How to Create a Prospecting Plan [5 Steps & 10 Tips] - Octopus CRM (2023)

Selling without a solid and detailed sales promotion plan is a waste of time.jthe prospect's time and energy for free. The Sales Prospecting Plan ensures that every lead you interact with is a really good fit (or has the potential to be) for your product.

As well asCreate an effective prospecting plan for your strategy🇧🇷 Read on to build your customer acquisition process from scratch by learning:

• What does a prospecting plan mean?
• What the ideal sales promotion plan should include
• The best tips and tricks for developing your customer acquisition strategy
• The steps to creating a great sales prospecting plan
• And the purpose of prospecting

Let's go in right away!

What is a prospecting plan?

Before we get into the intricacies of creating a great prospecting plan, let's discuss what a prospecting plan is. Your sales process begins with prospecting, where you identify, qualify, and target potential customers for your businesssuccessfully convert them into leads.

Additionally, the prospecting plan includes processes to help your sales team identify decision makers in your target audience. The goal is not to sell your product to anyone, but to find out how your solutions can help a potential customer and turn them into a revenue-generating customer.

In short, prospecting plans are short-term approaches that help companies:

• start a conversation
• Qualify if the lead is a good fit for your company or product
• Position your product or service as the perfect solution to their pain points

Potential customer against potential customer

People often get confused between leads and prospects. Here's a closer look at their differences:

directsHighlight potential customers who have shown interest in your brand or products through behaviors such as signing up for your newsletter, visiting your website, or signing up for a free trial.

Instead, leads are qualified leads that match your buyer personas. Additionally, they can be categorized as prospects based on their interaction with your business and products.

Why is prospecting important?

Prospecting allows you to identify the ideal customer for your business or product and discover their motivations, pain points and challenges. Plus, it's incredibly effective!

according to studies 7 out of 10 buyers want it Sellers contact you early in the buying process, increasing your chances of a response. And more,82% of customers agree to meet when approached by a salesperson.

Other research shows that powerful sales People gather three timesmore sales at lead than those who do not lead or perform poorly.

What is the prospecting process?

The prospecting process involves identifying potential customers and developing a customer database that fits into that category. After that, sellers systematically approach leads to successfully convert them from leads to loyal buyers.

This is a sales prospecting process.:

Step #1: Conduct the research

First, the seller will find out everything they can about the prospect. This allows them to see if the persona is appropriate for their product and how they should craft a personalized message.

B2B brands typically do their research by looking at a prospect's LinkedIn page, social media accounts, and company homepage.

Step #2: Identification of Classification

Next, the seller determines whether a lead is worth pursuing and how to prioritize it.

Sales teams rank potential buyers based on their likelihood of becoming revenue-generating customers and their potential long-term value to your business. Most brands identify these qualities by evaluating them through lead scoring.

Step 3: Planning the outreach process

Take the time to craft a personalized outreach message for each prospect. Instead of sending out a hard sale, we recommend sharing a helpful resource, informative article, etc. Remember to contact them through your preferred channel.

The purpose of prospecting

The main goal of building a prospecting process is to generate a strong sales pipeline that will feed qualified leads into your sales funnel. Here they are fed by sales reps until they reach the bottom of the hopper.

In today's world of customer acquisition, numbers are not as important as qualified leads. So the focus is on quality over quantity. For example, several new sales features focus on building effective prospect lists:

• Sales Development Representatives (SDRs)
• Business Development Representatives (BDRs)

By focusing heavily on qualifying leads, other sales professionals can streamline their part of the sales process to close a higher percentage of leads and achieve greater sales volume and value. It also helps them predict their ROI and meet other sales goals.

What is a prospecting strategy?

Sales prospecting involves formulating strategies for discoveryProspects who have the potential to become paying customers.

Your prospecting strategy will help your business maximize efficiency by improving the overall sales funnel.

Who does the sales promotion?

In most companies, Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) or Business Development Representatives (BDRs) conduct the prospecting process. SDRs are typically new members of the sales team who hone their skills and gain experience before becoming Business Development Managers. After that, they negotiate and close deals with potential clients.

