How to Generate Targeted Lead Lists and Create Laser-Focused Marketing Campaigns

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Online marketing, ranging from email to social media and everything in between, is vitally important for modern enterprises. However, you can’t send the same marketing email or ad to everyone on your lead list. Simultaneously, your marketing team doesn’t have the time to develop a fully unique ad campaign for every lead on the books.

However, there’s another option: Using targeted lead lists to make laser-focused, effective marketing campaigns. Let’s go over what targeted lead lists are, how they help your brand, and how to make them.

 

Why are targeted lead lists effective and important?

Simply put, you have to toe the fine line between mass marketing—which is often ineffective and scattershot—and very targeted marketing, which takes a lot of time and isn’t sustainable when you have large groups of clients to connect with.

Targeted lead lists are effective because:

  • They allow you to stretch your limited resources further;
  • They help you advertise successfully to groups of clients or leads who have similar interests; and
  • They don’t require you to waste time with mass-aimed marketing, which can turn your target audience or clients away from your brand.
 

How to focus marketing from targeted lead lists

Targeted lead lists are vital for any modern online marketing push. Fortunately, there are lots of ways you can leverage them. Let’s break down how you should focus your targeted lead lists by looking at some different categories.

 

Group leads by geography

If you know the locations of sales leads on your list, you can separate and organize them by geography. For example, it’s probably wise to advertise differently to your American leads than you would to your customers from China. Cultural differences can play a big role in whether an ad or email marketing message lands for the audience.

Therefore, separating leads by geography is a good strategy. This is doubly true if your business is relatively small and most of your customers are near your geographic location. You can target your ads to reflect geographic concerns or features, which may subconsciously show your clients that you are “one of them.” Customer feedback from your Google reviews can help you narrow down where exactly a lead is if necessary.

 

Market by industry

Of course, you can also market to your leads based on their industries. For example, say you have a B2B enterprise that is selling software to different companies. You’ll want to advertise differently to a company in the same industry as you will to a grocery store.

In addition, creating targeted lead lists by industry allows you to emphasize the parts of your product or services that solve problems unique to those industries. This, in turn, shows your target audience that you know what they need and how your brand can fulfill those needs rapidly.

 

Categorize by revenue size

Don’t forget to create targeted lead lists based on revenue size. Naturally, you need access to your leads’ revenue data for this to be successful. But this is useful because:

  • It tells you what your leads can afford relative to what you are trying to sell;
  • It tells you which leads are most worth your marketing team’s time; and
  • It can help you identify high-intent leads, as they will have money to spend and actively look for products that will improve their operations.

Both of these factors can help you prioritize which clients are most important. For instance, if you have two different leads, but one lead has extra cash and is much more likely to make a purchase, you should prioritize marketing to them instead of the other lead.

 

Use keywords in business names

Many businesses have certain keywords in their names or company titles. This approach allows you to market to different companies or clients based on those keywords.

Not only is this great for determining how to tailor your marketing content to their needs, but it also allows you to more easily determine which leads you’ve already sent an email or social media message to. This avoids social selling to the same client over and over again, which can feel tacky or forced.

 

Job titles

You can alternatively create targeted lead lists based on job titles. This only works for leads you’ve built at least a beginning relationship with. But a job title tells you the decision-making responsibilities and powers of the person you are trying to sell to.

For example, say that you want to sell B2B marketing software to one of your potential leads. You’ll need to speak to a marketing manager or senior person in a company rather than an assistant or front-line employee. 

By generating lead lists by title, your leads will be more accurate and you’ll waste less time speaking to people over the phone trying to get to the one individual who may have the power to purchase your product.

 

Employee numbers

Then there are employee numbers. Organizations require different products and resources for their virtual teams based on how many employees they have. So if you’re trying to sell many expensive products, you shouldn’t contact a lead that only has a handful of employees.

Instead, you’ll be better off contacting a bigger company with dozens of employees who may use your multiple products. This saves you time and money and prevents you from marketing to individuals or organizations that, despite being impressed by your marketing, would never purchase your products due to resource limitations.

 

Preferred contact methods

Lastly, you can create targeted lead lists by those leads’ preferred contact details. This is good marketing 101, and it adds to the charisma of your salespeople. You should always know how leads like to communicate, whether by email, phone or face to face.

When you use a lead’s preferred contact method, you stand a greater chance of making a long-term relationship with them, and your marketing materials or campaigns will be less likely to irritate them. This trick is even more important if most of your marketing relies on direct advertising or selling.

 

Conclusion

As you can see, targeted lead lists can be created and separated by any number of attributes. Consider the best ways to separate your leads, then market to them using their shared characteristics or qualities. That way, each marketing ad or email message you put out will have a greater chance of being effective and converting those leads into paying customers. Good luck!

  • Originally published April 20, 2022, updated April 26, 2023