THIS ARTICLE IS FOR: All ListKit customers and anyone running cold email
Stage: Optimization
Owner: CS
Last updated: Aug 2026
TL;DR
Most underperforming campaigns are not a copy problem, they are a targeting problem
Your value proposition has to match what your audience already believes, not what you assume they believe
Targeting people who already have what you are selling shrinks your addressable market and makes you harder to differentiate
The size of your total addressable market determines whether your business can scale past a certain point
ListKit's filters can help you find both people already using a related tool and people who are not, depending on which one your offer actually needs
Why this matters / When you'd use this
A strong claim, a solid guarantee, and good evidence (covered earlier in this series) will still underperform if they are being sent to the wrong audience. Targeting mistakes are some of the most common and least visible reasons a cold email campaign stalls, the copy looks fine, the offer looks fine, but the replies just do not come, because the message and the audience do not actually match.
Match your message to what the audience already believes
Before writing a single line of copy, get clear on one thing: does your audience already believe in the underlying concept you are selling, or do you need to convince them of it first?
This connects directly to demand generation versus demand capture (see the previous article in this series). If your value proposition assumes the prospect is already sold on the category, but a large portion of your audience has never considered it, you will get silence from that entire segment, not because the offer is weak, but because the message skipped a step they needed.
Example: if you sell a service built on top of a specific tool, you generally have two options: target people who already use that tool, or target people who do not use it yet and need to be convinced of the underlying idea first. These require two different messages. Assuming everyone falls into the first group when a large portion falls into the second is one of the most common targeting mistakes.
Targeting people who already have what you sell shrinks your market
There is a common instinct to target prospects who are already doing the thing you help with, assuming they will be the easiest to convert because they clearly see the value. In practice, this often backfires for two reasons:
The pool is smaller. People already doing the thing you help with are almost always a small fraction compared to everyone who could benefit from it but has not started yet.
They are harder to win, not easier. If someone is already doing this, they likely already have a provider or a process in place. You are not offering something new, you are asking them to switch, which is a much harder sell than introducing something to someone who has nothing yet.
Widening your targeting to include people who are not yet doing the thing at all, while adjusting your message to first sell the concept, often opens up a market that is 100 times larger, even though it requires an extra step in your copy.
Know your actual total addressable market
If the audience that matches your offer is small, your ceiling is small, no matter how good your copy or your closing skills are. Before investing heavily in a specific angle, get a rough sense of how many people or companies actually fit the criteria you are targeting.
If that number feels too small to build a real campaign around, the fix is usually one of two things:
Broaden your search: add related keywords, adjacent industries, or nearby job titles that still fit your offer
Reconsider your angle: sometimes a narrow audience means the positioning needs to shift toward a segment with more volume, not that the offer itself is wrong
Two versions of the same offer for two different audiences
When you decide to target both people who already use or do the thing you help with, and people who do not, write these as two separate messages rather than one message trying to cover both.
To people already doing it:
Lead with why you are better than what they currently have, comparison, differentiation, a stronger guarantee, or sharper results.
To people not doing it yet:
Lead with why the underlying idea matters in the first place, before introducing yourself as the solution.
Trying to write one email that does both jobs at once usually does neither well.
Expected outcome
Targeting built around what your specific audience already believes, rather than what you assume they believe, should noticeably improve reply rates, because the message finally matches the mindset of the person reading it. It also protects you from accidentally shrinking your addressable market by only going after prospects who are hardest to win over.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find people who are not yet using a specific tool or service?
Use ListKit's search filters to either include people using a specific technology, or exclude them, depending on which audience your offer actually needs. See: How do I filter by technology used?
What if my total addressable market really is small?
A small market is not automatically a dead end, it just means you need a higher close rate and a stronger relationship-driven approach rather than pure volume. Be honest about which situation you are in before choosing your strategy.
Should I run two campaigns for two audiences at the same time?
Yes, generally. Keep them as separate campaigns with separate messaging rather than trying to combine both audiences into a single list and script.