How to Build a Prospect List for a Marketing Agency

A targeted marketing agency prospect list gives your sales team a defined audience of businesses and decision-makers to approach. Rather than prospecting across the entire UK business market, you can focus on companies that match the type of client your agency is best placed to win.

A prospect list can be built using criteria such as:

• Industry
• Employee numbers
• Turnover
• Geography
• Business type
• Job role
• Seniority
• Marketing service
• Ideal client profile

The objective isn’t simply to build the largest possible database. A smaller list of relevant potential clients can be considerably more useful than thousands of businesses with little reason to use your agency.

Start with Your Ideal Client Profile

Before building a list, define what a good client looks like for your agency.

Consider your existing customers and ask:

• Which industries do we work with?
• Which clients are most profitable?
• Which businesses get the best results from our services?
• What company sizes can afford our fees?
• Which clients stay with us longest?
• Which services do they buy?
• Who normally makes the buying decision?

You can then turn these characteristics into targeting criteria.

For example, an agency might define its ideal client as:

• UK-based B2B company
• 20 to 200 employees
• �2 million+ turnover
• Operating in technology, manufacturing or professional services
• Marketing Director or Managing Director as the target contact

This gives you a clear starting point for prospect research.

Decide Which Marketing Service You Want to Sell

If your agency offers several services, don’t automatically build one list for everything.

You may provide:

• SEO
• PPC
• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Lead generation
• Web design
• Branding
• Marketing automation
• Paid social

Different services can have different ideal customers.

For example, a company suitable for a �1,000-per-month SEO campaign may be very different from a company suitable for a large website development project.

Building lists around specific services can improve targeting.

Choose the Right Industries

Industry is one of the most useful ways to structure a marketing agency prospect list.

Potential B2B target markets include:

• Professional services
• SaaS and software
• Technology
• Recruitment
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Financial services
• Insurance
• Logistics
• Healthcare
• Business services

Consumer-focused agencies may instead prioritise industries such as:

• Retail
• E-commerce
• Hospitality
• Leisure
• Travel

Focus on industries where your agency’s services and experience are most relevant.

Use Your Existing Clients to Identify Target Industries

Your current client base can provide useful evidence about where to prospect.

Look for patterns in:

• Industry
• Company size
• Turnover
• Marketing spend
• Services purchased
• Retention
• Profitability
• Results achieved

If several of your strongest clients operate within the same sector, similar businesses may be worth targeting.

This can be particularly useful when your agency already has relevant case studies and industry knowledge.

Use Employee Numbers to Refine the List

Company size can have a significant effect on marketing requirements.

Smaller Businesses

Smaller companies may:

• Have no internal marketing team
• Outsource most marketing activity
• Have smaller budgets
• Make decisions quickly

Medium-Sized Businesses

They may:

• Employ Marketing Managers
• Need specialist agency support
• Have larger marketing budgets
• Use several marketing channels

Larger Businesses

They may:

• Have established marketing departments
• Use multiple specialist agencies
• Have larger contracts
• Require procurement processes

You might therefore create employee-size bands such as:

• 10 to 49 employees
• 50 to 99 employees
• 100 to 249 employees
• 250 to 499 employees
• 500+ employees

The most appropriate range depends on your pricing and agency model.

Use Turnover to Identify Suitable Businesses

Turnover provides another way to estimate the scale of a potential client.

For example, you might target businesses with:

• �1 million+ turnover
• �5 million+ turnover
• �10 million+ turnover
• �50 million+ turnover

Turnover doesn’t tell you exactly how much a business spends on marketing, but it can help remove companies that are unlikely to match your commercial requirements.

Combining turnover with employee numbers can provide a clearer picture.

Define Your Geographic Market

Your prospect list should also reflect where your agency can realistically serve clients.

You could target:

• UK-wide
• Specific regions
• Individual counties
• Cities
• Postcode areas
• Businesses within a defined radius

A UK-wide digital agency may have few geographic restrictions.

An agency that frequently attends client sites may prefer prospects within particular regions.

