12 Targeted Lead Generation Strategies to Boost Sales

Are you looking for ways to increase your sales pipeline?

Targeted lead generation can help you identify and engage individuals or organizations more likely to purchase your products or services.

The main benefit of targeted leads is that they can help you increase your pipeline by focusing your sales and marketing efforts on a specific group of buyers.

There are many different ways to target leads, and the best approach depends on your products or services, your target market, and your sales and marketing goals.

In this blog post, we’ll share 12 lead targeting strategies that you can use to find new leads and close more deals.

What is a targeted lead?

Targeted lead generation focuses on a particular segment of buyers and companies more likely to become customers.

There are countless benefits to narrowing your focus on targeted leads, such as cost efficiency and reduced customer churn. You’ll also increase the likelihood of growing your sales by narrowing in on the best-fit customers.

Instead of attempting to sell to everyone in a much larger market, you’re putting all your resources and time into a well-defined target market, commonly known as an ideal customer profile (ICP).

For example, if your target market is technology companies, you can narrow it down further to focus on SaaS companies in North America. Furthermore, focusing on specific buyer personas within a company, such as the VP of Marketing.

What is an ideal customer profile?

An ideal customer profile describes your target market or the best customers that would most benefit from your product or service.

It is a fictitious representation of all the traits a company would have that make them the best fit for your solution. An ideal customer profile is extremely useful because it allows both your sales and marketing team to narrow their focus on a segment of relevant companies.

An ideal customer profile includes information that would make them a good fit. Here are some characteristics to include:

• Industry: which specific industry or sub-segment does your customer belong to?
• Revenue: how much annual revenue does your best customer generate?
• Company Size: how many employees does the company have?
• Geography: which part of the world does your customer reside in?
• Requirements: are there any specific requirements or limitations, such as the technology they use?

An ideal customer profile helps you focus your marketing efforts and resources on the right people. A narrowed focus can lead to more sales and better business results.

Along with an ideal customer profile, you should also have buyer personas.

What are buyer personas?

Buyer personas are fictitious representations of your ideal customers, including professional goals, motivators, pain points, metrics, and responsibilities.

Ideal customer profile vs. buyer persona: what’s the difference?

Ideal customer profiles and buyer personas are different but should be used together in a targeted leads strategy.

The ideal customer profile focuses on company attributes, whereas a buyer persona focuses on the individuals within the target company.

Creating an ideal customer profile and buyer begins with research. You can start by looking at your current customer base and identifying trends.

Other sources of information include market research reports, surveying your customer-facing team, interviewing questions, and reviewing your CRM data.

Once you understand your target market, you can create a detailed description of your ideal customer.

If you don’t have an ideal customer profile or buyer persona, you’re likely wasting time and money on sales activities that don’t reach the right people. An ideal customer profile can help you focus your marketing efforts to get the best results for your business.

5 reasons why targeted leads are important

The benefits of targeted lead generation are that it can help you save time and money.

Only targeting those most likely to convert leads can also lead to higher conversion rates overall.

Here are five main benefits of a targeted lead generation strategy.

1. Cost-efficient

Perhaps the most obvious benefit is focusing on targeted leads is that it is more cost-efficient than a “spray-and-pray” lead generation approach.

When you focus your efforts on a specific group of target buyers, you’ll be able to save money by not wasting time and resources on leads that are not interested in your products or services.

For example, let’s say you have a ten-person sales team using outbound prospecting. Instead of having all ten sales reps target different segments, focus their efforts towards the most lucrative markets. As we mentioned above, it can be specific industries, company sizes, or job titles.

2. Stay focused

Targeted leads can also help you focus your sales and marketing efforts.

By targeting a specific group of buyers, you’ll be able to create more targeted and effective sales and marketing campaigns. This is commonly known as Account-Based Marketing, when sales and marketing teams work together to target best-fit accounts and convert them into customers.

According to SiriusDecisions, closely aligned B2B companies grow revenue 19% faster.

As a result, you’ll see a higher return on investment from your marketing efforts. When done correctly, both align on the same goals, specifically on target leads, and play an important role throughout the sales funnel.

3. Better funnel conversion

Lead targeting can also help you improve sales funnel conversion rates from lead to closed won.

