Prospecting is the first step in sales and is the process of obtaining new leads as a business.
Considering that ‘marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalised experiences’, it’s clear that treating all prospects as equals is no longer an effective sales strategy.
In order to generate promising prospects, your prospecting process needs to be targeted to ensure your time and money aren’t wasted in the wrong places.
There are various ways to target sales prospects, allowing you to work smarter, not harder.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Build a clear picture of your target sales prospects
- Use audience data to your advantage
- Segment and prioritise prospects
- Track and monitor results closely
- Come up with a cost-effective SMS strategy
1. Build A Clear Picture Of Your Target Sales Prospects
Before you can begin targeting, you’ll first need to build a clear picture of your prospects.
It’s essential to put the buyer first, as it’s no longer enough to ‘spray and pray’. In other words, it’s not enough to use generic and potentially irrelevant messaging in the hopes it’ll resonate with your prospects.
For an effective prospecting process, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to build a prospect persona. Who are the perfect customers for your business? Who are the most profitable customers? It’s important to note that general information doesn’t reveal specific data about who your prospects are or the pain points that they face.
This emphasises the importance of carrying out thorough research and seeking information from data experts to become informed about your target prospects and refine your sales approach.
By building a clear picture of your target sales prospects, you can build a prospect persona that will help you eliminate fruitless prospects early in the process.
From here, you’re in a much better position to reach the right prospects who are more susceptible to a sale.
Considering that ‘marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalised experiences’, it’s clear that treating all prospects as equals is no longer an effective sales strategy.
2. Use Audience Data To Your Advantage
To effectively target sales prospects, you’ll need to use audience data to your advantage.
Considering that ‘more than 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of the sales process’, audience data can empower you to work quickly whilst bolstering the decisions you make.
Using valuable audience data also enables you to craft personalised messaging that is sure to resonate with your prospects whilst simultaneously targeting them.
To access reliable audience data with efficiency, Mobilesquared’s ‘Ask The Messageverse’ is the ideal tool. Our ‘Ask The Messageverse’ service is our unique messaging data search engine that delivers a detailed data snapshot view of a single country, in a single messaging channel, using our latest market data in as little as 24 hours.
With the Messageverse, you can select from 200 countries to gain data insights on your target audience to make the sales process more efficient and targeted from start to finish.
For sales consultants, for instance, using this reliable audience data from our experts can help to maximise your budget whilst also allowing you to promote efficiency across your team.
If you’re interested in using the ‘Ask The Messageverse’ service or want to learn more about how the Messageverse works, be sure to get in touch with a member of our team today.
3. Segment & Prioritise Prospects
To target sales prospects, you’ll also need to segment and prioritise prospects.
This comes down to the fact that not all prospects are equal in that some might have more influence or decision power than others, and some might be more ready to buy.
Bearing this in mind, you will need to segment and prioritise your prospects based on specific criteria, such as where they are in the buyer’s journey. This also highlights the importance of incorporating personalised messaging in order to perfect your sales pitch and maximise your chances of making a sale.
By segmenting and prioritising prospects, then, you can personalise and tailor your messaging to each specific segment to allow you to focus your efforts on the most important and promising opportunities.
Considering that ‘more than 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of the sales process’, data can embolden you to work quickly whilst bolstering the decisions you make.
4. Track & Monitor Results Closely
Lastly, to target sales prospects you should always be tracking and monitoring your results closely.
To do this, you will need to monitor and analyse Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), from the number of prospects contacted to the response rate to the revenue generated to name a few important metrics.
By doing this, you can measure the effectiveness of your current prospecting strategy, identify what’s going well and what could be improved, and assess whether you need to make any adjustments.
This will give you the best chance of saving valuable resources and enable you to continuously achieve your sales targets as a business.
5. Come Up With A Cost-Effective SMS Strategy
Last, but not least, to target sales prospects you will need to come up with a cost-effective SMS strategy.
With its high view rate, response rates, and automation capabilities, SMS can be an efficient and cost-effective way to connect with and target sales prospects.
In fact, Mobilesquared research has shown that ‘the number of businesses using SMS to communicate with customers (A2P) increased 9.78% by the end of 2022’. This not only emphasises the power of SMS but also highlights why creating a cost-effective SMS strategy is crucial to compete when targeting sales prospects.
To create an SMS strategy, it’s important to gain an understanding of how your sales prospects are engaging with SMS as a whole. With Mobilesquared’s ‘Ask The Messageverse’ service, this has never been easier.
Our ‘Ask The Messageverse’ service allows users to access affordable SMS data on a pay-as-you-go basis. For a flat rate of £400, the Messageverse can provide you with a detailed snapshot of a single messaging channel, including SMS.
Gaining valuable and inexpensive SMS data from our experts enables businesses to specifically target sales prospects and craft personalised messaging that resonate with them. This reliable audience data can also be used to validate SMS investment to support a business’ prospecting strategies.
The cost-effective nature of accessing only the data you require through the Messageverse means none of your budget is wasted, whilst personalising your SMS strategy can help to ensure sales prospects feel seen and included.
Accessing SMS data in this unique and inexpensive way, then, enables you to make customer-led decisions regarding your SMS strategy, allowing you to provide a level of intimacy and immediacy that always prioritises the customer experience.
To learn more about the Messageverse or any of the services we provide, visit our website and blog page.
To track your results, you will need to monitor and analyse Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), from the number of prospects contacted to the response rate to the revenue generated to name a few important metrics.
We hope that this article has given you a better overview of how to target sales prospects effectively.
We are Mobilesquared: mobile engagement specialists delivering the very best independent mobile market intelligence to our clients. We are the established #1 global authority on business messaging and CPaaS, with our data shaping business plans, strategy, and customer engagement modelling, for some of the world’s leading brands, mobile operators, and messaging providers.
To learn more about our services, including the Messageverse, be sure to get in touch via telephone (01182149 777) or email (info@mobilesquared.co.uk) to learn more about what we do and discover how we can help your business.
Written by Jemima, for Mobilesquared.