Become a prospecting pro : top tips on how to select and target your prospects more effectively

Become a ‘prospecting pro’: top tips on how to select and target your prospects more effectively Understand your potential market You may be offerin...
Author: Avis Rice
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Become a ‘prospecting pro’: top tips on how to select and target your prospects more effectively

Understand your potential market You may be offering something brilliant – and you can see it being popular with the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker… But have you missed anyone important from that list? Understanding exactly who you are targeting is quite possibly the most important part of prospecting. Targeting the right businesses at the right time with the right offer will immediately increase your chances of prospecting success. But where do you begin to look for your hot prospects? If you’re in a business with an existing customer base, the obvious starting point is to look at the profiles of your current customers… especially the biggest spenders or the longest customer lifetime value. Choose your criteria, including: company size, turnover, location, products, structure or purchasing behaviour to get a full picture of the characteristics your perfect prospects have in common. Breaking down your marketing strategy and developing it around specific, targeted groups will boost your success rate and save you time.

Now you know your market and prospect profile… choose a reliable, accurate and upto-date database of your potential customers. ALF can help u

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Marketing approach

3 –step TOFU (top of the funnel) campaign Create relevant, targeted content to fill the top of your sales funnel and open out the conversation. Step 1 - Warm the top of your funnel with timely, relevant content to peak initial interest. Educate, inspire or motivate your prospects. Step 2 - Provide statistics or case studies relevant to your target sector to instil trust and credibility. Step 3 - Create a value-added, timely offer to create a sense of urgency without devaluing your brand.

Use the template below for your 3-step (TOFU; MOFU; BOFU) campaign:

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Pursuit Campaign Identify your top 400 high-value prospects and develop a multi-touch, highly personalised campaign. Develop a theme or story, which runs over 3 to 4-week period, ending with an exclusive offer. Example offers: • a free trial of a product ahead of its release • a free workshop or evaluation • give the first 200 respondents an exclusive discount code

Tailored Campaign This is your ‘A-game’. For your most important prospects, there is no room for scattergun marketing. Each prospect is strategically researched to discretely identify their challenges.

• Connecting with and following your prospect across all social platforms to build a picture of the types of content they are sharing and discussions they are participating in

• Invest in a business intelligence tool that provides insight into your prospects beyond their contact details. Details on a company spend, size and existing suppliers is invaluable

• Survey your prospects to really uncover what their priorities are and what keeps them up at night Once you have thoroughly researched the individual, their company and their situation, be sure to provide a tailored solution.

Top tips: 1

Realise you can’t be all things to all people – a smaller market with a focused approach is much more effective

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Do your research – know your prospects inside out to approach them confidently

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Use data to drive your decisions – don’t rely on intuition when there is data available

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Provide value in every touch and your prospects will actually want to hear from you.

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Don’t treat all your prospects the same – you don’t want to miss an opportunity by being too generic

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And here’s how your peers are using their ALF lists “We use ALF on a daily basis to access key contact details, spend data, agency information and brand details. It has helped us grow our contact base and business substantially and enables us to reach contacts that have previously not been available, providing us with valuable information needed when creating proposals and business pitches. ALF allows us to distinguish the key people that we need to be speaking to, speeding up the overall time it takes to win new business and follow our key clients.”

Contact ALF To access over 40,000 Decision-Makers in the UK across the following categories: Retail Stores, Automotive, Travel, Charities, Publishing & Media, Confectionery, Drink, Entertainment & Leisure Activities, Food, Government/Social/Political, Household Furnishings, Household Supplies, Leisure Products, Mail Order Retail, Office & Home Computing, Property, Services, Sport, Tobacco, Agricultural/Gardening & Petcare, Business & Industrial, Clothing, Cosmetics & Toiletries, Education & Vocational, Finance, Gaming, Home Appliances, Home Improvement, Internet, Luxury Goods, Medicals, Pharmaceuticals and Telecommunications Call 020 7715 6440 Email [email protected] www.alfsnapshot.com

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