The instinct in outbound is to go wide: pull every company that vaguely matches a firmographic filter and start sending. It feels productive. It also trains your team to talk to people who were never going to buy.
Signal-based targeting inverts the order. Instead of starting from a database, start from the behaviors that predict a fit — hiring for a role your product supports, adopting a technology you complement, announcing funding, or expanding into a market. Each signal is a reason to reach out now, and a reason the prospect will actually reply.
Build the list from your closed-won patterns backwards. What did your best customers have in common before they bought? Encode that into the signals you watch, enrich the accounts that match, and sequence them while the trigger is fresh. Fewer contacts, higher intent, better replies.