The more deals in our sales funnel, the more potential for new sales and customer retention. However, maintaining the flow of leads can be extremely tedious. In a world where more and more tasks are being automated every day, automated lead prospecting is a reality.
Prospecting for leads is a daily struggle that is necessary for millions of professionals around the world. No matter what business we are in, leads are, if not the most important thing we strive for.
- What is Prospecting?
- What are Leads?
- Why Automate Prospecting?
- How Does Automatic Lead Prospecting Work?
1 – What is Prospecting?
Prospecting comes from the Latin prospectione and means to search. The term prospecting is widely used in geology to describe the methods used to discover deposits in a mine.
Bringing this concept to the concept, positioning and identity: what is missing for your brand of marketing and sales, prospecting is about going after new customers. Roughly speaking, that’s all it is. If you want a more detailed definition, we can say that prospecting is the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers with the goal of turning them into paying customers.
The Evolution of Prospecting
In the past, it was very common for a salesperson to base their prospecting process on the telephone directory. They would open the telephone the best digital marketing for improving performance and start calling companies and offering their products or services. This method was incredibly efficient. Companies and salespeople made a lot of money this way. Until the Internet came along.
With the advancement of technology, people and companies realized that the visibility of the telephone directory was insignificant compared to the power of the Internet. The migration to the digital world began. Year after year, it grew stronger. Year after year, the power of the Internet grew stronger.
When the ability to browse the internet arrived on cell phones, giving rise to the smartphone, it was then that the internet crushed most other means of communication and killed many others.
Where to Prospect?
Today, it is almost unthinkable to find a way to asb directory clients that is not related to the internet. Companies are on the internet. People are on the internet. The people who work at the companies you want to find are on the internet. So you also have to be on the internet. You must prospect on the internet.
Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the largest social networks and companies value having an up-to-date profile. Today, they are excellent channels for active prospecting. In other words, going after prospects. There are some very good classifieds sites (migration of phone books to the web) where prospecting work can and should also be carried out.
There is no doubt that the best place to do good work and define a prospecting process is the internet. Whether you are an independent salesperson or part of a sales team for a large company, the path is the same. Use technology to your advantage. Use the internet as a means of finding new customers.
How to Prospect on the Internet?
We already use the internet as our main source of leads , and we have seen that the way people and companies do business has changed over the years. The way we prospect has also changed. Before, the salesperson would get the phone book, at most define a region or segment of the company they wanted and that was it, pick up the phone and call. But that has changed.
Using social media, the “mining” for prospects goes much deeper. Many people love to share their interests on their social media, whether on their personal or professional profiles. They like to say what they like to do, eat, read, watch, where they have fun, etc. This information is worth more than oil these days. You can be sure of that. Companies pay millions of dollars for this information.
Click here to learn why data is more valuable than oil .
You must check all this information to make sure that, according to the behavior and interests described on social media, this person has the profile to buy and use your product or service.
Everything today is personalized. For example, today you can watch movies whenever you want, not whenever the broadcaster wants. So your sales must also be personalized. You, the salesperson, have to think like this: What is the profile of the people whose problem my product or service will truly help solve? This is the key point.
2 – What are Leads?
The first thing we have to keep in mind is that a lead is the contact of a person or a company .
It is information, whether it is a website, telephone number, email, link to a profile on a social network, any information that gives you the possibility of contacting someone.
Leads are contacts from people who have a problem that your product or solution solves.
From a macro perspective, leads are divided into 2 groups: Unqualified Leads and Qualified Leads.