Supercharge Your Sales Prospecting
What is Sales Prospecting?
Sales prospecting is the initial stage of the sales process, during which sales reps search for potential leads and companies that might be interested in their services, get the attention of potential customers, and discover what they want. Sales reps know which companies and people to prospect by knowing their company's buyer persona, or in simple terms, their ideal customer.
Once the sales team has developed the buyer persona, they can go about obtaining accurate information about a potential customer using sales intelligence. This is invaluable for helping salespeople generate quality leads and better understand the needs of their customers. Often, sales teams will use sales intelligence software, such as Owler Max to unify their company and buyer research into one platform and reduce sales prospect research time.
Once the research process is completed, it is time to reach out. The most popular way for the sales team to reach out to potential customers is via a cold call or cold email, in which the sales rep discusses the sales prospect's needs and challenges one-to-one with the company decision-maker. This develops a rapport before pitching the product or service they are selling.
How Owler Exponentially Improves Your Sales Prospecting
Research and data collection are the pillars of a successful and efficient sales prospecting strategy; that’s where Owler comes in.
With Owler Max, top-performing sales teams gain access to critical sales intelligence about new prospects and actionable insights to help assess, validate, and prioritize potential buyers and revenue-generating opportunities.
Knowing Your Customers = More Opportunities for Outreach
Successful outreach starts with understanding your prospect's needs and challenges and offering a realistic solution. Owler Max gives businesses a significant advantage by supplying sales teams with a massive database of over 15 million company profiles. Each profile contains real-time relevant, up-to-date sales intelligence about a company's decision-makers, product launches, company size, and more. This allows your salespeople to reach out at the right time, to the correct prospects, with the right message.
Improved Sales Prospecting Techniques Such As Advanced Search Function
By adding Owler Max to your repertoire of sales prospecting tools, businesses can access Advanced Search. Available to Owler Max users, you can filter business intelligence by sector, location, industry, revenue, employee count, and company status to boost prospecting efforts and discover new leads according to your ideal customer profile.
Second Largest Business Community On Earth
Since our launch in 2011, Owler has grown to become one of the largest business communities in the world, with over five million members.
Our user base of over five million business professionals contributes exclusive monthly insights on private and public companies worldwide.
Owler helps sales professionals stay ahead of the curve and support customer relationship management by validating, assessing, and categorizing user-generated competitive intelligence. This superior accuracy is essential to helping you find the best outreach opportunities for your business.
Daily Alerts on Companies Create Better Follow-Up Opportunities
Owler maps over 40 million competitive relationships to deliver over 180,000 weekly news updates through our exclusive Newsfeed and Daily Snapshot features.
Configure your feed to filter 15 new event types or review seven years of historical data. Providing daily alerts about companies you follow, the Daily Snapshot delivers a sleek and simplified overview of everything you need to know.
Outbound Sales Teams Can Find Higher Quality Leads
Owler Max’s comprehensive company database lets outbound sales teams enhance the sales prospecting process and keep their sales pipelines full.
Built on a repository of rich data generated by other professionals, Owler Max allows prospectors to identify their leads' pain points and discover introduction topics—all on one platform!
How to Prospecting for Sales
Thoroughly Research Potential Leads
Nailing the perfect sales pitch isn’t easy, especially if you’re cold calling. One of the most significant challenges salespeople face is making quality connections with potential customers; 17% complain about poor-quality leads that aren’t a good fit.
Evidence-based research is key to overcoming these obstacles. Failing to investigate effectively may reduce effective leads and result in fewer follow-ups.
Understand the Client’s Needs and Offer the Best Solution
Addressing your prospects' needs forms the foundation for a successful sales cycle. Buyers agree, with 69% looking to partner with companies that will listen to their needs.
Salespeople should start by understanding their buyer persona. By getting to know your ideal prospect and developing your sales cadence, you can lay the groundwork for a positive sales experience and present the best possible solution your business has to offer.
