How to succeed in B to B commercial prospecting?
Commercial prospecting seems more than ever a necessity for companies. It is a time-consuming activity because it requires the implementation of a certain number of actions. But adopting good practices of commercial prospecting in B2B allows companies to maintain a regular development of their activity.
Commercial prospecting techniques evolve over time, especially with the appearance of the Internet and digital techniques. There is no good or bad commercial method. The key is to combine them in the best possible way so that commercial prospecting remains a key to the development of your company.
We are going to share with you some good practices of commercial prospecting in B2B to help you increase your sales.
Knowing your target: one of the best practices in B2B sales prospecting
In a BtoB context, your prospecting target will be based on the function of your contact. Who is the right person to contact within the company you are targeting? Is it rather the manager himself, his marketing manager, or the buyers? You will define the specific profile of the person you want to reach, more commonly called, buyer persona.
The more precise your targeting, the more successful you will be in optimizing your prospecting. From there, you will be able to create a list of priority targets and know exactly where to focus your efforts. And by knowing all the characteristics of your target audience, your digital marketing strategy will be strengthened.
Therefore, defining your buyer personas is an essential step in your marketing process.
To go further: How to create buyer personas?
Create a quality B2B sales prospecting list
Once you have determined your ideal target, you will create a prospecting list. This is a list of contacts established according to specific targeting criteria. This list will help you start your commercial prospecting efforts. It is recommended to update it regularly.
Recovering information on your prospects
The prospecting list contains relevant information such as the name and contact details of the client, the company in which he works, his job title, his email and his telephone number. In addition, it is interesting to add their LinkedIn profile.
You will need to collect a lot of information about your clients from your own resources. Of course, this will require some work, but the prospecting list remains indispensable for sales teams.
Do not hesitate to do your research on LinkedIn! Today, the social network is the most up to date B2B database on the market. Indeed, companies are increasingly using LinkedIn to promote themselves.
Once you have gathered all the information on the targeted companies or people, you will just have to exploit it.
Use the information you get
The best way to use the information you have gathered is to use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management). This tool will allow you to optimize and centralize all your prospects’ data. Not only do you save time, but the tool also simplifies many tasks.
In addition, CRM tools become very practical when you need to build large prospect files.
Read more: Why should your company use a CRM?
Creating a quality prospecting list is a good thing. But it’s even better if you can extract opportunities from it and develop a long-term business strategy!
Building an effective sales prospecting plan
In an increasingly competitive environment, it is not enough to simply apply sales prospecting techniques to attract new customers. It is essential to implement a real B2B prospecting plan.
The plan consists in clarifying the company strategy to focus on the real priorities of your business. To do this, ask yourself the right questions and take the time to prepare your actions!
A business prospecting plan is established in stages:
- define precise objectives
- target your potential customers
- choose the right means of prospecting
- prepare and plan the prospecting campaign
- set up a follow-up
A well-thought-out prospecting plan will bring visible results.
Measuring the performance of commercial prospecting: one of the best practices in B2B
Now that you have prepared and set up the sales prospecting campaign, it is important to think about the follow-up. To help you, there are commercial performance indicators (KPI) that have become essential in companies. These indicators allow you to monitor, optimize and develop your commercial prospecting.
These measurement and observation tools must be integrated into your sales strategy. Thanks to the KPIs, you will be able to identify what works and what, on the contrary, needs improvement.
The KPIs to be monitored will vary depending on your customer. They will allow you to develop dashboards to manage your sales strategy. The list of sales performance indicators is long. They can be both quantitative and qualitative indicators. Among the important performance indicators, we find those based on rates and tracking.
As all companies are different, your dashboard will be in line with your sector and your sales team.
Outsource sales prospecting
A company can very well decide to dedicate itself to commercial prospecting internally. However, it must have available and competent personnel to deal with the many techniques for winning new customers.
Among the prospecting methods, the person in charge of this work will have to :
- have a solid foundation in e-mailing (or mailing marketing)
- participate in trade shows
- be able to create advertising on the Internet
- make phone calls
- free up sales time for his or her prospecting missions
It is no wonder that many companies are turning to outsourcing their sales prospecting. When prospecting is outsourced, the company’s sales representatives can concentrate totally on their primary job: selling!
At Finelis, thanks to an experienced team and excellent processes, we support our clients by covering all their sales channels. Do as they do, don’t be left alone with your sales prospecting! Let us take care of it and focus on your core business!
And you, do you adopt the best practices of commercial prospecting in B2B? Tell us all about it in comments!