Sales and marketing professionals have a finite set of resources and should not spend time pursuing unqualified leads. Is the prospect too large, too small, in the wrong industry, or lacking other key
attributes that would make it a worthwhile target?
In addition to qualifying the company, you need to know the people within the organization that make sense to pursue. Sure, you can locate
the CEO. But do you know the director of marketing who may actually buy your product?
Fortunately, there are a number of tools that can help you better target your sales efforts. They
primarily fall into two categories: Market Intelligence Tools and Lead Quality Tools.
Market intelligence tools
One sales philosophy taught us to call, call, call. The more you
call, the more sales you will make. But now the numbers game is more nuanced. Today's salesperson needs to approach prospects from a more informed approach, with a goal of adding value. This means
well-targeted calls.
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This is where a Market Intelligence solution can help you find companies and prospects that are in your sweet spot. Market Intelligence solutions are tools for building
lists of prospects that match your criteria and make it easy for sales teams to narrow prospect lists.
Market Intelligence tools enable you to narrow your selling focus to just the companies
and specific prospects that make sense to pursue. Many of these tools provide a plugin to the major CRM technologies, allowing you to surface relevant company data, including company size, industry
and recent news. This data enables you to conduct solid, informed conversations with prospects. Market Intelligence solutions also aggregate information about prospects, so you can study specific
focus areas before you call.
Lead quality tool
Once you have qualified the prospective company, you will need to locate and contact the right potential buyer. There is no need
to pursue targets that only have the authority to say “no.” This is when a Lead Quality Tool can help locate relevant contacts and their details.
We all know it's not easy to track
down prospect information. What is the email and phone number of the director of marketing you want to contact? Without that data, your team will spend a lot of time navigating phone trees, speaking
to assistants and generally will not have conversations with the right prospects.
Is a Lead Quality Tool right for you? As you look at your database of prospects, ask yourself when that data
was added and where it came from. Some may have from a trade show three years ago. Others may have been added on a piecemeal basis by long-gone sales reps. Still more came from forms on your Web site.
In other words, some portion of your data is likely out of date, incomplete and even inaccurate. Consider that if you make 30 calls a day and you spend 2 minutes a day navigating the wrong extensions
and operators, you have lost an hour from your day.
Lead quality tools help you to get the most current and complete information on your prospects. That means getting clean new data on the
right types of companies. And it means cleaning up the data that you already have in place. Most Lead Quality solutions even integrate with major CRMs, delivering vetted prospect information into your
most familiar workspace.
In summary
Modern B2C and B2B buyers are demanding greater value. When you know more about your prospects and customers, you can engage with them more
intelligently. You are no longer just pitching a prospect -- you are becoming a valued resource, meeting needs and solving problems.