Why Targeting Works

In B2B marketing, it is so tempting to be inclusive, to broaden your story so that you don’t leave people out. You get a bigger market, you increase your opportunity, right?

The truth is the sharper you target your marketing and your product, the more success you’ll have and the more customers you’ll ultimately win. Here’s why I think that’s true.

Relevance

When you’re sharply targeted, you get a benefit – you get a superpower for your marketing that you don’t get otherwise. If you are very specific about who exactly benefits most from your product, then everything you say about it – your messaging, your value propositions – are at their max. You’re telling the best possible story for your offer. And it’s very specific to your target audience.

This relevance allows you to rise above the noise and stand out and get hurt.

Value

Secondly, we all think that our products are great, right? We believe in them. And sometimes we get fooled into believing that people that don’t know us will take the time to invest, to learn and to understand what we do. The reality is you have to get to value as soon as possible with your prospects – ideally at the very first time they engage with you.

By targeting your marketing, you can create very valuable and specific messages, insights, experiences like demos, or consultations that add value right away because they’re targeted right at the people that benefit most from them. By leading with that value, you’re able to get to that next step to get a lead that you can convert.

Spillover

And finally, there’s an important spillover effect in marketing.

You need to trust the fact that if you do an absolutely great job in satisfying your target customers – no matter how big that market segment is – other people in the market are watching you engage with that client. And they’re watching that love fest. They’re watching how happy they are, how great your solution solves their problem. And they want some of that.

So your success comes from that rather than watering down your message at the beginning and coming to everybody with a mediocre message and results. You’re hitting a rifle shot at the people that give you success that can be demonstrated. And now people nearby will buy for that reason rather than listening to your boring, watered-down message.

My favorite example of that is in the consumer market with Nike. They target performance athletes. I am far from a performance athlete, but I love that brand. I want some of that for myself. You can do that with your business too, with a sharp focus on the customers that you can serve the best.

So take the time to know exactly who your value is for, Put your marketing squarely on them and resist the urge to water down your message. You’re better off hitting it out of the park for them than trying to win everybody with a mediocre story upfront.