Prioritize Clients Based Upon Best Fit with Your Company
Maximizing outreach to many potential clients is important, but finding high-quality, priority leads that will actually convert is a more important first step.
Identifying more likely to convert targets allows the purchasing decision-making process to be streamlined, turning ideal prospects into paying customers while also nurturing other business opportunities such as referrals or long-term partnerships.
Personalize Your Client Connections
Forming a personal connection is vital to successful prospecting.
After making contact, show you understand your prospect’s business. By fully researching a company using sales intelligence software, you will be more likely to understand the company's positioning and challenges that you can provide a solution to.
A potential client is more likely to express interest in your business’ solutions if the human element of your sales pitch shines through.
Use Technology to Find Better Leads
Strong sales prospecting will benefit the overall sales cycle when supported by sales enablement technology.
Owler Max fuels outreach by providing sales teams with the right information for high-quality lead generation. With Owler, traditional sales prospecting transforms into a streamlined process that businesses of any size can utilize for more lucrative sales opportunities.
Hundreds of Businesses Trust & Use Owler. See Why
In sales, it's what you know—and how you use that knowledge.
Thousands of top sales teams use sales intelligence to prospect, research, and build connections with millions of prospective clients and customers worldwide. Discover why.
HERE ARE OWLER'S TOP FIVE TIPS FOR SALES PROSPECTING SUCCESS:
Know who you are pitching to. Who is your target audience? You have to know who to aim your product at, what they like and dislike, their budget, and how to best approach them. The scattergun approach of throwing things out there and seeing what sticks doesn’t work.
Sell yourself. People are far more likely to buy things from people they like and have a personal connection with. Be friendly, approachable, and be the person you would want to buy something from.
RESEARCH, and then research some more. You want to know your client’s own business inside out, its history, latest news, funding and more. Use Owler to get the scoop on your targets and their industries, sign up for instant insights so you can call up and congratulate the CEO on their latest acquisition, funding, or award.
Have a plan when you go to a client meeting or are on a client call. Make sure you know what your goal is and how your product can positively impact your client. Consistency is key.
It’s not about you. Listen to your customer, their likes and dislikes, their needs and wants. Ask the right questions, listen more than you speak, and understand the client’s problems and what they need help with.
Get started on your path to success now. Sign up to Owler’s complimentary account here, follow the companies that matter to you, and become a sales superhero
Sales Prospecting Techniques Best Practices
PERFORM OUTREACH THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
Social networks play a vital role in social selling and sales prospecting. They are practical and accessible marketing channels to find leads, tap relevant prospects, strengthen brand awareness, and build relationships with potential customers.
LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are rich sources of information for customers' online behaviors, purchasing habits, feedback on products and services, and even contact information. With direct messaging features, leads have also become more accessible and easy to reach out to.
Bu using content marketing—posting to social media with stories and insights that relate to your target audience, it’s easier to build the credibility of your thought leaders and experts on social media. By regularly producing and posting content that addresses your customers’ pain points, your company can build its brand and highlight its value proposition.
Joining LinkedIn/Facebook groups and creating Twitter threads enable your company and your salespeople to meet your customers where they are in the sales funnel by:
Engaging with followers
Answering frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Addressing customer pain points and issues
Getting involved in industry discussions
Sharing insights, how-to’s, and free resources
Building relationships with customers through social media makes your sales process more organic and trust-based, warming up prospecting efforts such as cold calls and emails.
Owler lets you see a company’s social media profiles, enabling you to quickly assess its presence and performance on social media.
2. MORE COLD CALLING AND COLD EMAILING
Some people think that cold outreach is dead. However, cold calling and cold emailing have always been an essential part of the sales process—and they always will be.
Cold outreach uses email or phone calls to reach out to prospects for the first time.
