Setting up sales success means digging deeper into your buyer pool, not casting a wide net. But how? Through different types of sales prospecting.
The sales 2.0 era declares sales prospecting and targeting for new businesses dead. It asserts that cold calling is ineffective and prospecting accounts that don’t come to you is a humongous waste of time.
But these assumptions are short-sighted.
While digital transformation offers advanced tools to orchestrate customer relationships, it can’t replace prospecting.
Achieving a successful deal demands locating the individual(s) who are inclined to purchase your offerings. It’s not necessary that this individual holds the authority or budget to do so, but has purchasing influence.
This makes up the fundamental crux of sales prospecting.
What Really Is Sales Prospecting?
Fundamentally, sales prospecting can be described as an efficient process of identifying, filtering, and interacting with individuals who you deem fit to purchase your brand solutions.
In simple terms, it’s about locating new customers.
The methodology is more about working smarter than working hard. The market is way too crowded to be setting loose traps and waiting for the right fish to bite the bait. With each segment a potential prospect-yielding source, it’s crucial to find the right types of sales prospecting methods-
One that permeates all relevant sources to drive leads for your business.
Why Is Prospecting Vital for Modern Businesses?
Every year, businesses lose a chunk of their audience base. It’s called customer attrition, and can take place, vitally, due to these two reasons:
- One of your direct competitors counters with better pricing and benefits.
- Or they don’t need the particular solution anymore.
This, of course, impacts your brand’s profitability. Losing customers is never a good sight, especially in the first scenario.
And in this competitive market, your competition constantly has its eyes set on you- from the tech you adopt down to your sales deals.
It’s where sales prospecting becomes paramount- to counter the impact of attrition. It all comes together- without prospecting, your marketing and sales funnel runs empty, which ultimately affects your bottom-line growth.
Prospecting identifies your potential buyer and builds a bridge, connecting them to you.
And with the right types of sales prospecting, consistent wins become a routine for your business. Your SDRs also remain on top of their game. Especially to tackle customer attrition, which, while quite normal, is not feasible in the long term.
This is why businesses focus on attracting new customers- prospecting. You merely need the correct method.
A Dive into the Types of Sales Prospecting: Transcending the One-Size-Fits-All Framework
Traditional Categorization of Sales Prospecting
Traditional sales prospecting was the foundational method of finding new customers. It reflects the nucleus of direct engagement.
These processes existed before digital innovations came into purview, but continue to hold relevance even in the current landscape, especially in selected industries.
Traditional prospecting feels more personalized due to its straightforward and face-to-face nature. It has been an industry favorite to build meaningful relationships.
Several may posit a unique apprehension of face-to-face prospecting. It can tend to be overwhelming, time-consuming, and exhausting. There are only a couple of prospects you can identify and communicate with before the sun goes down.
But it still offers a means to connect with buyer psychology. It was easier to underscore the feelings regarding a solution and whether they truly held the intent. The answer always trickled down to a simple yes or no.
1. Analog prospecting
Offline or analog prospecting is a method that worked traditionally, way before digital channels became the key drivers. Sales was always a one-size-fits-all framework, from making house calls to cold calls.
The entire process was carried out through offline or physical channels. It means holding phone calls, field sales, and trade shows. When put forth, they sound like blunt instruments. But instead, these channels are an art form. Mass cold calling requires ample research and spearheaded strategy, field sales is all about account prioritization and territory mapping, and trade shows foster an unparalleled level of connection.
The method worked because the end goal was broad outreach, instead of personalized interactions or prospects’ online behaviors. But in deals where trust is paramount, analog prospecting remains in use.
The point is direct and personal contact to introduce the product or service. Analog prospecting trickles down to volume and persistence- that was the underlying logic.
2. Digital prospecting
Digital prospecting marks a shift from offline channels to digital channels to find new customers. At its core, digital prospecting proves highly effective for improved lead generation. However, this was the initial phase of digital prospecting- mass communication.
As AI and other technology innovations boost sales, there has been a nuanced shift to list segmentation. This sophisticated tactic has ensured that brands don’t send a single email to every account on their contact database.
From broad outreach, sales have shifted to contextual relevance. And digital prospecting has only made it increasingly possible to reach out to segments that actually matter. It’s much easier to reach the most fitting accounts and keep them engaged.
Prospecting doesn’t just end at closing deals. That’s not the goal anymore. With a myriad of granular data that digital prospecting affords, it’s easier to distinguish which messages truly resonate and which ones fall flat.
