Let's be real - sales is changing.

Consumers are making smarter, more conscious choices by the day.

Today, 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting. This clearly shows that prospects are a lot harder to convince than ever before.

It's high time that sales teams got rid of the traditional approaches and found new ways to convince and convert prospects.

What Is Sales Prospecting?

Sales prospecting is all about formulating strategies to find prospects who are most likely to convert into paying customers. It is like finding the right fits for the jigsaw puzzle of business in the form of prospects.

Contrary to the popular belief, sales prospecting involves more than just cold calling. It is about developing strategies that single out prospects who are more likely to convert into paying customers.

Sales prospecting happens right at the top of the sales funnel when you start to find leads. With the right prospecting strategies, you can figure out which of these leads show the most interest in your product. These leads are the ones who are most likely going to purchase your product - thus making them prospects. It is these prospects that eventually convert into sales.

However, if your sales prospecting strategies are not effective enough, you'll miss out on thousands of high-quality leads. These leads will then be picked up by your competitors and chances are, they will successfully convert them into paying customers.

That is why strengthening your sales prospecting strategy is vital for your business’s growth.

The Best Strategies For Sales Prospecting In 2022

Over the past few years, there have been several experiments into sales prospecting. We've put together a list of the newest and most effective sales prospecting techniques used by businesses worldwide to find the right prospects for their brand.

1. Create A Prospect Profile

The first thing you need to do in your sales prospecting strategy is to create an ideal customer profile.

One easy way to create ideal customer profiles is to look at your previous clients and their journey. You'll notice that the interests, purchasing habits and other attributes of your high-value customers are quite similar. These shared attributes will become features for your ideal customer profile.

Once you've done this, you can target your sales prospecting efforts towards leads matching your ideal profile. This will ensure that you reach more leads who are willing to make the purchasing decision.

Make sure you don't limit your prospecting efforts by narrowing down the ideal customer profile. Having around 4 target audience profiles will ensure you don't miss out on high-quality leads.

If you're struggling with figuring out what your ideal customer persona is, you should check out Makemypersona.

It's a simple to use tool that'll help you get a clear cut picture of who your ideal customer is.

2. Find Paying Prospects

There is no point selling your products and services to prospects who don't have the budget for them.

When you approach a prospect, it is important to take into account their finances and how willing they will be to meet your pricing.

Needless to say, if you've got a prospect who has the finances to meet your pricing expectations, focus your efforts on converting them, rather than on other prospects who show interest but don't really have the budget to afford your offerings.

You could also try identifying prospects who are already spending money on products and services similar to yours.

One other highly effective tactic is to ensure that you are talking to the C-level decision-makers. C-level executives are always looking for ways to improve the results of their organization. Pitching your solutions to a C-level executive is a great way to put your foot in the door and start a more effective conversation with the organization.

3. Think About How You Meet Your Prospects

Your leads belong to a certain target audience. They think alike and have similar likes and dislikes that make them valuable to your sales process. This also means that they are highly likely to gather in the same place. Where you'll find them, depends on your industry.

Eg - If you're a construction company that's trying to find new builders to work with, attending real estate events and mingling with the crowd will get you several promising leads that you can filter into your sales funnel.

Similarly, other industries might find their target audience at trade shows, seminars, webinars, expos etc.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

There's a global pandemic on the loose and public events and gatherings are out of the question - so where do you meet your leads?

No problem - that's what the internet is for.

Again, the platforms that will work best for your industry will differ from those of other industries. For instance, if you are a B2B business, you will find most of your leads on LinkedIn, Quora or Facebook. This will vary for B2C businesses, who may be looking at platforms like Instagram and Twitter to better gauge which leads are worth pursuing and which are not.

Of course, it is equally important that you create a strategy to help your prospects find you more easily. This is best done by creating content that showcases your expertise in the field while adding value to your prospects. Blog articles, guest posts, online flyers, social media ads and SEO are some major avenues to enter the minds of your prospects.

4. Send Personalized Emails

If there is one thing constant in the world of business, it is emails.

They are the perfect medium to reach out to your target audience on an individual level.

However, you’re not the only one out there drafting sales emails in the hopes of warming up leads.

You need to do something different, you need to give your sales emails a boost to ensure that they stand out from the competitors in your recipients inbox and pique enough interest to get them to open it.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to personalize your emails to create a more meaningful connection with your leads.

I’m not just talking about adding your lead’s name to the subject line - you need to create an experience that feels tailor-made for your lead.

