Contents 

1. Identify your ICP 
2. Market to your buyer personas 
3. Communicate via multiple channels 
4. Create a long-term plan 
5. Put in systems to nurture prospects

Can you predict what the biggest challenge is for 70% of UK scaleups? According to Deloitte’s 2024 ‘Scale-Ups Confidence Survey’, the challenge keeping scaleup companies awake at night is ‘lower/delayed new business and customer signings’.  

As a startup, you might have focused on engaging your most accessible sector, just to get a foot in the industry door. Or, you might have had a select list of accounts that you knew would be primed to put your offering in front of.  

Now that you’ve scaled up, the next challenge is to engage a whole new target audience – an audience that might not know who you are just yet, and might not have a direct need to buy from you. 

Keep reading to find our five top tips for driving highly targeted marketing for your scaleup business.

1. Identify your ICP.

To help you execute a plan to gain new prospects, the first step is to figure out exactly who you’re targeting. Start by identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP), the customer that you’d ultimately like to work with. This means figuring out who could benefit from your product or service, who genuinely needs it, who can afford it, and so on. 

As a startup, you might have been grateful for just about every customer, but as a scaleup, you can (and should) start to be a little more selective. This isn’t just about choosing to only work with the customers you like. It’s about giving yourself a clear idea of the prospects who are most likely to convert, and who therefore deserve the most marketing and sales attention.

2. Market to your buyer personas.

Once you’ve defined your ICP, it’s time to drill down into the buyer personas you need to target in order to reel in prospects. To do this, you’ll need to go beyond questions like “which industry shall I market to?”. You’ll need to think about the people involved in the purchasing process for your product or service. Figure out their: 

• Job role and responsibilities 
• Preferred marketing channels 
• Biggest pain points  
• Motivations for change 
• Decision-making power 

Once you have your buyer personas, it’s time to consider the messaging and content types that will resonate with them best. For instance, if one of your buyer personas is the CEO, then you might focus on the benefits of your product or service for return on investment (ROI). If another is an overwhelmed marketer, you might want to talk about the time-saving benefits they can expect.

3. Communicate via multiple channels.

As a startup, you might have poured most of your energy into building a website and driving traffic to it. This may have worked out nicely, with potential customers finding you through a Google search or an invite to follow your LinkedIn page. As a scaleup, the next question is: how do you get in front of people who aren’t actively searching for a product or service like yours? 

Getting in front of new target audiences can take some investment. A series of LinkedIn Ads, for example, can help you target people who match your buyer personas. Or, sponsoring content on an industry publication will put you in front of an engaged readership audience.  

The best route forward for you will depend on your prospects. However, moving away from organic activity and experimenting with a mixture of paid and partnered marketing can help you continue building brand awareness as you scale.

4. Create a long-term plan.

Just because someone has signed up to your weekly newsletter, or downloaded your product brochure, it doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy. The buying journey can be long, complicated, and crucially, done entirely online.   

In fact, 75% of B2B buyers prefer a ‘rep-free sales experience’. Clearly, many prospects want to find out the answers to their questions by themselves before they engage directly with a brand. 

How can you use this to your advantage? How can you make sure that you show up consistently during a prospect’s research? The answer lies in long-term planning.  

Use your buyer personas likely decision-making journey to inform your activity. Think about what questions they’ll need answered at each turn. 

A very light-touch example could look something like this:

It may be unrealistic to think that prospects will keep coming back to your content in such a linear way – but that isn’t the point. The idea is to have marketing that speaks to prospects no matter where they are in their specific decision-making journey, so that you’re hopefully refilling a funnel every time it empties.  

5. Put in systems to nurture prospects.

As we’ve mentioned, the idea of the linear B2B funnel is slightly idealistic. However, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to keep prospects engaged with your brand, so that you’re top-of-mind when it comes to making a purchase.  

One way to do this is to implement systems that “nurture” prospects. For instance, imagine that someone has attended a webinar of yours or downloaded a guide. You have their contact details now, but they probably aren’t ready to have a conversation.  

However, they might value quarterly emails with additional helpful resources. Depending on how they respond – i.e. do they open the product brochure you sent? – it might be time to reach out with the offer of a free consultation.  

 This approach is low commitment for them, but could be highly valuable for you.

Attract quality leads with our free guide.

We dig deeper into these tips in our Fundamentals of lead gen in B2B marketing guide, from the different types of buyers you need to be aware of, to the tools you need to progress and monitor your prospective relationships. 

Download your free copy below to start driving a steady stream of prospects to your scaleup business.