Targeted Selling: Diagnose the Gap Between List and Results

Targeted selling is selecting accounts and people based on fit, shaping the message to a relevant business problem. A good list is an important start, but that doesn't prove that the offer is reaching in, and that this audience cares at this moment.

Targeted Selling: Diagnose the Gap Between List and Results

Targeted selling is selecting accounts and people based on fit, shaping the message to a relevant business problem. A good list is an important start, but that doesn't prove that the offer is reaching in, and that this audience cares at this moment.

When a good campaign misses, untangle those issues or the team may lose a good audience chasing an unreachable offer, or blame their infrastructure for one that nobody needs.

Check on each of these links in the outreach chain

Link Question to answer Evidence to inspect

Account fit Can we help this kind of company? Business model, use case, exclusions

Contact fit Does this person own or influence the desired workflow? Current role, team structure, referrals

Delivery Did the message reach the target system? Delivery responses and control testing

Relevance Is there reason to care about this offer now? Human replies, discovery conversation

Treat each step of this outreach process as a competing hypothesis. A good match of titles isn't enough to prove the other three elements are valid.

Build your hypothesis from a small, explainable segment

Say that B2B software companies were targeted for hiring SDRs. That's still a large variety of potential audiences. A founder looking to hire their first rep could use quite different help to a sales leader trying to build a regional team.

Split one of the potential segments. Document the evidence that this company fits, the likely change in workflow, and who is in the best position to make that change happen. Use current evidence and note any assumptions made as you build this hypothesis.

Our LinkedIn audience search guide includes how to turn this hypothesis into a research process.

Triage reasons for silence without jumping to conclusions

Look into bounced messages and analyze the full error sequence. Cluster the reasons across service providers and mailboxes. Check if messages arriving in webmail are also reaching the application (checking synchronization). If control messages reach the audience successfully, focus on reviewing the targeting and content while keeping delivery under observation.

Any one seed message finding success doesn't prove your campaign will succeed with every prospect or that a small reply count means everything went to spam.

For configuration questions, see our SaaS email deliverability guide. Note that this investigation is separate from evaluating the value of a given segment.

Revise your offer based on the situation hypothesized

Poor opening phrases may say something like:

We help fast growing companies to increase sales productivity.

...but a better opening could be tailored to the situation discovered:

I could see you've been adding two new SDRs in regions, how are you currently managing follow up ownership hand over between reps?

Use this format only when there is evidence in the hiring detail, and it fits with likely changes in workflow. This question allows the audience to confirm or deny if that change is correct, instead of forcing them to answer a theory from nowhere.

Then make your offer, using a suggestion of a new workflow, an example resource for them to use or follow up on a problem that they have stated.

Compare your segments using a common scoring system

Track metrics such as number of unique prospects contacted, delivery failure rates, positive replies and count of held qualified meetings. Set a common response window and qualification criteria across all the messages sent, then compare the segments at a high level.

Look further into the reasons for rejections. Were these "wrong person" replies or are they suggesting that they've already found a solution? Did the audience blame the timing? This could highlight a poor fit in account selection, or a value proposition that was easy to dismiss. Or the prospect may want to try this solution but only after some initial rollout ("you should try us after you've rolled this out") - a note worth capturing permission to observe this timing difference

Rather than masking these differences as general response rates, keep these groups separate and score them by these criteria as you iterate.

Set actions based on what was proven next

If account fit was low, focus on selection. If the ownership was wrong, look into making a contact map of the buying group. If delivery was the problem, fix the routing. If the offers were being understood, but declined, rethink the value or timing. Change just one major area at a time, so that the next round of results can teach you something new.

CadenceKing's outreach workflows can help to organize segmented and followed up messages across sales development campaigns. The aim is to build a list of contacts that have a credible reason to meet, and a message that they can accept and evaluate.