Target Smarter: Find Customers That Stay, Spend & Scale

Not all customers are created equally. Here's how to focus on the ones that fuel your growth.

It’s easy to believe that more customers = more growth. But in recurring revenue businesses, that’s not always true.

The wrong customers churn early, cost more to serve, and create noise in your model.The right customers stay longer, buy more, refer others and grow your valuation.

If you want predictable, profitable growth, customer targeting can’t just be a marketing tactic. It has to be a commercial strategy. And this is true for any business that wants recurring customers.

Let’s look at how to identify, attract, and serve the customers that truly move the needle.

Why targeting gets overlooked

Founders and scale-ups often skip deep segmentation because:

• Early growth depends on taking whoever converts

• Data isn’t yet centralised or clear (see Blog 3)

• Marketing is focused on volume, not value

• There’s a fear that narrowing focus = limiting growth

But in reality, better targeting = more efficient Cost to connect (CAC), higher customer lifetime value (CLV), and faster scale.

What does ‘smart targeting’ really mean?

It means finding the customers who:

• Convert at a healthy cost

• Stay longer than average

• Grow their spend over time

• Have low support needs

• Align with your product vision

• Are more likely to refer others

In short: they’re commercially valuable, not just easy to acquire.

How to identify your best customers

1. Start With Your Data (Not your gut)

Look at:

• CAC by channel

• CLV by segment

• Retention curves by product type

• Churn triggers by cohort

• Cost to serve by persona

💡 Tip: If you don’t have clean data yet, start with qualitative insight. Talk to your happiest (and least happy) customers. Look for patterns.

2. Define your ideal customer profile (ICP)

Move beyond basic demographics. Build a profile around:

• Needs and motivations

• Pain points your product solves

• Behaviours (e.g. engagement frequency, time to convert)

• Profitability over time

💡 Example: A customer who buys once per quarter but stays 3+ years might be far more valuable than one who buys weekly but churns after 6 months.

💡 Tip: A top tip I was given whilst growing my business was to write your ICP pain points in their language. How they would speak to a friend down the pub or in a coffee shop. This helps you tap into the language that really resonates with them.

3. Segment by commercial value

Use value-based segmentation, not just product usage or persona labels.

You want to know:

• Who brings in the most revenue?

• Who costs the least to serve?

• Who sticks around the longest?

• Who responds to upsell efforts?

This helps you allocate budget, focus messaging, and personalise experiences.

4. Stop acquiring the wrong customers

Once you know who’s not a good fit, act on it.

• Refine your targeting

• Kill generic discounts that attract bargain hunters

• Align sales and marketing around your tighter ICP

• Redirect spend away from high-churn channels

Reminder: Every low-fit customer takes budget, time, and team attention away from high-value ones.

5. Create value-proof content for the right segment

Now that you know who you're speaking to, build messaging that:

• Reflects their goals and pains

• Proves outcomes with case studies or testimonials

• Reinforces trust and longevity, not hype

Example: If your ideal customer is a COO focused on operational efficiency, don’t sell them ‘fun brand perks’, show them time or cost savings.

A Real-World Example

Vanity KPIs can drive the wrong behaviour. We once needed net adds now to hit quarterly targets, so we ramped up an affiliate channel to ‘buy’ volume fast.

We hit our numbers and high-fived the market share win. But at the end of their contract, those customers churned in droves. They were price-chasers, not loyal users.

Once we mapped CLV by channel, we found a 2x difference between top and bottom segments. We reallocated budget, focused on better-fit audiences and churn dropped significantly.

Bonus: Build an “anti-ICP” too

Knowing who isn’t a good fit is just as important.Create a red-flag list of traits or behaviours that predict low value or high churn.

Examples might include:

• Free trial users who don’t convert within X days

• First-purchase customers from a steep discount

• Segments that trigger the most refunds or support tickets

Use this to tighten acquisition strategy and avoid false growth signals.

Smarter targeting = smarter growth

You don’t need more leads. You need better-fit customers who stay, spend, and scale with you.

• Use your data to define commercial value

• Segment for quality, not just volume

• Align your teams around one definition of a ‘great customer’

What’s one trait your best customers always seem to share?