Doudlah Farms B2B Email Segmentation Strategy

Overview

During the October 31, 2025 marketing call, the team identified a critical gap in the B2B contact database: contacts lacked the structured tagging needed to support targeted email campaigns. Before loading Lucy's contact list into HubSpot and launching the B2B site, the team agreed to enrich every contact record with three segmentation fields — Industry Type, Job Title, and Location — to enable differentiated outreach by customer segment and delivery geography.

This article captures the segmentation schema, rationale, and phased rollout plan as decided in that call.

The Problem: Undifferentiated B2B Contact Data

The existing B2B contact list (sourced from Lucy Doudlah and the Wisconsin Local Foods Database) was structured primarily for account creation on the B2B ordering site — it contained company name, email, shipping info, and pricing tiers, but no segment identifiers.

This created two risks:

Irrelevant messaging — content appropriate for a restaurant chef would be sent to a school district food service director, and vice versa.
Wasted outreach to unserviceable locations — contacts in states or regions outside Doudlah Farms' delivery radius (e.g., California schools) would receive marketing they could never act on.

"We don't want to market to some school in California that we can't deliver to."
— Mark Doudlah, 2025-10-31 call

Segmentation Schema

Three fields were agreed upon for all B2B HubSpot contacts:

Field	Purpose	Example Values
Industry Type	Classify the customer's business category	Schools/Education, Restaurant/Chef, Wholesale Distributor, Natural Food Retail, Other
Job Title	Enable persona-level targeting within an industry	Food Service Director, Executive Chef, Purchasing Manager, Store Buyer
Location	Filter by delivery feasibility and regional relevance	State, region, or delivery zone

Known Contact Sources

Wisconsin Local Foods Database — primarily school districts; titles often absent and must be inferred or researched
Lucy's curated list — chefs, restaurants, wholesalers (e.g., AMZ, L&L); industry and title data partially available but needs standardization

Phased Email Marketing Rollout

All B2B contacts (once tagged) are enrolled in the existing monthly consumer newsletter via HubSpot. This provides immediate touchpoints without requiring a separate campaign build.

School district contacts from the Wisconsin Local Foods Database are already being loaded and will receive the monthly newsletter automatically.
Lucy's chef/restaurant/wholesaler list to be loaded after tagging is complete.

Phase 2 — Early 2025: Dedicated B2B Campaigns

Once the contact database reaches sufficient size and tagging is complete, the team will build segment-specific email sequences:

Schools — focus on bulk ordering, nutrition, USDA organic credentials, seasonal availability
Chefs/Restaurants — focus on heirloom varieties, flavor profiles, farm story, specialty SKUs
Wholesalers/Distributors — focus on volume pricing, logistics, B2B portal ordering

At this stage, B2B contacts will be migrated out of the general consumer newsletter and into their dedicated flows.

B2B Site Launch: Phased Rollout with Pilot Testers

To reduce risk at launch, the team agreed to a soft launch with a small trusted group before opening accounts to the full contact list.

Pilot tester criteria:
- Existing relationship with Lucy or Mark
- Willing to provide candid feedback on the ordering experience
- Tolerant of minor issues during testing

Confirmed pilot tester:
- Sherry Howard — Seasonal Harvest (suggested by Mark Doudlah; has a strong relationship with Lucy)

Action: Mark to provide 2–3 additional pilot tester names; Lucy to confirm final list.

The pilot will surface issues with order confirmation emails, ShipStation integration, payment flows, and account setup UX before a full rollout.

Implementation Checklist

[ ] Add Industry Type, Job Title, and Location fields to HubSpot B2B contact schema (@Karly Oykhman)
[ ] Tag all existing contacts in Lucy's list with the three fields before loading (@Karly Oykhman)
[ ] Confirm Wisconsin Local Foods Database contacts are tagged with school district name and "Education" industry type (@Karly Oykhman)
[ ] Enroll tagged contacts in the general monthly newsletter as interim step (@Karly Oykhman)
[ ] Identify and confirm 2–3 pilot testers with Mark and Lucy (@Mark Doudlah)
[ ] Build dedicated B2B campaign sequences by Q1 2025 (@Karly Oykhman)

Key Principle: Build the Structure Now

Mark Doudlah explicitly noted that it is far easier to add segmentation fields before loading the list than to retrofit them later:

"It'd be easier to probably create it now than it would be to fix it later."

This applies as a general principle for any new HubSpot contact list import: define the full segmentation schema before bulk loading, not after.

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