What’s out there? And where? In places, yes, sections of your target market will be as clear as day. But in many areas, it will be patchy, and some of it - entirely obscured from view.
At Rainmaker, we are always amazed at just how little visibility agencies actually possess about their universe. The rocket fuel that fires up a start-up agency to ‘escape velocity’ often comes from previous client experience and personal networks. So even in the ‘clear as daylight’ zone, companies and brands are usually targeted in practice, by very basic ‘sector’ labels. And yet overlay just a few more targeting-criteria, and you’ll find a stark contrast between a perfect-match target, sitting right next to an utterly hopeless one, in exactly the same category.
It’s a logical assumption that the most obvious targets are the ones you’ll want to aim your resources at – they’ll be the ones the Board and the rest of the agency staff often talk about wanting to work with. But the real rewards, the non-competitive ‘open goals’, the emerging briefs ahead of the closed pitch-lists, and the intuitive matches based on ‘buying signals’, just like the bulk of an enormous iceberg, lie sunk beneath the surface.
Let’s dive down into that cold, clear water next to the iceberg. Our objective is complete visibility on your market: the companies, the decision-makers, their agenda and the timing.
We all know that the procurement function has grown in recent years to complicate decision pathways – some procurement departments accelerate the process, but some can bog you down. But since the Pandemic, there has also been a welcome blooming of new marketing departments focused on corporate social and environmental responsibility.
Many of these are now in the top tier for decision-making. Mapping the decision-maker tree at organisations has become much harder, and needs to be continual, due to the varying levels of influence each department has and the consensus building required in the background.
And then there’s the overlay.
For example, those providing digital services, also of course need to consider which CIOs and digital product directors should also be engaged. Likewise, if you can help brands to engage their staff and communicate to stakeholders or potential candidates you need to be in dialogue with senior HR decision-makers.
The elevation of purpose, wellbeing and sustainability in the mix of business priorities brings yet more complexity, but also we have found, more routes into brands.
There is no standard model. Every company set-up is of course different, requiring research and content strategy tailored to their specific decision-making pathways.
Most agencies approach a targeting model for their audiences too simplistically, leading to wasted resources and missing out on ideal clients submerged in the wrong set.
To solve this, we overlay macro-trends (buoyant sectors, socio-economic forces, consumer expectations) with the brand-specific micro-criteria too (new appointments, financials, supplier relationships) and client-specific signals (USPs, preferred project size, location) to build a completely tailored targeting model.
This carefully considered prospect list is the starting point for any campaign, but the values of the various criteria or ‘buying signals’ we use is also constantly updating. As multiple signals converge, the probability of an area of marketing being ‘in-play’ increases, telling us to prioritise outreach to decision-makers at that brand.
Detecting organisations that are ‘in-play’ is one thing, but what about early detection of well-funded and ambitious brands on a sharp growth trajectory? There is often a relatively brief window of opportunity when a disruptive newcomer transitions from start-up with shoestring budget (and some scepticism of external advice) to achieving a critical mass when having the right agency partners in place becomes absolutely essential. Most start-ups fail of course, so it’s also essential to only bring the prospects that meet certain criteria (well-funded, credible marketing budgets, growing sector) into your target list.
Prospect lists in tightly defined groups focus the mind, provide a theme for the next stage of the campaign, and also give us the brands and decision-makers to research to get to 100% accuracy before we reach out to them. Our unique access to the Pearlfinders platform gives us access to ready-made target lists, ranging from brands investing in NFT or e-sports, to brands with reputational challenges. From companies anticipated to IPO, to companies that haven’t rebranded in over 5 years. These pre-populated datasets also enable rapid testing of new messages and markets to determine whether they should be incorporated into your core targeting. Lists make our lives easier.
The marketing budgets of tomorrow are often intentionally concealed from view for strategic, internal and competitive reasons. So, building a relationship with ALL of the brands that represent the most desirable and logical fit with your agency is very important. You’ll need to access, engage, and then cultivate relationships in order to be at the front of the queue to be on the pitch list. Using search and selection intermediaries, or PR, or events to do this will only ever provide a fragmentary access at best to this bulk of the budgetary iceberg hidden well below the waterline.
