Sales Targeting Explained

Last Updated on April 22, 2023 by Ewen Finser

Are your business sales declining? If so, you’re not alone. It takes an average of eight cold call attempts to even reach a prospect, let alone gain a sale.

However, there are certain strategies that can improve your chances of gaining more sales. One of them is sales targeting. What is sales targeting? Here, we will cover this entire concept, including the definition, why it’s important, and how to include sales targeting into your existing strategy.

Privacy Law Disclaimer

Before we even begin this article, it’s important to mention privacy law facts because you’ll be collecting customer data during your sales targeting campaign. There are various digital privacy laws and they exist in various countries. Europe’s GDPR is the most famous, though the US is expanding digital privacy laws on an industry basis.

Data privacy laws not only impact what data a business collects but also how it’s shared, stored, and used. While the biggest businesses are under the most scrutiny, no business is technically exempt from following these regulations. Be sure to research your local region’s data privacy laws. If your area doesn’t have any, then consent is still necessary in order to maintain customer security and build trust.

What Is Sales Targeting?

Sales targeting is the act of identifying prospects that are more likely to purchase your products and/or services. From here, you devise a plan to appeal to these specific prospects. This is important because it focuses on certain customers who contribute more to your business. This improves your chances of gaining sales and growing your business, as opposed to appealing to a larger market.

Sales targeting is a representation of the changing marketing landscape. Archaic marketing strategies called for improved visibility, where businesses invested in commercials and billboards so people see their name as often as possible. Today, businesses care most about the likelihood of gaining a sale and attracting audience members who will take their message to heart.

How do you know who is a likely customer and who isn’t? Businesses mainly judge this on demographics, but also anyone who may simply need or products or services. For example, there’s no one demographic for someone who may need a psychologist, but a psychologist may use certain keywords to draw people in; i.e. couples counseling, therapy for anxiety, and more.

This strategy is more precise in pulling prospects down the sales funnel. Those who hear your message and don’t need your products/services will likely block your advertisement out of their minds. Speaking to those who need your products/services will result in a quicker and easier transaction.

Keep in mind, sales targeting is complex and requires both sales and marketing knowledge. However, any business can tailor its sales campaign to target specific prospects. But first, let’s explore why this is even important in the first place.

Importance of Sales Targeting

We already covered the significance of targeting specific prospects as opposed to a larger pool of people. However, this sales strategy comes with even more benefits.

Improved Sales and Marketing Strategies

Identifying your target market will improve your sales strategy by setting concrete goals and a clear path to accomplish them. These goals may include your quarterly, monthly, and yearly goals.

Your sales strategy aligns with your marketing strategy; in order to attract more prospects, your marketing team will need to know the demographics and characteristics to deliver organic and paid content to the right people.

Because your sales and marketing strategies are more coherent, you’ll be wiser about spending money on certain initiatives that drive prospects through the sales funnel.

Boosts Productivity

From training and developing their sales skills, most sales staff are only productive after 11 months of getting hired. A good way to expedite productivity is by targeting prospects. Whether they meet with clients online or in person, your sales team will have a better understanding of the audience and can develop better connections. All of this will inspire them to be more productive.

When you execute your sales targeting strategy well, you and your staff will also be on the same page. This means fewer meetings and less training, more time your sales professionals spend leading prospects down the sales funnel.

You’ll find that many of the sales targeting tools also come with more benefits. For example, your sales staff spend more time on administrative tasks than you think. Many sales tools are automated, so your staff spends more time connecting with prospects and clients.

Conquer Sales Goals

Sales goals are not only a representation of your increased sales but also of your company’s growth. Targeting your sales will bring you closer to accomplishing your goals, making your business more competitive and profitable. Sales targeting will also make it easier to set future goals.

Dominate the Market

When any business gains significant profit, they have a chance at conquering the competition and taking over the market. When your company becomes a major player, your audience will go to your business as a source they trust. Your company may even grow and expand. This will only motivate your sales staff even more to set higher targets and goals.

How to Create a Sales Targeting Campaign

Are you ready to use sales targeting in your business? Follow these steps to create a profitable campaign.

Step 1: Invest in the Right Technology

You shouldn’t be collecting data without using technology. Sales tech is quickly advancing. Your sales staff will benefit from the technologies and tools to make their job easier and more effective. There’s even sales software for individual industries.

Some of the tech you can consider includes:

• Sales intelligence
• CRM
• Automated email
• Lead evaluation
• Automated telephone dialers
• Web collaboration
• Meeting schedulers

Which one should you use? As you continue reading, we will make a few recommendations on our end.

