After careful selection, about 500 companies are relevant to Viking Growth. That is the entire market we actively target. Every piece of content we publish, every webinar we host, and every conversation we start targets people at one or more of these companies.
The narrow focus is deliberate. A short list lets us get to know each company, track what is happening, and reach the right person at the right time. This is what makes account-based marketing work in practice, while also increasing the likelihood of a strong fit on both sides when we enter a concrete process.
We have previously written about how to build an ideal customer profile (ICP) and how to turn it into personas. This article addresses the next question: How narrow should your target market actually be?
Christine Hammeren, Marketing Manager at Viking Growth
Account-based marketing (ABM) means focusing your marketing on specific companies and the people you want to reach within them. That might be the decision-maker or an internal champion who can move the conversation forward within the organization. In B2B sales, several people are often involved in influencing a decision.
This approach only works if your list is short enough to manage. With a few hundred companies, you can know who leads them, track what is happening, and understand when it's time to reach out.
Criterias such as industry, company size, and geography are a common starting point for defining an ICP. We start somewhere else.
The first question is which companies have a problem we can help solve, and where what we offer can genuinely make a difference. Then we look at what those companies have in common.
For us, the patterns on paper are fairly clear: business-to-business (B2B) software companies that support business-critical workflows, are based in the Nordics, have €2–15 million in annual recurring revenue, and demonstrate consistent growth. We learn the rest in the first meeting.
In other words, the criteria come after the problem. The order matters, because a company can tick every box on your ideal customer profile and still have no good reason to talk to you.
In our initial conversations, we try to understand whether a company is a good fit for us right now. We look for five things:
If you work in sales, you may recognize the structure. It closely resembles SPICED, a discovery framework many B2B sales teams use.
You can apply the same questions before anyone even picks up the phone. Go through your list and ask whether each company could, in principle, pass this test. If a company is unlikely ever to be in the relevant situation, experience the problem you solve, or get sufficient value from your solution, it does not belong on the list, regardless of how well it matches your criteria for size and industry.
The same principle can be applied to almost any B2B business: Which companies are in a situation where they need what you sell? What problem do they have that you solve? What impact can you create that the alternatives cannot?
The answers describe your ICP more precisely than any long list of industries and company characteristics.
The critical event is what separates a company that is a good fit from one that is a good fit right now. Many of the companies on our list look right on paper but have no reason to speak with an investor this year.
For us, typical critical events might include owners looking to sell or reduce their exposure, or companies wanting to expand internationally, accelerate growth, or find a partner that can help them get where they want to go.
For ABM, this distinction matters. The list itself is relatively stable. Which companies we prioritize each quarter depends on what is happening within each business.
Several industries and segments may be relevant to what you sell. Narrowing your ICP does not necessarily mean excluding them forever. It means deciding where to concentrate your efforts first.
Once you learn what works in one segment, you have a playbook you can use when expanding into new target groups.
Focus creates value in three areas.
Your content addresses real problems.
When your target audience is dealing with similar situations, you can create content around the problems they actually experience. The content becomes more specific and more useful to the reader.
Value works the same way.
People in the same roles at similar companies often have a fairly similar view of what creates value. This makes it easier to develop messaging that resonates across the group, whether you are speaking to CEOs, CFOs, or sales leaders.
You spend your money on the right companies. A narrow list lets you focus your budget on the companies where you have the greatest potential to create value.
For us, that means companies where we can use our full toolkit, from scaling sales and pricing to M&A, and where we have experience from other businesses with the same business model. These are the companies where we are best positioned to contribute throughout a three-to-five-year growth phase.
A broad list spreads the budget too thin. The result can easily be that you generate neither enough attention to convince anyone nor enough awareness among the companies that matter most.
It depends on how you sell. In enterprise sales, deals are larger and typically involve more decision-makers. Each company can therefore justify more attention, which is where a short list and a true account-based approach can be particularly valuable. With smaller deals and shorter sales cycles, a broader list may make more sense.
Regardless of your sales model, your list should be specific enough for you to answer three questions:
If you cannot answer these questions for a significant share of the companies, your list is probably too broad.
For us, this is a continuous process. We constantly screen new companies and maintain ongoing conversations that allow us to follow relevant prospects closely. We add new B2B software companies when they fit our profile and remove them as early as possible when we see the fit isn't there after all. Our screening includes in-depth research into financial metrics, the market, and the company's software product.
500 companies may sound like a small market. To us, the point is the opposite: these are 500 companies we can actually get to know, follow, and prioritize.
The list is not static either. Companies come and go, and our priorities change with the timing. What matters is not having as many companies as possible on the list, but knowing why each one is there and what you are going to do with it.
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