SDRs reach hundreds and thousands of prospects to ensure that a lead advancing to the next stage of the sales funnel meets the following criteria:

• authority -You are the decision maker
• Need -You have a problem that your product can solve
• Household -You have money to make a purchase.
• Hour -You want to buy something soon

SDRs are also responsible for handling objections, cold calling, and sending outreach messages. Each organization measures the success of their SDRs by establishing different perspectives, such as:

• Activity Metrics -Includes calls per day, call times, emails per day
• Result-based metrics:Relates to SQL, the number of meetings scheduled and held, the number of responses, etc.

How to create a prospecting strategy?

Now that we have covered the basics of prospecting, let's move on to the different steps. Here you areTop ten tips for developing an effective prospecting strategy:

Create an ideal buyer persona

Here's the thing: There is a sea of ​​people, industries, company sizes and niches. How do you decide where to start? Simple! He takes the time to determine what his ideal buyer looks like and searches his existing database.

Don't assume that every company in your database is ideal for your client, especially as studies show that 50% of prospects don'tmatch your ideal buyer persona. So do your homework and identify contacts who care or should care about your products. Also, determine which customers are best suited and which are not by creating groups such as:

• Top 5 customers
• The five worst prospects
• The most profitable customers

It's also important to think about the "problem-solving path," where you identify your ideal customer's pain points and how your product can solve them. After that, you can use your buyer persona and your existing database to find other businesses and customers who meet those criteria.

Conduct a thorough investigation

Knowing as much as possible about your prospect before contacting them is critical to success. By evaluating the client's job titles, roles, and responsibilities, you can determine if the lead is a good fit for your product.

LinkedIn is indispensable in research. All the information you need about a prospect can be easily retrieved with a single search. By using this social media channel, you can determine if a candidate is a good match for youideal customer profile.

Define your goals before you communicate

Clearly defining your goals before and above prospecting sets you up for success. Instead of making a deal every time, you can schedule a meeting, schedule a sales demo, etc.

For example, when you cold email a potential customer, your goal might be to build a relationship with them. Potential customers want to be sure that they are dealing with a reputable company. Therefore, nurturing a connection is the first step in building trust in the brand.

Set ideal goals for new customer acquisition

Start defining your goals by asking yourself what your primary goals are. Aligning your prospect goals with your business strategy will guide your approach.

your goals mustforeverbe smart:

• Specific
• Measurable
• accessible
• Important
• punctual

For example:

• The number of new leads in your portfolio
• Number of leads by demographics
• Number of leads per sales rep
• billing target
• Percentage of high interest leads

Qualify your sales lead

Segmenting your prospects is a great way to determine which lead profiles to focus on first. To get started, consider the following criteria:

• Field of activity
• Average income
• geographic area
• Professional title
• Verboten
• seniority

By using this marketing approach, you can collect valuable data about your potential customers. This will help you better understand their problems and motivations and speak the right language. They can also create great offers they can't refuse.

Actively edit your call lists

Once you've researched your prospects and created lists of hot and cold prospects, it's time to prioritize each list and take the time to call them. Because that's what the investigation shows69% of customers take callsof new sellers and 27% believe that using the phone is very effective, cold calling is 100% worth the effort.

Start by writing a list of open-ended questions for your prospects. Write between 11 and 14 differentAsk to improve success by a staggering 74%. However, remember that your goal is to initiate a dialogue, not follow a ready-made sales pitch to learn a customer's pain points, needs, challenges, wants, and where they are in the decision-making process.

Keeping the conversation engaging and engaging can make lead qualification a whole lot easier. So keep the dialogue alive by asking open-ended questions like "What are you looking for?", "Do you have a specific solution in mind?" and "Is there any information I can help you with?"

Consider calling back after six weeks or six months to make sure you stay in touch.🇧🇷 You can turn lukewarm leads into warmer customers by constantly calling.