Step 2: Set Goals Based on Your Audience

Here are some things to consider when setting your goals:

• What’s the best way to communicate with your audience?
• What’s their average income level?
• What’s the lifetime value of your average customer?
• How long will it take to close the sale?

Once you answer these questions, you can create realistic goals to attract the right people. These goals will help better train sales staff. You should set goals for both new and returning customers.

The length of time you set your goals can also vary. However, it’s recommended you set yearly goals and smaller goals that complement this larger goal that you can set on a daily, weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly basis.

Step 3: Identify Your Ideal Customer

When you conduct audience research, you’re left with a lot of data that can be hard to work with. An easy way to organize this data is by creating an ideal customer, usually referred to as a customer persona. This persona is the quintessential person who would shop at your business. You create this person based on general personal characteristics in addition to demographics.

Some key factors that will make up your persona are:

• Gender
• Age
• Income
• Location
• Occupation
• Family

Let’s say your business sells top-of-the-line men’s grooming products. You’re targeting a specific man. Maybe he’s a high-earning professional, in an industry such as law, finance, and medicine, who needs to look clean-cut at his job. In this case, he’s probably in his late-30s to 40s. You ship your products across the country and location isn’t as important. It also doesn’t matter whether or not he’s married or has a family.

If you own a daycare, your customer persona will be different. You’re likely targeting men and/or women (either married or unmarried) whose ages range from the mid-20s to early-30s.

These parents usually have busy careers, though maybe some parents would rather drop off their children occasionally to avoid going through the ordeal of finding a babysitter. Because of this, you offer different daycare plans and prices, so you attract parents at all income levels. Since your daycare only has one location, you’re obviously targeting a local clientele.

How do you find this data? Looking at your existing customers is key. If you deal with customers online, you can collect data by using customer response management (CRM) software. Other ways to find this data is by conducting customer surveys and analyzing your biggest competitors’ markets.

Step 4: Divide Your Demographics

Not every business can easily make a customer persona. Oftentimes, your demographics are more complex than you think. It’s common to target a specific demographic more than another. That’s why most businesses should divide their demographics — even businesses that can effectively create buyer personas.

How do you separate your demographics? Place them in common sales funnel categories, such as:

• Research
• Consideration
• Decision

Let’s use the daycare example again. High-earning parents with bustling careers will likely be in the decision phase since they need a daycare ASAP. However, parents who are on a budget will either be in the research and consideration phase, since they’re finding the best daycare at an affordable price.

What’s the best way to discover customer demographics and their position in the sales funnel? There are many lead services available that track leads based on sales funnel position. These services include demographics and other valuable data that can help you in your sales approach.

Step 5: Create a Lead Flow Strategy

Lead flow ensures you not only attract the right leads but guide them through the sales funnel effectively. Advertising and marketing are also key tactics used in this strategy, so make sure your sales team can collaborate with these professionals, too.

Every business will have a different flow strategy. If you’re struggling to make a flow strategy, here are some tips to inspire yours:

• Awareness: attract an audience using specific social media platforms and pay for advertisements.
• Consideration: create high-quality and educational content on your most vital and hard-to-understand subjects, offer an email marketing list, nurture leads via email, sales team reaches out to the lead.
• Decision: the lead probably purchased a product or your sales team has already been in contact with the client and gained the sale. If a customer hasn’t purchased a product yet, deliver tailored emails to them (cart abandonment, etc.) to remind them of your business.

Step 6: Create an Approach Plan

Now that you know the most vital customers based on demographics, you can personalize your approach. This plan will vary for all businesses, but you’ll want to make sure you’re answering these questions:

• Why you should prioritize our products and services
• Why this customer is vital to your business
• Is/has the customer bought from a competitor?
• What will impact the customer’s final decision to purchase your product/service?
• What will prevent the prospect from purchasing your product/services?

Step 7: Analyze and Measure Success

The final step is analyzing your campaign. Measuring campaign success is the only way to know if your sales targeting strategy is truly successful. Some of the vital metrics to look at include:

• Successful lead generation tactics
• Which audience segments convert the most/fastest
• Attracting the right leads
• Sales targeting accuracy

What if your sales targeting strategy needs improvement? This doesn’t mean you have a weak strategy. Look at your strategy with an open mind and make improvements when necessary.

FAQs

Bottomline

If you’re looking for a way to improve your sales strategy, you may be debating about implementing sales targeting into an existing campaign.

Sales targeting consists of advertising to a precise demographic. The theory is that targeting prospects more willing to buy your products/services will result in higher quality leads, as opposed to targeting a large pool of people. From here, you can create an improved sales strategy with concrete goals that will keep sales staff engaged and productive. From here, your company can only grow.

Keep in mind, you’ll have to follow necessary data privacy laws.