Start by focusing on companies that are most similar to your ideal or best customers. Since you're early-stage and building outbound from scratch, we recommend listing out the companies you wish would buy from you, or those that match your target persona (like high-growth SMBs, Series A startups, or those using similar tech products). Here is why: Focusing on lookalikes of your best or imagined ideal customers increases your chances of getting replies and learning faster what works. You can use Leadsforge to identify and find contacts at these companies, making initial targeting straightforward.

A smart move is to target the followers of your direct competitors or companies in your space. You don’t need to manually search for each person. Here is why: Competitor followers are already interested in solutions in your category, so they’re more likely to respond. Just share their LinkedIn company page link in Leadsforge and it will find them for you.

You can segment your lead lists by role, seniority, region, company stage, or even by recent trigger events like hiring or funding announcements. Here is why: Good segmentation lets you personalize your messaging and increase reply rates. Using Leadsforge, you can pull precisely segmented lists—so, for example, you can run one campaign for CTOs in California and another for Heads of Sales in London, adapting messaging for each.

If your product appeals across multiple verticals, consider splitting by industry or tech stack. For example, run different sequences for SaaS, e-commerce, or fintech companies, or for those using specific tools you integrate with. Here is why: Tailoring even basic messaging to a company’s industry or stack shows you understand their context and increases trust—Leadsforge supports this level of filtering.