3 steps to better leads: Step 2 Targeting

Targeting

 In my first post of this three-part series on ways to improve lead quality, I discussed ideas for how today’s B2B Tech marketers might consider segmenting their audiences for campaigns.

In this second part, I will focus on targeting:  reaching the right people who will influence and/or make decisions to buy what you have to sell, at the right time and in the right way.  I will leave you with five tried and tested top tips for getting started with the right target data for your campaigns.

Lots feels good

A couple of years ago I was working with a client to design and launch a long term, always-on campaign and, of course, one of the key inputs was data.  Due to the usual constraints of time, budgets and life being a learning curve, the data – all 14,000 records for the segment of 1,200 prospects, was duly licensed and fed into the campaign.

Needless to say, we didn’t get the level of interaction that we planned, so a few weeks in, we analysed the data against the target roles: Infrastructure Managers.  Of 14,000 records, only 95 – yes 95- actually had the job title of Infrastructure Manager.  There could have been more contacts who had this remit within the base but with the generic title “IT Manager” that’s a lot of hitting and hoping!  So we agreed to pause the campaign for a few weeks whilst we hand built the relevant contacts, 1,200 infrastructure managers in named accounts.  On re-starting, the number of marketing ready leads generated in the first week were quadruple the total number generated in the first three weeks of the campaign.  The only variable we changed was the target data.

Building the exact data that we needed cost more per record than licensing data, but the critical point here was the results. 

Few feels risky

However, we should recognise one crucial point.  We were going on a new journey with this client, moving from single tactic telemarketing to an integrated, always on, digital, social, direct mail and tele approach.  It is quite human to want to be reassured by volume.  Having 14,000 records feels a lot better when embarking on something new than 1,200.  At this point I think it is useful to remind ourselves how big our target market actually is.

How big is the target market, anyway? 

According to the Office of National Statistics (2015), there are only 9,350 organisations in the UK (private and public sector) with more than 250 employees, just 1,705 of these have more than 1,000 staff.  So for those selling enterprise solutions that rely on scale and volume, the number of targets is not that high.

Let’s do a little maths on this.  Again the ONS reports that there are 5,095 IT and Communications companies in the UK with more than 20 employees.  So, if we divided customers up fairly, that means there are fewer than two customers over 250 employees each to go round.  Now, in my last post, I stated we shouldn’t ignore the boom in 4 or 5 person start ups, and we shouldn’t.  So let’s round this up to two customers each.   

Given these ratios, if you happen to be an IT Infrastructure Manager in the top 1,705 just imagine how full your voice mail and email inbox gets with messages.   If you want more than your fair share of two customers, then targeting needs to be absolutely spot on.  It's hard enough to reach the right person, why spend time and money targeting the wrong people?

How to get started

Below are my five tips to get started on improving targeting to deliver a better return on marketing investment.

1. Clearly define organisational goals. How many deals and of what value do you need to reach fiscal targets?
2. Multiply your deal target x 3. So if you need 30 deals, then you should only need 90 well-qualified leads.
3. Create a customer touch target. If you are contacting the relevant people with the relevant messages (positioning is discussed in my next post) then a list of 900 well-chosen targets (see my first post on segmentation) is 10 x the lead target and a good starting point.
4. Audit your current data. Extract the data that sits within your chosen segment and meets the target role profile (e.g. IT Infrastructure Manager).  Augment this data to ensure correct contact details.
5. If a gap exists between the results of your audit and your goal, then build the data that you need to close the gap.

If you would to find out more on how to get started with auditing and preparing the right contact data for you marketing campaigns, drop me a line.

 [email protected]  

Interested in the data presented in this post? Read the Office of National Statistics Data here.