Cold calling and emailing are essential in sales prospecting. They happen at the beginning of the sales cycle and allow you to get off on the right foot with cold prospects. Done well, they can define customer needs, establish rapport, and build confidence in your company from the beginning.
As cold calling and emailing happen at the top of the sales funnel, they may not always yield results or conversion. The primary goal of cold outreach is to kickstart customer relationships while introducing your company name, brand, and your offerings.
Cold calling and emailing are also effective ways to learn more about your market and potential customers, which will allow you to define better customer personas, gain valuable market insight, and refine your sales process.
You can warm up your prospecting approach by doing the following:
Know sufficient information about your prospect and align your messages according to their unique needs.
Research their pain points—know their feedback on products and services.
Find a shared connection and explore the potential for introductions.
Engage with their social content by liking their tweets, responding to Facebook posts, or congratulating them on a new job on LinkedIn.
Stay in the loop with the companies and contacts you are following. Owler Max instantly sends real-time news alerts and pushes newly published content to you.
3. ENCOURAGE REFERRALS FROM CLIENTS
Asking for referrals— a form of word–of–mouth (WOM)—is one of the best types of outreach and sales prospecting techniques.
64% of marketers agree that WOM is the most effective form of marketing. It is the most trusted information source, resulting in five times more sales than paid ads.
Referrals are not just an excellent prospecting strategy; they also serve as social proof and testimonials. Consider satisfied customers as your best brand ambassadors. Prospective customers like hearing from their peers and like-minded individuals before making purchasing decisions.
Tap into the power of WOM by encouraging referrals from satisfied clients—both past and existing. When reaching out to your clients for referrals, remember the following:
Be referable by providing excellent products/services and customer support.
Ensure that you have a solid, trust-based relationship with clients built through time and reciprocity.
Consider the timing. It is better to ask for a referral when the client is delighted with your products or services and has achieved something great by using them. You can also time it around regular check-ins or follow-ups, such as after product onboarding.
Have an email template ready and personalize it for each client.
Regularly tap into your clientele and be proactive about asking for referrals.
4. CREATE VIDEOS FOR YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMERS
Boost and personalize your outreach by creating videos for your ideal customers.
Videos create high-quality engagement, whether used in individual outreach or social selling. 94% of marketers believe that videos increase understanding of their offerings. 81% of them agree that video directly and positively impacts sales.
Film short and snappy videos to introduce your company, onboard your customers, maintain a constant and engaging presence online, and recap your discovery calls.
5. HOST WEBINARS FOR NEW LEAD AUTOMATION
Many companies have started to use webinars to promote their products or services.
Webinars increase brand awareness, meet customer demands, and increase sales. They are an excellent way to get your product noticed by more people worldwide.
They can also be recorded, so if you have a cold prospect who can't make it at a specific time, they can always watch the recording at their convenience. This serves as both marketing and an opportunity to establish and improve relationships with potential clients, leading to sales opportunities in the future.
Webinars are an effective sales prospective strategy. They effectively qualify leads and identify potential customers who are already interested in knowing more about your offerings.
Many businesses incorporate a sales feature into their webinars, usually at the end of each presentation. They typically show a link for an in-depth product demo and sales page to encourage conversion.
When rolling out webinars, don’t forget to follow up with a thank you message for attending the webinar, a link to the replay, free resources, or a post-webinar survey to schedule a demo or discovery call.
Ensure that you link your webinars to an automated email campaign to nurture your qualified leads until they are in the position to buy. Send them relevant insights, free resources like how-to’s and templates, updates, and information about your product regularly.
Understand the Customer, Close the Deal. Join Owler Today!
With Owler, you’ll unlock exclusive insights into the companies you’re interested in, while actionable news will create new outreach opportunities with potential prospects.
Expand your sales prospects today with Owler Max. Owler Max unlocks access to special features, including Salesforce and Hubspot integration and brand customization.
Track the companies that matter to you. Sign up for free with Owler Community or reach out today and let us know how we can support your business.