Targeting: A Cornerstone To Success

The cornerstones of success in sales rely heavily on targeting, data, deliverability and copy. These four elements are also the 4 links that strengthen your outbound chain. In an earlier vlog, Dan Vanrenen guided us through the steps on how to strengthen the links in your outbound strategy. He highlighted that outbound sales is only as strong as your weakest link.

The first link in the outbound chain is targeting. You need to start by identifying your target persona –
The industry or organization who needs your product or service and the reasons why they need it.

Without knowing who your exact customer is and what pain they are in, you cannot have an outbound sales strategy. You need to know your ideal customer profile, define them down to the most intricate detail. However, getting your hands on such highly targeted, top quality data sounds easy, but it is not, especially cost effectively and at scale. This is all about lead research and correct targeting. And targeting is all about data, which needs to be meticulous and accurate in order to form an exact match with your ideal customer profile and produce that most desired, scalable outcome.

Targeting can be a very time dependent thing. It is an ongoing process because the way people do business changes daily.
Also, their needs and demands change daily and during a pandemic or crisis as the world has experienced in 2020, it is essential that you get your targeting right. And, with these changes, whether big or small, it is likely that your targeting and even offering changes throughout the year. With these constant changes you need to ensure that your sales department stays on top of things and act quickly and efficiently to convert those demands into leads and not get behind the competition.

When it comes to targeting the right prospects, lead generation campaigns will always be most efficient when you know more about your prospects and what they know about your business. No matter what industry you are in, targeting and lead generation are important activities in your outbound sales development strategy, they ensure that you have a consistent sales pipeline which in turn will result in consistent flow of sales.

Targeting can be a very time dependent thing. It is an ongoing process because the way people do business changes daily. Also, their needs and demands change daily and during a pandemic or crisis as the world has experienced in 2020, it is essential that you get your targeting right. And, with these changes, whether big or small, it is likely that your targeting and even offering changes throughout the year. With these constant changes you need to ensure that your sales department stays on top of things and act quickly and efficiently to convert those demands into leads and not get behind the competition.

Some key factors to consider when planning your targeting strategy

• Which industries, companies or individuals are now in a better position to buy my product or service
• Which industries, companies or individuals have an increased demand for my product or service
• How can I better position myself and change my offering to make it more attractive

To thrive in today’s era, these are critical questions to answer and company executives do not have a choice but to consider more viable, long lasting methods and strategies for continued lead generation and targeting to have a successful outbound sales strategy.

However, this does not happen overnight and there are many obstacles and challenges that come into play.

A good targeting strategy should always be flexibly adapted according to timing, otherwise the sales process won’t be set up for success. Without adaptable timing, you’d be selling milk to an ice cream man in winter when you’d be better off targeting a coffee shop.

As an example of adaptable timing, during COVID-19 Growthonics have recently helped a training company successfully pivot by switching their messaging to focus on virtual online training services.

See below for a breakdown of industries which have been successful during the pandemic.
We’re happy to talk more about how we can help with this.

• Automotive
• On demand food delivery
• Finance
• Online Retail
• Logistics

In the meantime, here are 3 ways to identify the best people to target:

1. Industries experiencing high growth
2. Other campaigns which have been successful
3. Industries which may have a greater need for your product or service right now

To dive deep into targeting, ask the Growthonics sales team to set up a consultancy session. We do everything manually which allows us to drill right down into your criteria to produce highly targeted data – whether that’s industry sector, job titles, revenue, geographical locations or even website visitors.

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