The tools facilitate A/B testing and message tweaking in real-time. It’s an iteration of offline sales prospecting and only continues to evolve.
A Modern Prospecting Structure
Modern prospecting is all about aligning with the buyer’s journey. It’s less about selling and more about intuitively guiding a prospect through the sales funnel.
1. Inbound prospecting
An informed inbound strategy comprises a tiered content strategy. You aren’t just attracting high-fit leads, but automatically qualifying them. It looks something like this-
- At the top of the funnel, a blog post might attract and engage a chunk of your target accounts.
- At the middle of the funnel, most brands seek to collate account information by compelling them to download whitepapers in exchange for contact details. This could or couldn’t imply interest, but a certain engagement with the brand still indicates awareness.
- And at the bottom of the funnel, actions such as requesting a demo or asking for pricing charts tend to underscore a sales-ready lead.
Here, the most crucial aspect to focus on is your lead scoring methodologies. It’s what guides the lead qualification framework. Each action that a prospect takes adds another point to their profile. This is at least the fundamentals. With growing complexities in consumers’ patterns, this method has turned more sophisticated. It’s up to savvy marketing and sales professionals to adapt.
But honestly, inbound prospecting focuses only on accounts that’ve shown some level of interest. It gets a bit simpler here. It works because these leads are warmer and already have a foundation to develop trust.
How does inbound prospecting work?
Inbound leads come to you. And now, it’s your job to qualify them according to their intent and behavioral signals. And then curate personalized nurture tracks to ensure that each account interacts further with your team, avoiding drop-offs and losing opportunities.
This is where social selling comes in handy. You transition from simply connecting with the relevant accounts to contributing to a community. You’re positioning your brand not just as a solution, but as a trusted resource in the industry.
As decision-makers, buyers value counter insights and opinions. You can position yourself as a credible thought leader who can provide the industry know-how and help them lean into diverse perspectives. This builds your reputation and credibility.
And positions you as an expert. This is why inbound prospecting greatly relies on thought leadership and demand generation tactics. It’s about building a brand and positioning it as a consultant, not a partner.
2. Outbound prospecting
Outbound prospecting is more proactive than inbound. It’s based on an Account-Based Engagement model. This strategy involves taking a more hyper-targeted approach where you identify a small number of highly relevant accounts and curate an omnichannel full-funnel campaign around them.
This includes every tiny touchpoint- from personalized emails and targeted ads to LinkedIn in-mailers aimed at diverse stakeholders on a single buying committee.
The crux?
Outbound is highly specific and ROI-driven. It isn’t about “see, here’s what my solution does,” but about your unique value proposition. You don’t start with product benefits, but research the company’s pain points, ask BANT questions, and then initiate communication with the buying account.
Outbound prospecting works best when you need to reach into a new market segment and communicate with prospects who aren’t aware of your brand yet. It’s more about elevating brand awareness and recognition than conversions.
Outbound prospecting can be both cold and warm. It’s mostly a mix of both.
Marketing has transcended transaction-driven image and plunged into being relationship-driven. This is what demands a problem-solving approach paired with warm follow-ups.
Cold calling or outreach is a problem-first strategy.
Your SDRs shouldn’t begin this with a sales pitch, but attempt to validate a hypothesis- and then it becomes a discovery call. You’re reaching beyond selling and making a genuine attempt to understand why this account might need your solution. This is where the warm touch comes in: following up on accounts that interacted with your LinkedIn post or subscribed to your newsletter.
Understanding and empathy- the two facets of outbound prospecting.
A Healthy Sales Pipeline Demands Continuous Prospecting. And The Right Methodologies.
The fundamental purpose of sales prospecting is to engage and guide potential customers into the sales pipeline.
But SDRs continue to perceive it as a numbers game. With this limited purview, prospecting turns into throwing multiple nets. It’s directionless. Stuck feeding their own sales quotas, your sales pipeline runs dry. And your bottom line shrinks.
So, think of the sales pipeline as a living organism. It requires, not merely prospects, but the right prospects to flourish. You cannot dial random numbers, hoping to convert at least one account in an ocean of your target accounts.
You must lean into different types of sales prospecting methodologies. This signifies a balance between inbound and outbound prospecting types. And ensuring enough clarity to build a value-driven framework-
One that helps inculcate deeper customer relationships and keeps your sales pipeline thriving.