Geography can also be useful when individual salespeople manage specific territories.

Identify the Right Decision-Makers

Once you’ve identified suitable companies, determine who you need to contact.

Relevant roles can include:

• Marketing Directors
• Heads of Marketing
• Marketing Managers
• Digital Marketing Managers
• Managing Directors
• Business Owners
• CEOs
• Commercial Directors
• Sales Directors

The best contact often depends on company size.

Within a smaller business, marketing decisions may be made by the owner or Managing Director.

Within a larger organisation, a Marketing Director or specialist marketing manager may be more appropriate.

Match Decision-Makers to Your Service

Different agency services can require different contacts.

For example:

This can help prevent campaigns being directed towards people with little involvement in the service you’re selling.

Include Useful Prospect Data

A marketing agency prospect list should contain enough information to support your chosen outreach channels.

Useful fields can include:

• Business name
• Contact name
• Job title
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Postal address
• Website
• Industry
• Employee numbers
• Turnover
• Postcode

You may not require every field for every campaign.

For example, an email campaign requires suitable email contact data, while a telemarketing campaign will naturally place greater importance on telephone information.

Segment Your Prospect List

Avoid treating the entire database as one audience.

You could segment prospects by:

• Industry
• Company size
• Turnover
• Geography
• Decision-maker
• Marketing service
• Account value

For example:

• Marketing Directors at manufacturers with 100+ employees
• Managing Directors at recruitment agencies
• Heads of Marketing at SaaS companies
• Business Owners at professional services firms
• Sales Directors at B2B technology companies

These groups can then receive more relevant campaigns.

Build Lists Around Individual Services

If you offer several marketing services, create prospect lists based on likely requirements.

For example:

SEO Prospect List

You might target established businesses operating in competitive search markets.

B2B Lead Generation Prospect List

You could focus on companies with sales teams selling higher-value products or services to other businesses.

Social Media Prospect List

You might prioritise businesses where social platforms play a significant role in customer acquisition.

Marketing Automation Prospect List

You could target larger businesses with established marketing teams, CRM platforms and regular lead volumes.

This creates a clearer relationship between the audience and the service being promoted.

Create Lookalike Prospect Lists

Your best existing customers can be used as the basis for new prospect audiences.

For example, imagine your agency has several successful clients that are:

• Recruitment agencies
• 20 to 100 employees
• �2 million to �15 million turnover
• UK based

You could identify other recruitment businesses with similar characteristics.

You can repeat the process for other strong customer groups.

Prioritise Prospects

Not every company on your list needs the same level of attention.

Consider creating tiers.

Tier 1

Businesses that closely match your ideal client profile.

These might receive:

• Individual research
• Personalised emails
• LinkedIn outreach
• Telephone follow-up

Tier 2

Businesses that are a good fit but slightly lower priority.

They could receive structured email and LinkedIn campaigns.

Tier 3

Broader-fit businesses that can be approached through more scalable campaigns.

This allows your sales team to spend the most time on the strongest opportunities.

Look for Potential Buying Signals

You may also be able to prioritise companies showing signs that additional marketing support could be required.

Potential signals include:

• Hiring marketing employees
• Launching new products
• Opening new locations
• Entering new markets
• Rapid company growth
• Building a sales team
• Rebranding
• Launching a new website

A buying signal doesn’t guarantee that a company needs an agency, but it may provide a useful reason to prioritise the account.

Consider the Company’s Existing Marketing Resources

Two similar-sized businesses may have very different requirements.

One may employ:

• Marketing Director
• SEO Manager
• PPC Manager
• Content team
• Designers

Another may have one Marketing Manager responsible for everything.

The first company might require specialist agency support, while the second could be suitable for broader outsourced marketing.

Understanding internal resources can therefore help refine your proposition.

Avoid Building a List That Is Too Broad

A common mistake is starting with criteria such as:

“All UK businesses with 10+ employees.”

While this creates a large audience, the businesses may have very little in common.