By focusing on targeted leads, you can ensure the right message gets to the right buyers. This helps dramatically increase your funnel conversion rates because your messaging is relevant and focused on solving a specific buyer’s business challenges.

4. Become industry knowledge

It is much easier to become an industry expert within a target market.

When you focus your targeted lead generation efforts on a specific group of people, you’ll consistently learn more about their needs and pain points. This knowledge will allow you to position your products or services as the solution to their problem.

As a result, you’re seen as an industry expert that can specialize in their use case.

5. Reduce churn and increase customer retention

When you focus on a specific target market, you’ll be able to better understand their needs and wants. This knowledge will allow you to create loyal customers and reduce churn.

12 targeted lead generation strategies

Are you looking to increase your pipeline? If so, lead targeting is a great way to do it.

By definition, lead targeting identifies and then pursues potential customers most likely to buy your product or service. Targeted lead generation can be done through various methods, including account-based marketing, buyer intent data, or sales lead enrichment tools.

Use these 12 different targeted lead generation strategies below:

1. Target website visitors

To generate targeted leads from your website, you need to know who is visiting your site.

Use data to uncover which companies are visiting your website, specifically high-intent pages such as pricing and product pages.

This information will help you determine which visitors will likely be interested in your products or services. You can reach out to those companies through warm calling since they’ve already engaged with your website.

You can significantly increase the number of relevant leads using website visitor data.

2. Social selling

Social selling involves engaging targeted prospects on LinkedIn.

It’s a great way to identify targeted leads, build relationships, and reach potential customers.

To start social selling, build an informative LinkedIn which outlines who you help and what business problems you solve. Then make it a habit to connect with relevant B2B buyers with personalized invitation requests.

Consistently share valuable content with your LinkedIn network and engage in online discussions.

This is a great way of demonstrating your subject matter expertise while building a strong network filled with your ideal audience.

By upgrading to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you’ll have access to a powerful sales prospecting tool.

You can use Sales Navigator to build lists of targeted leads based on attributes such as job title, industry, company size, and more. You’ll also find valuable insights about their business that you can use in your messaging.

3. Attend specific events

Sales reps can use events to engage targeted leads in several ways, including networking, speaking engagements, and sponsorships.

Attending specific events in their industry is a great way for sales reps to get in front of their target leads and make valuable connections. Additionally, it’s a great opportunity to hear and learn from others in their industry.

Having an executive speak on stage can help position your company as a leader. It can establish thought leadership and helps your company stand out.

4. Referrals

You can ask current customers or other contacts for referrals to potential leads.

Referrals are a great way to drive targeted leads.

When prospects speak with your customers about their experience using your product or service, it can increase the likelihood that they will buy

Great customer experience goes a long way to ensuring word-of-mouth and customer referrals are consistent. Providing excellent service makes customers more likely to refer others to you, which can help you attract targeted leads.

Don’t underestimate the power of social proof.

5. Blogging

A blog can be a powerful tool for marketing your business.

By writing informative and interesting blog posts, you can establish your company as an expert in your field and attract targeted leads.

The key is to provide value for your readers.

Write about topics relevant to your ideal customers and share your unique insights.

In addition, be sure to keep your blog posts have a clear call-to-action for your readers to take. This should be a lead form where they can fill in their contact information to access something of value. For example, this can be a webinar or a demo request.

By taking the time to produce high-quality content, you will soon see the benefits of attracting targeted leads and better conversion.

6. Targeted ads

Targeted ads can give you laser precision on which leads to focus on.

Targeted ads allow you to reach specific customers and buyer personas with a high degree of accuracy and can be very effective in generating sales.

B2B companies can also use targeted content and LinkedIn ads to reach their ideal audience.

LinkedIn’s ad services give you many filtering possibilities, such as industry, company size, engagement, and job title.

Targeted ads allow you to reach many people with your message quickly and easily. They are highly customizable, so you can tailor your message to the specific needs of your ideal customer profile.

7. Cold calling

Cold calling can effectively generate targeted leads, but it takes more effort than other methods.

You need to have an accurate and enriched list of targeted leads to call.

Secondly, you need a strong cold call opening line followed by a call script. Since your lead list is targeted, you won’t need a lot of different messaging for each persona you call.

