Sales & CRM

Prospecting in the digital age

Prospecting in the digital age
Simon Lemire
Partner, Buisness Development
19/6/2020

The customer is the key element for a business to exist and for it to continue to develop. However, what can we do to ensure that we maintain a sufficient bank of customers? Many tools exist today to retain customers, but also to meet potential customers and conduct proper prospecting. This prospecting approach can be compared to the Klondike Gold Rush period where prospectors had to prepare a long time before venturing on the gold route, have the right tools in order to be effective and efficient on their dealership and hope to find gold. In the B2B world, businesses must work at the outset before launching prospecting, or develop an action plan and develop the right tools to discover gold nuggets — in this case, customers. And one thing is certain, if the B2B company embarks on this adventure by abandoning new technologies and the digital age, it will miss out on the most profitable opportunities; especially today where the digital turn has become a key point for businesses of all types.

This stage of prospecting seems relatively simple, however, a HubSpot study shows that more than 40% of sellers say that this is the most difficult part of the sales process, since at the end of the process only 30 to 40% of potential buyers end up reaching an agreement. A lot of effort is made at this stage, sometimes for little customer recognition, which is why it is important to choose the appropriate methods that fit the environment in which the company operates and which better reach potential customers.

There are different methods for prospecting, traditionally there are cold calls — a method that consists in calling customers who initially have no needs or are not even interested — and emails. These prospecting methods scan potential customers very widely, which is why they have limited chances of success. On the other hand, the entire process can be optimized through technological tools and automation.

Definition of personas

A persona consists of creating a character based on a fictional, but closest to reality, representation of the ideal buyer for your business. This profile can be established using marketing data, customer interviews, and a few informed assumptions. The objective behind the persona is to find a place in the head of the potential customer to better meet their needs.

Your business must have several types of buyers in order to communicate properly with them and know which platforms to use to interact with them. To do this, it is essential that you know the interests of your potential customers, their age groups, their buying habits and who is normally involved in the buying process — who makes the purchase decision? With all the relevant information you can gather, you will be able to interact with prospects on platforms as complex as LinkedIn. Indeed, this platform was originally created to establish business relationships, create a network of contacts and explore job or customer opportunities available to you; however, it is easy to get lost when browsing LinkedIn. On the one hand, because the platform is complex and on the other hand, since there are more and more people using it, it represents an enormous database and a source of information that may or may not be relevant.

So, in order to discern which user of LinkedIn or any other platform that corresponds to your persona, you can listen to and watch the behavior of your prospects on these various social networks. This principle is called Social Listening. In other words, it's a method that allows you to track, analyze, and respond to communications about you on social media. LinkedIn is a real gold mine for prospecting, you just need to know how to use the full potential of this platform, you can consult an article written by HubSpot to discover all the secrets: HubSpot Social Selling

As a result, you can better understand your audience thanks to your persona and thus better meet their needs with the help of adapted content. All the interactions you have with your potential customer can be — and should be — adapted to the stage of the buying process where they are located.

Establishing a sales plan

For communication with the prospect to be aligned with the purchase decision, it is necessary to first establish the buying process and know it in depth.

What is a sales process?

“A sales process is a set of repetitive steps that a sales team takes to move a lead from a lead to a customer. A solid sales process helps sales representatives consistently close deals by giving them a framework to follow. This framework is important to create and structure.”

A sales plan is generally based on five fundamental steps:

  • Prospecting
  • Research and commitment
  • The presentation
  • Handling objections
  • The conclusion and follow-up of sales

Throughout the process, it is relevant, even essential, to use an inbound marketing methodology. Indeed, this type of methodology makes access to information easier than ever, because it aims to attract the customer through relevant, useful and value-creating content, at each stage of your persona's buying journey. Buyers can now find the answers to their needs quickly.

In recent years, it has been possible to observe several changes in purchasing trends. Buyers have gained purchasing power; they are now in control of the sales process, not the representatives. Thus, you must be able to create an optimal customer experience, which will be executable once your sales process plan is well established.

Advanced sales tools integrated with a CRM

Advanced sales tools integrated with a CRM play a crucial role in prospecting and managing customer relationships. Having customer relationship management (CRM) software is now essential, especially in a fast-growing market. It's still surprising that 18% of salespeople don't know the benefits of a CRM and continue to use tools like Microsoft Excel, which are archaic and risky compared to a modern CRM like HubSpot.

