Hit your quota with better sales prospecting tools

Why you need sales prospecting tools

Sales prospecting has completely evolved for the digital world of today. Finding and vetting new customers remains an essential component of maintaining a healthy sales funnel. But the tools Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) use have changed rapidly with the invention of Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) and data enrichment solutions. Whether you’re in need of contact information verification, or lead qualification, a new suite of sales prospecting tools exists today that will enhance your tech stack.

Understanding the sales prospecting process

Sales prospecting is the process of trying to identify people who might be interested in the products and services that you provide. 

Even though you can manually do this, there are far more efficient ways to carry out the sales prospecting process. With numerous advances taking place in the world of prospecting technology, you should incorporate sales prospecting tools as a part of your sales process. If you combine these tools with the right prospecting methods, you can quickly increase your conversion rate, helping you make inroads in your target market.

The goal of all sales prospecting tools is the same. These tools are supposed to help you make the sales prospecting process more efficient. 

Examples of B2B sales prospecting tools

These are just a few of the examples of tools you may want to incorporate as a part of your sales prospecting process. 

CRM

You can take advantage of a customer relationship management program, usually shortened to CRM, that can help you manage all of the contact information of your potential clients. 

Email automation tools

There are also prospecting tools available that can help you automate emails, allowing you to effectively orchestrate an email drip campaign. 

Chatbots 

There are even tools available that can automate a lot of your online chats with your customers, funneling them into a more personalized area when they reach out to you. 

How B2B sales prospecting tools can help your team

The B2B and B2C worlds are very different. If you are trying to sell to your average consumer, you are probably going to run a routine advertising campaign, trying to target their emotions to convince them to purchase a product or service you provide. 

In contrast, the sales cycle in the B2B world is much more prolonged. Businesses are much more intentional with the decision-making process. Therefore, you need to keep this in mind when you are trying to prospect leads.

When it comes to prospecting leads, you need to take advantage of the right B2B prospecting tools. B2B prospecting methods are going to be geared towards professional profiles. Prospecting strategies have to do a great job of converting potential companies into new accounts. 

Whether you are trying to conduct outbound emailing, navigate social media accounts, or keep track of some of the email chains you currently have going, you need to use tools that are going to help you track potential clients over an extended amount of time. 

Sales prospecting techniques

There are numerous sales prospecting techniques available to use when building your prospecting playbook. You should take advantage of all of them in a unified strategy. 

Referrals

You may want to start with referrals from other people in your industry. If you have strong business relationships in your field, you can lean on them, generating referrals for your product and services. 

Social media

You should also take advantage of social media. Some of the most popular social media platforms today include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Snapchat. Even though you do not need to have a profile on all of these platforms, you do need to figure out where your target market hangs out. Then, you can reach out to them and vet the likelihood of them becoming a potential prospect.

As you start to reach out to people, you need to keep track of your conversations with your potential clients. That way, you can remember where all of your clients are located in your sales funnel. Strong sales prospecting software can help you unify all of these options under one, cohesive strategy. That way, you can close the deals efficiently, growing your business. 

The sales prospecting process

If you want to get the most out of your sales prospecting process, you need to develop a strong sales prospecting plan that is filled with the best sales prospecting methods. 

There are a few steps that you need to accomplish if you want to get the most out of your prospecting process. These include:

First, you need to identify your ideal persona. Who is the person that is going to benefit most from your products and services? 

Then, you should identify ideal businesses where you are likely to find those personas. What companies have those people who will benefit from your products and services?

Next, you need to go through the outreach process. Making first contact with them in a productive manner is key. 

After this, you need to sort all of your conversations with your potential contacts and a prospecting database. That way, you can track your conversations as you close your deals. 

You need to have materials that will meet the needs of your prospects throughout this journey. As you track their performance over time, you can make changes to your sales prospecting process, improving your conversion rate.

That is where a tool such as UserGems can be helpful. If you are able to predict how likely it is that a lead is going to convert to a paying customer, you can partition your resources better. As you go through the sales prospecting process, you want to maximize your investment return. The only way you can do this is by putting the right tools to work for you. If you take advantage of a tool like UserGems, you can prioritize where you spend your time. This can help you improve your conversion rate and your sales prospecting process. 

Free sales prospecting tools

In your prospecting toolkit, you may consider taking advantage of free sales prospecting tools. For example, you may want to use LinkedIn to develop professional relationships. Or, you might want to take a look at business listings on other websites. 

Free sales prospecting tools are a great jumping-off point. They can help you figure out which tools are helpful to your business and which features you might not need. But these free tools are only going to get you so far. 

By taking a closer look at your prospecting process, you can figure out exactly which sales prospecting tools are helpful to you. Once you figure out what you need, be prepared to invest in an advanced software program. This is how you can keep your sales pipeline strong in the modern era. Take advantage of everything these prospecting tools have to offer. 

The best B2B sales prospecting tools 

If you are interested in getting the most out of your sales prospecting strategy, it is important for you to put the best B2B prospecting tools to work for you. Your time is your most valuable resource. That is where prospecting automation can be helpful. 

There are a few common tools that you may be able to use to help you with your sales prospecting strategy. For example, you may want to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which has a free trial you can use before you pay for the whole thing, to identify potential business relationships in your field. You can also use ZoomInfo and Hoovers to help you identify individual contacts. 

Ultimately, you can use these tools to give you a database of people you can reach out to. But these tools are not going to help you prioritize which leads are most relevant to you specifically, or more likely to convert. That is where a tool like UserGems can help you. If you can figure out which leads and companies from your existing contact database you should be spending your time on, you can increase your conversion rates, and generate more revenue for your business.