Prepare for each cold call by researching your prospect.

Ensure you sound confident because tonality in sales can make or break a conversation.

And once you’ve made the initial contact, you can follow up with an email.

8. Sales Cadence

A sales cadence is a powerful engagement tool.

It is a multi-channel, multi-touch approach to reaching and engaging targeted leads through email, calls, and LinkedIn. You can use a sales prospecting tool to automate your cadence outreach.

Using it correctly can help you focus your efforts on targeted leads and produce real results.

You can keep your brand top of mind with leads that might otherwise be difficult to engage.

A sales cadence can help you generate more qualified leads and convert prospects into customers in a consistent and predictable way. Consider using a sales cadence to focus your efforts on targeted leads to improve your sales results.

Using a sales cadence, you can keep your brand top of mind with leads that might otherwise be difficult to reach.

9. Direct Mail

A direct mail strategy allows you to target a small subset of high-value targeted leads with a customized message and relevant physical items.

This personalization emphasizes your company’s ability to meet your target audience’s specific needs. It also helps you stand out from the competition.

Direct mail helps to create a more personal connection with your lead. Your leads will more likely remember your brand when ready to purchase.

Of course, not just any direct mail campaign will do.

Spend time learning about your top leads and developing ideas to personalize direct mail.

For example:

• Sending a custom gift package with a handwritten note to executives.
• Sending company swag to drive brand awareness.
• Send a coffee or lunch to a targeted lead if they attend a meeting.

Your direct mail piece should focus on your target audience for the best results. That means segmenting your leads and developing personalized messages addressing their pain points. Only then will you be able to create a truly irresistible offer.

10. Buyer Intent

It’s no secret that data is a powerful tool in sales.

But you might not know that data can be used to target specific leads already interested in what you’re selling.

This is called buyer intent data.

Buyer intent data surfaces behavior insight about companies actively researching a product or service online.

Buyer intent data is available through lead generation and data providers such as G2, Trustradius, Bombora and Zoominfo.

This data can be collected through various means, including website analytics, cookies, and surveys. It’s then used to identify trends and understand how likely someone is to purchase a product or service.

For example, you sell software as a service (SaaS). You might use buyer intent data to target leads who have visited your pricing page but haven’t made a purchase yet. By retargeting these leads with ads or sending them additional information about your product, you can increase the chance that they’ll become customers.

11. Follow past customers

When a valued customer leaves their company for a new opportunity, it can be difficult to let them go.

However, keeping tabs on where they end up allows you to maintain the relationship and even generate a new opportunity at their current company.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Use LinkedIn to keep a current and accurate list of contact information for all your customers. Set alerts when people leave.
2. Once you know where your customer has moved on, reach out and introduce yourself to their new company. They are more likely to buy a new product or service within their first 90 days on the job.
3. Start a targeted sales process if the new company is interested in your products or services. By staying in touch with your past customers, you can keep your business top-of-mind and generate targeted leads that are more likely to convert.

By following past customers that join new companies, you can quickly generate targeted leads that are more likely to convert into sales.

12. Account-based marketing

Sales and marketing teams have traditionally operated independently, with each group pursuing its objectives.

However, this approach can often lead to duplicated efforts and a lack of coordination.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy that helps to align sales and marketing by focusing on targeted leads. This approach allows each team to focus on the same accounts, leading to more efficient resource use and greater coordination.

Additionally, ABM provides a clear path for leads to be funneled from marketing to sales, ensuring everyone is working towards the same goal.

By using ABM, businesses can improve the effectiveness of their sales and marketing efforts while also reducing costs.

Each of these lead targeting strategies has its advantages and disadvantages. The best approach is to experiment with different approaches and see what works best for your business.

But no matter what lead targeting strategy you use, focusing on quality over quantity is important. You’ll likely increase your pipeline and close more deals by targeting the right leads.

Final thoughts

When you know your ideal customer, you’ll be able to focus your sales and marketing efforts on the industries and markets where you’re most likely to succeed.

Look at metrics such as your sales win rate or review a win-loss analysis to understand which target markets are most successful. Using a targeted lead generation strategy, you can grow your sales pipeline cost-efficient and focused.