Targeting is the most important part of outbound
"I worked with a company for outreach but we were getting responses from all types of random people."
We hear this all too often from customers who have worked with other outreach firms in the past. They get frustrated when they start seeing responses from completely unrelated contacts in their outbound campaign.
People get frustrated, time is wasted.
Nobody wins.
In this article, we are going to talk through the importance of targeting, and several ways you can improve targeting for your outreach campaigns.
Why targeting is so important in outbound
Within any outbound campaign, there are three elements at work.
Targeting - Who you go after
Messaging - What you say
Execution - The implementation of the outreach campaign
Yet, here is the thing...
Messaging and Execution are pointless if you contact the wrong person.
Many outbound firms accept a "spray and pray" approach of hitting a high volume of people, in hopes of reaching the right contact. They accept a high-volume of wrong fits, in exchange for the handful of good fits that come through.
At times, I will admit this approach can make sense.
But in many cases, it leads to frustration, wasted time, and annoyed prospects.
How to nail your targeting for outbound
There are 3 steps to nailing your targeting for outbound.
Define your persona
Source your list
Validate your list by hand
Define your persona
The first step to any outreach campaign is getting crystal clear about who you want to go after. Before you begin to research, you need to crystalize who your target prospects are in extreme detail. Some questions to answer are:
Company criteria
What size of company are you going after?
What industry or type of company?
What geographies are you targeting?
What other criteria makes someone a good fit?
What companies do you NOT want to target?
Decision-maker criteria
Who are your ideal decision-makers?
What are their job titles?
Are there multiple decision-makers?
Do the decision-makers vary based on the size of the company you are targeting?
Are there any keywords that would help you identify your potential decision-makers?
Are there any titles that you do NOT want to target?
Answering all of these questions helps you, first, get clear on what types of companies and individuals you should be targeting in the campaign.
Source your list
The second step is to begin to source your list of prospects. There are a few methods you can take to begin this journey.
Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lead Search
Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator Account Search
Utilize a 3rd-party data resource such as Crunchbase, a trade association, or alternative source as your foundation for data
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lead Search
Within Sales Navigator, there are two options for search.
Lead Search - Lets you find target individuals
Account Search - Lets you find target companies
In many cases, LinkedIn Sales Navigator's Lead Search can be a phenomenal route for you to find your ideal prospects. Where you start all depends on who you are targeting, but this can be a great route to go.
By focusing on targeting with such relentless detail, we have been able to grow and become a top B2B lead generation agency.
