How to target decision makers

John O'Shea

Efficient lead generation companies drive conversions from leads to opportunities and ultimately to sales. One of the major reasons for low or zero conversions is the inability to contact the right person in the company. In this guide, we will explain how to target decision-makers.

Who is a decision maker?

Not all people in the company have an impact on the buying process or have power to make purchasing decisions. Often the sales team puts a lot of effort into talking to the employees that have no such power. If you want a business to become your client, you need to contact the right person.

A Decision maker is an employee of an organization who makes the buying decisions. In most cases, these are managers of B-level or C-level.

Being in a managerial role, decision maker has lots on their plate on a daily basis. It’s hard to get through to them. Furthermore, it’s even harder to grasp and retain their attention.

Thus, when planning to target accounts, you need to define three important things:

• Who is your decision maker
• How to find them
• How to build a communication strategy with them

Let’s take a closer look at strategies.

Three strategies to target company

There are different strategies to reach out to a decision maker. We suggest building all three of them.

1. Direct outreach

Sales process is all about communication and relation-building. Contact and start a conversation with your decision-makers.

Use the following channels:

• Email
• Sales calls
• LinkedIn messaging

We suggest using all three channels. You can build a cadence (of 2-4 weeks) that consists of multiple touchpoints. Alternate the channels of communication. Content of your communication is also important and we’ll talk about it later.

2. B2B marketing

Many decision-makers would search for solutions online. However, having a website and social networks isn’t enough to target them. You need a marketing strategy to make sure that they can find your content.

You need to build a content marketing in accordance with the following rules:

• Your content should talk about the pain points of your decision-makers and solutions to them
• It should contain keywords or key phrases that your targets would use to search for your solution online
• It should be SEO-optimized respectively to hit the top of search engines

3. Networking

There are two types of networking:

1. You ask your clients and partners for referrals or introduction with the key decision-makers
2. You attend business events and try making connections there.

In COVID era, networking became much harder, as the number of business events have dropped down significantly. However, when things get back to normal, it will once again become a powerful tool for your business.

How to target decision-makers: step-by-step

Step 1. Create Buyer Persona

Buyer Persona (or decision-making persona) is a brief yet informative description of who your decision maker is. You need to identify the following details:

1. Ideal Customer Profile: job title, company size, industry, number of employees, etc.
2. Challenges and pain-points that need your solution
3. KPIs, goals that your product/service can help achieve.
4. Terminology they use.

Build your buyer persona based on:

• Similarities you find in your clients
• Predictions of potential customer (if you have a new product or a new market).

Step 2. Plan your outreach strategy

Define the channels you will be using to find potential decision-makers. Plan where you will find contact information for direct outreach. You will also need to set goals, KPIs, and time frames. Assign the team that will perform it (e.g., sales reps). Teach them if necessary.

Step 3. Create content that will resonate with your decision-maker

Use your Buyer Persona for this. You’ve already identified the pain points, goals and KPIs of your decision-makers. Furthermore, you know what language they use for this. Build content (sales pitch, emails, calls, voice mails) that will talk about these important things.

Start with a challenge or a goal the decision-maker would have, and then proceed with the solution (your product or service). Make sure you align with your content marketing.

Remember the decision making process is hard. You need to help all people involved to make the purchase decision more easily.

Step 4. Find decision-makers

Now you need to have an actual list of people and their contact data. Many companies are paralyzed at this stage. How to find the decision maker? There are two ways sales teams usually go:

1. Search for them using LinkedIn Sales Navigator
2. Purchase contact list form a third party.

Step 5. Reach decision-makers and build your relations

Use multiple channels to reach out to the right decision makers. Three most important things here are:

• build a conversation that will be interesting to them (ask about their pain points, goals, challenges, etc.)
• educate your decision maker on how to solve their problems and meet KPIs
• present your product or service as a possible solution.

Three tips for finding decision makers more efficiently:

Last, but not the least, these tips will help you improve your outreach.

1. Job-title-based approach doesn’t always work

You can reach people with the right job titles and find out that they don’t impact on decision-making process. Don’t be afraid to ask exactly who the right decision makers are and their contact info.

2. Multiple decision makers

The larger the company, the more buyers are involved in the purchasing process. You need to take it into account when building your strategy. Define several key decision makers you will reach out to (e.g., SEO, CTO, CISO) in the same company.

3. Outsource outreach to experienced B2B lead generation company

Our company Growthonics helps businesses all over the world to find and target decision-makers. We have vast experience in multiple industries and apply the accumulated knowledge to build precise outreach.

Need help targeting decision makers? Contact Growthonics to learn how we can help.