How to Identify and Target the Right Audience for Your Startup
If your cold outreach is falling flat… if your content is getting views but no replies… or if your sales calls keep ending in “this isn’t a priority right now,” the problem might not be your pitch, it might be your people.
Founders often pour hours into crafting the perfect message, only to realize they’re speaking to the wrong audience. No amount of copy tweaking will fix a mismatch between what you’re offering and who you’re offering it to.
Here’s a hard truth:
Just because someone could benefit from your solution doesn’t mean they feel the need for it.
The difference between a lukewarm prospect and a ready-to-buy lead usually comes down to urgency and context. You don’t need a broader audience. You need a more aligned one.
Start by answering these three questions:
Who is actively experiencing the pain your product solves?
Who is already spending money to fix that pain?
Where do these people already gather, ask questions, or look for help?
Most founders get stuck chasing hypothetical buyers instead of finding real ones. It’s easy to build personas on paper that sound great but don’t map to actual conversations happening in the wild.
When I first started doing outbound for Nurtured, I wasted so much time targeting a segment I thought would be a good fit—early-stage tech companies with recent funding. The logic checked out, but they weren’t feeling the urgency I needed. After tweaking my targeting to focus on founders already talking about go-to-market struggles publicly, reply rates jumped, and deals started flowing.
It wasn’t a messaging issue. It was a targeting one.
Inside this week’s Nurtured newsletter, I shared the exact targeting shift I made, plus a quick template to define your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) in under 20 minutes.
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