A more focused audience might be:

• UK manufacturers
• 50 to 250 employees
• �5 million+ turnover
• Marketing Director or Head of Marketing

This gives you a much clearer basis for your messaging.

Don’t Make the List Too Narrow

The opposite problem can also occur.

Combining too many filters may leave you with an audience that is too small to support consistent prospecting.

Start with the criteria most closely connected to client fit.

These are often:

• Industry
• Employee numbers
• Geography
• Decision-maker

Additional filters can then be introduced where they genuinely improve the audience.

Use Your Prospect List Across Multiple Channels

A well-built prospect database can support several lead generation methods.

These include:

• Cold email
• Telemarketing
• LinkedIn outreach
• Direct mail
• Account-based marketing

You could introduce your agency by email, connect with the same decision-maker on LinkedIn and follow up higher-value accounts by telephone.

Using several channels can reduce reliance on any single method.

Keep Your Prospect Data Current

Businesses continually change.

People:

• Change jobs
• Receive promotions
• Move departments
• Leave companies

Businesses also:

• Grow
• Close
• Merge
• Relocate
• Change websites
• Restructure

Prospect data should therefore be reviewed and maintained rather than treated as a permanent static asset.

Measure Results by Prospect Segment

Once campaigns begin, compare the results generated by different parts of your list.

Measure performance by:

• Industry
• Employee size
• Turnover
• Decision-maker
• Marketing service
• Geography

Commercial metrics could include:

• Positive replies
• Meetings booked
• Qualified opportunities
• Proposals
• New clients
• Contract value
• Revenue

This helps identify which audiences are producing genuine business.

Refine the List Using Campaign Results

Your first prospect list doesn’t need to be perfect.

Campaign results can show where future activity should be concentrated.

You might discover that:

• Manufacturers generate more meetings.
• SaaS companies produce larger retainers.
• Marketing Directors respond better than Managing Directors.
• Companies with 50 to 250 employees convert more frequently.

Use these insights to continually improve your targeting.

Over time, your prospect database should become increasingly focused on the businesses most likely to become profitable clients.

You can learn more about our Lead Generation for Marketing Agencies services.

Summary

A targeted marketing agency prospect list should be built around the type of client your agency actually wants to win.

Start with your ideal customer profile before filtering businesses by industry, employee numbers, turnover and geography. Then identify the Marketing Directors, Marketing Managers, Managing Directors, Business Owners or other decision-makers most relevant to your services.

Segment the resulting audience, use it across email, LinkedIn and telephone outreach, and measure which groups generate the strongest commercial results. This creates a prospecting process based on client fit rather than simply building the largest possible list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a marketing agency prospect list?

A marketing agency prospect list is a database of businesses and decision-makers that match the type of organisations an agency wants to win as clients.

What information should be included in a marketing agency prospect list?

Useful information can include business name, contact name, job title, email address, telephone number, website, industry, employee numbers, turnover and location.

Which industries should marketing agencies include in their prospect lists?

This depends on the agency, but potential sectors include professional services, SaaS, technology, recruitment, manufacturing, construction, financial services and other B2B industries.

Who should marketing agencies include as contacts?

Relevant contacts can include Marketing Directors, Heads of Marketing, Marketing Managers, Managing Directors, Business Owners, Commercial Directors and Sales Directors.

Should marketing agencies filter prospects by company size?

Yes. Employee numbers can help identify businesses whose marketing requirements and budgets are more closely aligned with your agency’s services.

Should marketing agencies create separate prospect lists for different services?

Often, yes. An SEO campaign, lead generation campaign and branding campaign may each have different ideal businesses and decision-makers.

How should agencies use their prospect lists?

Prospect lists can support cold email, telemarketing, LinkedIn outreach, direct mail and account-based marketing campaigns.

Data & Lead Generation Services

RD Marketing provides bespoke B2B data lists and fully managed lead generation services to help businesses build pipeline and drive revenue growth. These include:

• Automated Email Campaigns
• LinkedIn Automation
• Industry Databases
• Job Role Databases
• Email Lists
• Telemarketing Data
• Direct Mail Data

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