Create personalized offers for each potential customer

Once you've gathered the necessary information about your prospects, it's time to create a custom outreach message. The best way to do this is to determine what is and isn't important to your potential customers. You can do this by:

• Visit their blog to find out what's important to them through the articles they write and publish.
• Check your social media profiles and identify and learn more by checking recent updates or posts
• Visit the company's website to read the About Us section

Once you learn more about your prospect's business and role, you need to find concrete reasons to connect, such as: E.g. mutual connections, a triggering event, a recent website visit, etc. You can create a decision card to outline your prospect's options and ultimate goals. This way, you can handle objections and better personalize your sales pitches.

Request references

What's better than converting viewers into qualified leads?– create happy customers!Why?Because happy customers lead to more business and more sales.

Research shows that word of mouth influences purchases Decisions made by more than 91% of B2B buyers🇧🇷 Also your sale closing rateachieves excellent 50 to 70%🇧🇷 The power of recommendations doesn't stop there! Another study instead shows that 73% of executives I prefer to work with suppliers who are recommended to me by a close friend or family member.

So, word of mouth is a free opportunity that can help you scale your business. Ask your customers for referrals, target your "best" customers, do it in person, or ask them directly. You can increase your income by actively seeking referrals 4-5 times.

Determine the ideal contact medium

Part of outreach is identifying your customer's preferred means of contact. So ask yourself how your customers would like to be contacted. Is it phone calls? Or do they prefer email or social media? But don't stick to just one channel; Use them together instead. Also, consider establishing a process and schedule for when and why you should use a particular social media platform.

Because there are so many ways to connect with your prospects, there are tools and software that you can use to streamline your prospecting process. This allows the software to manage your prospecting sequence by chaining cold calls, voice messages, video messages, direct mail, LinkedIn, etc.

As a result, you can increase engagement, share information with your customers, and increase your chances of scheduling a meeting.

Build your social media presence

Bad news:Social networks are becoming more and more importantmarketing strategies.

To learn more about your brand, shoppers visit all potential channels, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. And if you're not there, your competitors will likely take your place.91% of B2B buyers are now actively usingsocial networks etc 84% of executives use these channels to make purchasing decisions.

The power of social media marketing is so incredible that 65% two sellers those who use it fill the pipe and 78% outsell theirs couples! So it is clear that social selling works. If you haven't already created a social media profile, it's time to start with your three most important channels.

For example, if you are a B2B marketer, you should think about itCreate a profile on LinkedInand Facebook profile. But you can add TikTok to the mix if you are onebusiness person.

Evaluate your results

Measuring your results is critical to the prospecting process because it helps you determine which tactics are producing the best results. This allows you to focus on the most profitable metrics and identify areas for improvement.

Additionally, by analyzing the results, you can identify what drives potential customers to convert and turn them off. This allows you to reset your ICP on a quarterly basis.

How do I know my customer acquisition strategy is failing?

Imagine:Your vendors follow thatbest prospecting strategies: Cold calling, emails, follow up and request for references. However, you still don't get any results.Why?

Problems often arise during the prospecting process without the sales team noticing. To help you identify the culprit, we've compiled a list of common reasons that could be sabotaging your success:

• Your sales team spends too much money on manual data entry instead of switching to software
• Your seller uses a "shoot in the dark" strategy.
• Their conversion rates are low
• Private salespeople bring little or no referrals.
• Your salespeople are constantly switching between sales activities
• Your sales team can't identify the prospect's pain points and challenges

What are the different prospecting methods?

Effective prospecting differs by business type and industry. For example, SDR prospects are sometimes hot leads: people who have already engaged with your brand. However, they connect with other companiesB2B salesthrough cold calling. Also, there are a few ways to find new potential customers. They are:

I have a phone

Cold calling is still an effective way to find new prospects. Nearly 69% of customersAccept cold calling, which makes it a great opportunity to grow your business if done right. With the right skills, sales reps can engage with prospects quickly and connect their products to the prospect's pain points.

Cold calling allows you to show more of the human touch. That way, you can start a meaningful conversation on the phone. You can also use it to ask questions, listen to the answers, and follow up if needed.

per Email

Sending sales emails is the fastest and most effective way of acquiring customers. Once you've set up a sales prospecting template, you can start mass prospecting effectively. Also, a handy method of email prospecting is to create email threads that show potential customers the feature-based benefits of your products.

