lead segmentation. You can add more direct marketing initiatives to segment these leads further and place them in your sales funnel based on the leads’ responses in different cold outreach triggers.
Some other triggers that you can use include:
- MMS
- Email marketing
- Voice announcements
The Best Lead Segmentation Tool – FlowUp
To make the most of lead segmentation, you need a tool that seamlessly segments and nurtures your leads. And that’s exactly why we have created a solution that will meet your customized lead segmentation needs. And it is called – FlowUp.
FlowUp is a multi-channel, marketing automation tool that follows up with your customers across every customer touchpoint and streamlines the process of lead segmentation.
Wondering how FlowUp can segment your leads? Schedule a demo now!
Final Thoughts
Lead segmentation can help you fill your sales pipeline with high-intent leads. Businesses remain well aware of their prospects’ expectations with lead segmentation strategies. Accordingly, they plan their strategies and steps to push the prospects across different sales funnel stages.
We hope you now have an extensive idea of lead segmentation and a tool like that can expedite your lead segmentation process. So, what are you waiting for? Start your lead segmentation journey now!