It’s B2B sales 101. Using standard industry classifications for market segmentation is commonplace. Need to sell to the finance industry? Use SIC code 6199, and you'll quickly find a list of companies in that industry.
If you sell to particular verticals, it's easy to see why Industry classifications are essential for proper B2B segmentation. They can assist in identifying the particular organizations that benefit from your product or service and then selling to them. However, traditional industry codes, like NAICS and SIC, have two major weaknesses:
- A company can only belong to one industry, even though many of them operate in several fields. Industry classifications only tell one part of the truth.
- These classifications are too broad and outdated. You can choose a category like “Manufacture of luggage, handbags and the like, saddlery and harnesses,” but you can’t choose “SaaS,” “Fin-tech,” or “Marketplace.”
To overcome this problem, Vainu’s machine-learning powered technology assigns custom industry values for every company in our company information database by looking into real website content. So instead of predefined categories, we have over 700+ categories based on the actual activity of a company.
In this post, we’ll see the use cases of three real companies in different industries so you can understand how Vainu Custom Industries dataset works in practice.
- Sniffie
- Tesi
- Vainu
Sniffie
Sniffie is a Helsinki-based start-up that it’s developing an AI-based price optimization tool for e-commerce. The technology can automate price changes to find the optimal price point and maximize profit margins. In addition, it allows users to get price recommendations to make informed decisions about pricing strategy.
The company’s sales team includes three salespeople and a team lead. Additionally, two marketers help consolidate and use all the data that lives in HubSpot.
Who are Sniffie’s customers?
Sniffie’s ideal customer profile describes e-commerce and retail companies that operate in very competitive industries where pricing needs fast adjustments often, and margin increases require the implementation of pricing automation solutions.
What are Sniffie’s needs for custom industries?
Salespeople at Sniffie use Vainu in several ways. First, with Company Profiles, they can quickly build lists of potential customers. Then, after connecting Vainu to HubSpot, the team can draw better insights on target companies and automate tasks. A Slack channel is reserved for receiving automatic notifications from Vainu.
Vainu Custom Industries was a significant improvement to the way Sniffie's salespeople build prospects lists. Now, the team can drill down e-commerce insights in new ways and better segment industries in different markets. This is vital for Sniffie because it gives a better understanding of the e-commerce platform prospects use and what their pricing model is, whether it is fixed or constantly changing. This way, salespeople have a clear approach to different segments.
2. Tesi
Tesi is a Finnish state-owned investment company. Every year, the company invests between 100 and 150 million euros in venture capital and private equity funds, and also directly in growth companies.
The organization’s development team is in charge of deploying IT systems and data assets, including Vainu. Typically, a Vainu user at Tesi is an investment professional working directly in companies or indirectly via private equity funds.
Who are Tesi’s customers?
As a state-owned private equity company, Tesi doesn’t have customers in the traditional sense, but the organization collaborates with its portfolio companies and funds by sharing valuable insights and providing them with necessary assistance in various matters. Furthermore, Tesi supports Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment with wider market analysis.
Tesi’s primary use case for the technology is to conduct market research and create shorter and better long lists of companies, e.g. for benchmarking purposes.
What are Tesi’s needs for custom industries?
In an evolving world, the established and rigid company classifications are inadequate and inaccurate in describing companies and their nuanced characteristics. With Vainu Custom Industries, it is possible to better develop an understanding of a specific group of companies and their characteristics. Tesi’s primary use case for the technology is to conduct market research and create shorter and better long lists of companies, e.g. for benchmarking purposes.
Once segments and prospects lists are built using Vainu Custom Industries, what are the next steps?
After a list of companies has been narrowed down to a desired level, the team starts our ‘bread and butter’ work and begins to analyze the companies and their market environment with our internal and external data tools and assets.
3. Vainu
Vainu's building a sales intelligence platform that helps companies achieve personalization at scale in sales and marketing through real-time company data.
The company does this by gathering data from millions of sources, transforming it into meaningful company insights, and connecting the data to our customers’ sales and marketing systems.
Who are Vainu’s customers?
Vainu's customers are sales organizations and marketing teams looking to tackle a multitude of data challenges—basically, any situation that requires real-time, high-quality company data.
What are Vainu’s needs for custom industries?
Vainu's marketing team uses the custom industries dataset to create hyper-targeted micro-segments. This way, the team is able to put into action complex tactics that require one-to-one or one-to-few approaches, like account-based marketing.
Once segments and prospects lists are built using Vainu Custom Industries, what are the next steps?
Once the target audience is well-defined, the team can craft very specific and unique content for each micro-segment. By connecting to HubSpot's marketing automation tool, the team can also show different content to different audiences or set up custom-made email marketing campaigns.
Free company lists based on Vainu Custom Industries
Want a small taste of what Vainu Custom Industries can do for you? Then you should consider downloading a list of 100 Nordic companies from one of our precise VCI segments—it's free! All you have to do is click here. Alternatively, try Vainu for free to find out how Vainu Custom Industries will fix B2B segmentation for you.
