Business-to-business organizations often target oversized markets, which exposes their marketing and sales team to significant waste within the demand creation process. Instead, marketers should rely on relative targeting to hone their best prospects.
Relative targeting is a process that runs potential targets through two sets of variables — one external, one internal – to score and rank these targets against one another. It addresses a common phenomenon: while there are limitless targets who could buy something, at any given time only a select group of these targets will have a higher propensity to buy. This propensity is driven not only by factors found within targets themselves, but also the ability of your marketing and sales engine.
Relative targeting is helpful to those in field marketing, particularly those who are currently trying to tackle far too many targets. Focusing on too many targets forces marketers to create messaging and offers that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Field marketers are also pushed to adopt strategies that leave vast portions of customer buying cycles unattended. By targeting a key segment, marketers can craft relevant messaging that appeals to that particular group.
Broad targeting also poses a problem for sales. Reps often find themselves following up on leads that have little chance to close. As business-to-business buying processes become more complex, sales reps are also pushed to master an expanding number of target environments. Relative targeting alleviates this problem by providing sales reps with a pipeline of highly-ranked prospects.
Relative targeting can be achieved by running your targets through a set of external and internal factors:
Step 1: Incorporate External Factors in Your Targeting
External factors are observable attributes of a target marketplace that compel companies within that marketplace to buy a specific product or solution within a short timeframe.
Examples include:
- Regulations
- General target health
- Competitive presence
Step 2: Incorporate Internal Factors in Your Targeting
Internal factors are unique to each specific organization. Just because a potential target looks viable from the outside doesn’t mean that your organization should target it.
Examples include:
- Domain knowledge
- Messaging
- Sales readiness
Targets that look desirable from both an external and internal perspective rise to the top. By agreeing on an agnostic framework to judge candidates, an organization removes passion and in turn executes more soundly.
To learn how to incorporate relative targeting into your organization, download the SiriusDecisions Brief: Targeting, It’s all Relative.
