How do you segment buyers in a specialty chemicals market?

Needs-based segmentation absolutely makes more sense here — firmographics will just tell you company size, not why they buy. In specialty chemicals we've had good results combining application-based clustering (what problem are they solving with the product?) with a latent class analysis on purchase drivers like technical support, lead time, and formulation flexibility. Usually lands you 3-5 actionable segments that actually map to different sales approaches.