HubSpot, for example, is much more than just an address book. It centralizes all your contacts, including your prospects based on your personas, your current customers, partners and suppliers. Thanks to its integrated sales tools, HubSpot allows quick access to your contacts while offering you the possibility of following up with your prospects in real time and engaging them effectively.

Personalizing the customer approach and creating unique experiences are strengths of HubSpot, thus strengthening your prospecting approach and increasing the final conversion rate. By using a CRM like HubSpot, you can answer questions that are critical to your business: who your prospects are, their level of engagement, their interactions with your business, and their buying habits. This data is essential for making informed strategic decisions.

HubSpot also simplifies data management with clear dashboards, deal tracking reports, and sales project management visualizations. It is an indispensable tool to facilitate all stages of the sales process, especially prospecting, while allowing you to maximize your commercial efforts in an effective and structured manner.

How can CRM effectively increase your conversion rate? This platform is designed to answer your questions and structure the answers that are essential for your business, thus facilitating informed business decisions. CRM allows you to answer key questions such as:

  • Who are your prospects?
  • What is their level of commitment?
  • How do they interact with your business and through what channel?
  • What are their buying habits and history?

With this software, you won't miss any relevant details or figures. Everything is centralized on an intuitive dashboard, transaction tracking reports, and sales project management visualizations. CRM simplifies each stage of the sales process, especially prospecting, making it an indispensable tool for optimizing your commercial strategies.

Lead generation

Finally, the step that ensures that all the efforts made beforehand finally lead to results. Lead generation comes after the creation of personas, market analysis and the sales process, since the aim of the lead generation stage is to attract and convert your company's prospects in the most efficient way possible; this requires, therefore, early work.

What is lead generation?

“Lead generation is a strategic approach designed to attract prospects to your business, convert them into leads, and ultimately into customers, by creating content and experiences that are tailored to them.”

There are two steps to this process, which is leads. First, you need to create compelling content that highlights your products and/or services. Then, you need to use that same content to facilitate and create the conversion of visitors into leads.

To do this, there is an inbound marketing strategy as mentioned above. Thus, thanks to an inbound marketing strategy, prospects find you through various channels such as social media, search engines - hence the importance of having good SEO -, blogs, and possibly SEO advertising.

One of the big advantages of inbound marketing compared to traditional marketing — magazine, billboard, mail — is that this new technological method does not require a surreal effort in order to attract the attention of the potential customer, since it is the customer who discovers you and who will meet you. Why? Because you create content designed to respond to the problems of your personas and therefore to the needs of your ideal customers, they inevitably feel engaged by your products and/or services. By this very fact, you attract relevant leads, you develop a relationship of trust with these newcomers, while strengthening the credibility of your business with your target audience.

What is a Funnel ?

“The Funnel is a way of representing the buying journey of your customers, and therefore the funnel of buying decisions made by them. It highlights the different stages that your potential customer goes through between the moment they discover you and the moment they buy your products and/or services.”

This new portrait of prospecting is far removed from cold calls, since an essential element today is the interest of the prospect. Indeed, the lead must be interested from the start. Therefore, an online site with relevant information about the products or services you offer is an unparalleled tool — especially in times of confinement as the COVID-19 crisis requires -, or even the adequate use of social networks that highlight your products or services. In short, you must offer solutions to the needs of your personas, you must answer their questions succinctly but comprehensively, and above all, you must have a Funnel ready to welcome your various leads and to transmit the appropriate message to everyone in order to create a shopping experience that meets customer expectations.

In conclusion, it is essential not only to focus on the creative aspects of marketing such as branding, the development of an online site and others, but also to highlight technological aspects and marketing tools such as a CRM, a sales process, the appropriate use of social media. This will allow you to reach your potential customers more easily, but above all more effectively, in addition to being able to engage them more strongly on a long-term vision of the business.

Without necessarily being at the forefront, stay informed of the technologies available to you, dare to use platforms to their full potential such as LinkedIn which will allow you to develop your prospecting, discover inbound marketing or even social selling/listening marketing strategies that will help you reach new heights. Relevant work done beforehand with the use of the right tools — CRM, social media, leads — and well-thought-out and solid strategies will certainly lead you to your own gold mine; all you have to do is exploit it effectively and responsibly to continue to be successful.