A significant area where we support our clients is around targeting, both in terms of the strategic choice of which sectors, types of companies and personas to focus on, as well as the research to actually find the specific companies and people to engage.

Here are some points that I find useful to keep in mind when thinking about targeting at a high level:

🎯 Balance idealism with pragmatism

Good targeting isn't simply drawing up the dream list of companies that a company would like to work with; it's important to balance idealism (the accounts you'd most like to win), with pragmatism (the companies that will have the highest propensity to work with you).

While it's possible to be too pessimistic and cautious, in my experience "rose-tinted targeting" is far more commonly the cause of problems.

🎯 Roughly right is better than precisely wrong

Unless there is no doubt about who to target (which is unusual), it's best to have some level of variety and diversification; at the company-level this could be sector, geography, or company size, and at at the person-level it could be job function, role or seniority.

This hedges a company's bets and reduces the likelihood of marketing and sales initiatives not working at all. It's particularly important in contexts where there is some element of "newness"; for example, when a company is entering a market for the first time, and there isn't historical data available to support targeting decisions.

Even if it seems obvious who to target, it's worth including some outliers to test that assumption. It often surprising who is most responsive to marketing and sales efforts, and which companies end up being the best customers.

🎯 Existing customers can be red herrings

Firstly, it's worth caveating that as a general rule, identifying your best customers and targeting lookalikes is the most sensible thing to do.

However, taking this approach with customers that have come via referral or word of mouth can pose problems. This is because the decision-making criteria of customers that come from these sources (e.g. "my friend, who I trust, recommended this accounting firm" or "my former colleague runs this HR consultancy, so of course I'll work with them") is very different from potential customers who don't have this kind of connection, who will be much more likely to make decisions based on criteria like size, location, capabilities and customer-base.

B2B services companies are most likely have to grapple with this, because a) it's not uncommon for the majority of their customers to have come from referrals and existing connections and b) services are very mutable, so it's possible to cater to quite a random mixture of customers.

In summary, if you target lookalikes of your existing customers, it's best to focus on the ones that came to you without a referral or existing connection, because their decision-making criteria is more likely to be representative of the wider market.