Here’s an example by Nike that’ll show you a level of personalization that is bound to tug at the hearts of the recipients.

5. Create A Referral Programme

Referrals are a highly overlooked strategy for sales prospecting.

No amount of content marketing can beat a recommendation from a friend or a relative.

92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.

It is always a good idea to ask your existing clients to refer friends they know who might be interested in your offerings.

This will help you pipeline opportunities for your business in the long run.

Instead of taking the conventional route and using testimonials and customer reviews to lure in new prospects with social proof, you could get your customers to spread the word themselves!

The key is to ensure you create a referral program that is exciting and rewarding.

Think out of the box - there’s plenty of referral examples to refer from (pun intended)!

6. Making Warm Calls Instead Of Cold

Nobody wants to be rung up by strangers pitching them products and services in exchange for their hard-earned money. That’s what cold calls do - they are impersonal, unengaging and can get extremely annoying.

The new-age consumers want to feel valued.
They want to build relationships that last.

And that needs to be incorporated into your calls.

The next time you phone a lead, be warm and friendly. Take permission before calling, have a genuine conversation, pitch your offer and thank them for their time.

These simple gestures can mean the difference between a successful customer and a lost prospect.

7. Build Social Media Presence

Social Media Prospecting can fetch you a really large number of promising leads. If done right, it can completely replace the process of cold calling. This is because social media has given consumers the ability to scrutinize your digital footprint before making the purchase decision.

Working on your social media presence brings a direct impact to your sales numbers.

The more visible you are on social media, the more you will begin to be seen as a thought leader, and your brand will draw in audiences from your industry.

This will in turn increase your website traffic consistently and help you generate more leads daily.

8. Retain, Repurpose, Retarget

Your acquisition strategy can work amazingly for your business only if it goes hand in hand with the retention strategy.

Here’s where the sales team has to collaborate with the product team to ensure that the customer gets a seamless experience.

A disappointed customer is highly likely to share their negative experiences with your brand, damaging the brand reputation and repelling promising leads in the process.

Businesses should focus on maximizing Customer Lifetime Value - a measure of the value a customer brings to your business over an indefinite period of time as opposed to the value added at just the first purchase.

Efforts in improving the CLV will immediately lead to efforts to improve the customer experience and ensure the maximum retention of existing customers.

Once the customers are retained, you can once again generate new business from them.

Your sales team can step in to upsell other products, services or purchase plans to the customers. Having already opted for your products and seeing the customer service that you offer, they will be more readily convinced to buy other products and services from you.

The result?

More value from a single customer!

9. Prioritize Your Prospects

Before you get to work nurturing your leads and turning them into prospects, you need to qualify them first.

Lead qualification is the process of identifying leads that can be moved further down your sales funnel. Leads who have been warm to you and respond well to your products and services are the ones whom you should be nurturing. Cold leads who don’t warm up to you after your sincere efforts should be let go of. You will find better results as you can channelize the efforts to other high value and quality leads.

Prioritize your prospects and your sales efforts will be rewarded by several more conversions than ever before.

10. Have Premade Video Templates At The Ready

It’s 2021 - if you aren’t using video content in your sales efforts, you’ve already lost a lot of potential leads.

One way to bring video content seamlessly into your sales process is to record a few video templates and keep them ready.

Sales pitches, products demos and even client testimonials - you can create a template for pretty much any situation your sales team may find themselves in.

Having a template ready for these situations ensures that you can respond with engaging, quality video content in no time.

This slashes down the effort you need to put in every time you talk to a new lead, while giving you more consistent results at the same time!

Oh, and replying almost immediately to your leads, especially with a video attached is always going to make your brand look good - it makes you look like you’re eager to have a conversation with them and help out.

How VideoForm Can Help You Find New Prospects?

VideoForm is a new age video creation platform that lets you give your sales efforts a more personal, conversational tone that will make an impression with your leads.

The platform lets you send video recordings with the touch of interactivity directly to your lead’s inboxes.

Your leads can then respond to your VideoForm with their own text, audio or video recording, schedule meetings with you, even complete the purchase by clicking on your custom CTA!

All this makes for a two-way conversation with an added touch of interactive engagement.

An intuitive user-interface ensures you can create a fully functioning sales VideoForm in a matter of minutes.

There are also plenty of predefined video templates to choose from!

Introduce yourself, schedule meetings, share testimonials, demos and sales pitches - all in an interactive format with VideoForm!

Try VideoForm Free now!