Via social media channels

In B2B, companies can easily find their leads on LinkedIn. It helps them connect directly with their prospects through messages that create meaningful connections. Most SDRs get leads by creating short videos that they upload to LinkedIn. Video prospecting allows businesses to bring personality into the process and use information about their prospects to add personalization.

Related article:LinkedIn Prospecting: Find and connect with future customers

By using automatic messages

CRM-PulverLinkedIn automation toolhelps simplifyprospecting, eliminate email and grow your business successfully.

Help B2B reps find quality leads, save time, and increase productivity. Also, this tool can automate the sending of personalized cold messages. Consequently, you can expand your network and improve your online presence.

Steps to create a prospecting plan

A strategic prospecting plan should include the following steps.

Segment your prospects by need and type

The first step in creating an effective prospecting plan is to tailor your process to the needs of prospects and to target different industries and departments. The more you change your prospecting plans, the better your chances of success. For example, one potential customer might buy your product to replace it with the competitor, while the other might buy it to grow their business.

Defining the goals of your prospecting campaigns

Make sure you think about your business goals before creating an effective prospecting plan. Here are some important things to focus on:

• Hot-Lead-Tracking:If your potential customers have already visited your website, it's time to build strong relationships. Make sure you are aware of the challenges that are preventing your leads from moving forward and take appropriate steps to resolve the situation.
• Identify the needs of your potential customers:Customer service reports are a great way to get customer information. Use the data to identify your customers' needs.
• Strengthen your existing customer base:You can use CRM software to identify customers you haven't placed an order with for a long time. Also, update your products and encourage existing customers to try something new. If they already trusted you, they will surely use your products in the future.
• the unwanted telephone advertising:Cold calling is another effective way to find new leads. These prospects are not among the pre-identified targets or people who have shown interest in your products.

create a script

Have you ever shopped without a shopping list? Most people leave the house hoping to remember all the items they need from the grocery store. Unfortunately, when they're shopping, they wander down the aisle trying to remember the last product they bought.

Likewise, selling your products to potential customers without a script is the same as above. In a world where a misspelled phrase or word can result in canceled deals, a solid roadmap is critical to ensuring your sales reps are delivering the perfect phrases to every prospect that contacts them, every time.

While some sales reps don't prefer sales scripts because they don't want to seem like robots, sales scripts are beneficial. A strong sales script, done right, will save you time, make you more efficient, and give you a framework to tweak for stronger conversion rates.

By providing your sales team with sales scripts and email templates, they'll feel prepared and confident, and take the pressure off of prospecting. Also, sales reps can focus more on listening to potential customers' issues and tailoring the conversation to individual needs, rather than worrying about what to say next.

Automation of repetitive tasks

Prospecting consists of several repetitive tasks. Data entry is essential. However, that doesn't mean sales reps have to spend hours getting tasks done. Several software automatically capture and organize customer data without manual input from sales reps.

an efficient onesales softwarebrings your CRM, lead scoring app, voice calling software and other business tools together into a single data source. For convenience, automated email templates streamline emails to capture leads.

Use of monitoring indicators

The last step of the business development plan is to act on the answers. The aim is to ensure personalized follow-up of your leads. You can send an email after each call with a report of what happened. However, you must give your prospects directions and tell them the next steps. Finally, when a potential customer buys a product, follow up on future projects.

What are lead costs?

Lead costs are fees charged when a prospect fills out a buyer profile. The price depends on various factors such as the tools and strategies used. However, you need to hire an expert to work with outbound leads and grow your business.

What is the typical cost per lead?

Cost per lead (CPL) is the amount spent to acquire a single customer. Cost per lead is determined by dividing the total cost earned from an activity by the number of customers resulting from it. However, not all activities bring the same number of leads. Therefore, the cost per lead varies significantly from project to project. Depending on a few factors like industry, geographic locations, and product complexity, it ranges from $8 to $20 per lead.

Conclusion

A prospecting plan plays a crucial role in attracting leads and growing the business. Therefore, companies need an effective prospecting plan to find potential customers and grow their business. In addition, it is important tosolid prospecting strategyto get leads and convert them into potential buyers. Businesses can increase their prospects and expand their business by using the above techniques and methods.