Firmographic Data is a set of characteristics related to firms or companies that group them together to form market segments. In the same way, demographics are used to segment people into target audiences, firmographics provide deeper insights that B2B marketing teams can leverage to target accounts that will benefit most from their products or services.
What do we mean by this?
Studying the opposing team’s game footage in preparation for the playoffs.
More Info on Firmographic Data
Creating an effective, comprehensive, and data-driven marketing and lead generation strategy can be a complex endeavor. B2B interactions especially rely on a variety of information that not only gives you insights into the people working at an organization, but also the values, operations, and buying habits of the company at large. You have to know how to sell your product to a rep, but also how to craft relevant messaging that demonstrates why your solution will uniquely address the needs of the business in question.
Personalization is as important in B2B marketing as it is in B2C interactions, and you need to understand the specifics of a target business in order to cultivate a promising and lucrative relationship. Firmographic data can help you do this.
In this post, we’re going to talk about what firmographic data is, what it looks like in practice, and why it matters.
What is firmographic data?
Firmographic data describes information as it relates to organizations as a whole. Gathering firmographic data allows you to better understand and categorize potential clients or partners based on a number of different data points. This information can give you critical insight into how your product might be relevant to a target organization.
Firmographic data typically includes aspects such as industry type, company size, company reach, annual expenditure and revenue, ownership style, market trends, and growth information.
Often used in tandem with firmographic data for more effective sales, demographic data is distinct in that it categorizes individuals or groups of individuals rather than organizations. Demographic data usually includes age, location, gender identity, education level, and average income to create a specific customer profile for effective B2C interactions.
Firmographic data may be similarly leveraged to profile your target business in B2B sales and marketing actions. Company demographics may be incorporated into your firmographic data to help you analyze broader company values which stem from who is working at a company. (For example, you might shift marketing efforts if a target business is largely staffed by millennials.)
Why is firmographic data important?
Firmographic data is largely used to support audience segmentation, and drives the creation of relevant, personalized content for potential clients. It tells you what use case an organization might have for your product, what problem solving needs they have based on their size, location, and industry, and what their annual expenditure on products like yours might be. This can help you identify quality targets, minimize time spent following poor leads, and create better marketing strategies for a variety of business types.
Utilizing firmographic data, your organization will be able to reach a wider pool of potential clients by understanding the unique needs of every business you contact. Not only will it allow you to find high-potential businesses to work with, but also will support you in:
- Crafting a personalized marketing, contact, and sales conversion strategy and pathway.
- Personalizing and improving your customer service interactions with target businesses.
- Cultivating long-term relationships with target businesses.
- Understanding your ideal client profile and optimizing targeted marketing efforts.
Firmographic data examples
Let’s take a closer look at different aspects of firmographic data, and how they help.
Performance
This dataset will look at an organization’s annual as well as quarterly revenue, as well as relevant expenditure trends, to give you an idea of their client potential. This can help you craft an effective long-term sales strategy, and identify any short-term needs a company may have.
Industry
This dataset will look at the conditions of your potential client’s root industry and help you understand the possible applications of your product or service as is relevant to their day to day operations. Businesses across a variety of industries will have wildly different needs and this will inform how you craft messaging which expresses your business’ ability to meet those needs.
Size
This dataset will look at both the physical size of an organization, e.g the brick-and-mortar structure, global reach, etc., as well as the number of individuals working within the organization. Again, businesses of different sizes will have different use cases for your product.
Ownership
This dataset will look at how control is distributed or organized within a given business. Whether your target is publicly or privately owned, a cooperative venture, a non-profit, or a governmental organization will give you valuable insight into their sales potential.
Growth trends
This dataset will look at what stage of development an organization may be in. Whether your potential client is a new startup, growing, downsizing, or stabilizing can inform the approach you should take both to marketing as well as the contact to sales conversion pathway.
Final thoughts on firmographic data
Firmographic data is one critical aspect of market analysis that will help you create relevant and personalized content for your potential clients. And firmographic data is easiest to use when integrated through an unparalleled data gathering platform.
Intricately is a comprehensive data insights solution that helps you identify quality targets and craft relevant and effective marketing strategies for easier sales and partnerships. And integrating firmographic data alongside technographic data and market analysis provides you a competitive advantage that not only helps you know your target inside and out, but also where you stand next to the competition.
