If you're tired of shotgun email blasts and feeling like you're just hoping for the best, you're not alone. Good B2B outreach isn't about sending more messages—it's about sending the right ones to the right people. This guide is for anyone using SecondBody (or thinking about it) who wants to actually see results from their outreach, not just more noise.
Let's get into how to segment your B2B audience in a way that actually works—without getting lost in the weeds or buying into every shiny new hack.
Step 1: Get Your Data House in Order
Before you can segment anything, you need to know what you’re working with.
What you need: - A clean list of prospects (names, emails, company, job titles, etc.) - Any extra info you have: industry, company size, location, pain points, past interactions
Pro tip:
Don’t obsess over perfection. If your data is messy, do a quick cleanup—ditch duplicates, fix obvious typos, fill in the blanks where you can. You’ll never get it 100% tidy, and that’s fine.
What doesn’t matter:
Don’t wait for “complete” profiles on everyone. You’ll waste weeks chasing details that won’t move the needle.
Step 2: Decide What Actually Matters
Here’s where a lot of B2B teams get lost: they try to segment by everything—industry, company size, revenue, color of the CEO’s shoes. More isn’t better.
Ask yourself: - Who buys from you, and why? - What makes one lead more likely to say yes than another? - Which attributes have actually affected your success in the past?
Most useful segmentation criteria: - Industry/Vertical: Are your messages relevant to, say, healthcare, finance, or retail? - Company Size: Startups vs. enterprises have different budgets and pain points. - Job Title/Function: The person who signs the check isn’t always the one who does the research. - Geography: Local regulations, languages, or even time zones might matter. - Behavior: Have they opened your emails before? Clicked on your site?
What’s usually a waste of time:
Hyper-niche criteria like “companies founded between 2017-2019” or “job titles containing ‘growth ninja’.” Unless you’re running a very specific campaign, stick to what’s proven to matter.
Step 3: Build Your Segments in SecondBody
Now we get into the tool itself. SecondBody lets you filter, tag, and group your audience based on any field in your database. Here’s how to keep it simple and effective:
- Log in and head to your audience dashboard.
- Use filters to create basic groups:
- Filter by industry, company size, or job role.
- Stack filters (e.g., “SaaS companies with 50-200 employees, in North America”).
- Save these groups as segments.
- Give them plain-English names you’ll recognize later.
- Example: “Mid-sized SaaS CTOs, US & Canada.”
Pro tip:
Start broad. You can always narrow things down later if you see one segment responding better than others.
Don’t bother with:
Creating a dozen tiny segments right away. You’ll just split your focus and end up running the same campaign for each, which defeats the point.
Step 4: Map Segments to Outreach Messages
This is where segmentation pays off. Each group should get messaging that actually speaks to their situation.
How to tailor your outreach: - Industry: Reference trends or pain points specific to their field. - Company size: Don’t pitch an enterprise solution to a 10-person team. - Job title: A CTO cares about reliability; a Head of Ops wants efficiency.
Example:
If you’re targeting marketing leaders at mid-sized e-commerce firms, your message might highlight how SecondBody helps them cut manual work and get more conversions without hiring another analyst.
What works:
Personalizing based on what you know about the segment, not what you guess. Mentioning a recent industry shift or regulation? Useful. Pretending you’re lifelong fans of their company? Not so much.
What doesn’t:
Overdoing it with merge fields (“Hi [FirstName], I see you’re at [CompanyName] in [CityName]!”) without any real insight. People see right through that.
Step 5: Test, Measure, and Iterate
Here’s the honest truth: There’s no perfect segmentation strategy. Your best bet is to try, measure, and adjust.
Start with a few core segments. - Run targeted campaigns. - Track open rates, replies, conversions in SecondBody. - Don’t just look at vanity metrics—did you get real engagement or just clicks?
If a segment bombs:
Look at your assumptions. Maybe the group’s too broad, or your message missed the mark. Tweak one thing at a time—don’t overhaul everything at once.
Where most teams mess up:
They set their segments and forget them. But your audience (and your data) will change. Make it a habit to review and update segments every couple of months.
Step 6: Keep It Simple—Don’t Out-Smart Yourself
There’s a temptation to go down the rabbit hole: dozens of segments, hyper-personalized content, fancy automation flows. For most teams, this leads to confusion and wasted time.
Stick to: - 3–5 main segments to start - Clear, relevant messages for each - Regular reviews and small tweaks
Skip: - Overly clever segmentation schemes - Chasing every data point - Campaigns you can’t actually manage
Summary: Start Small, Keep Moving
Audience segmentation isn’t magic, and it’s not a one-time project. With SecondBody, you can cut through the noise and actually reach the people who matter. Start with what you know, keep your segments manageable, and improve as you go. The goal isn’t perfect data or flawless targeting—it’s real conversations with the right prospects. Keep it simple, don’t overthink it, and let results (not hype) guide your next move.