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Prospecting

Customer acquisition banner Graphics courtesy of Inc.Opens in new window

Prospecting is, of course, a mining term. In that context it means searching an area thought likely to yield a valuable mineral deposit. In CRMOpens in new window, it means searching for opportunities that might generate additional value for the company.

  • Targeting is the process of choosing which market segments, clusters or individuals to approach with an offer.

Business-to-business Prospecting

In the B2B environment, it is very often the task of marketers to generate leads, and for the salesperson to follow up allocated leads.

Leads are individuals or companies that might be worth approaching.

The lead then needs to be qualified so that sales and other resources are used wisely to nurture a relationship with higher value prospects.

Once leads are qualified, companies need to decide the best channels for initiating contact.

A distinction can be made between direct-to-customer (DTC) channels such as salespeople, direct mail, and telemarketing, and channels that are indirect, either because they use partners or other intermediaries or because they use bought time and space in media.

The improved quality of databases has meant that direct channels allow access to specific named leads in target businesses.

Sources of business-to-business leads

Leads come from a variety of sources. In a B2B context this includes the sources identified in Table X-1.

Table X-1 | Sources of B2B Prospects
  • Personal referrals from satisfied customers
  • Online sources
    — Search engines
    — Company websites
    — Portals
    — Social media
  • Networking
  • Promotional activities
    — Attendee and delegate lists from exhibitions, seminars, workshops, tradeshows, conferences, events
    — Advertising response enquiries
    — Publicity
    — Email campaigning
  • Lists and directories
  • Canvassing
  • Telemarketing

Many companies turn to satisfied customers for . Customer satisfaction scores enable companies to identify which current customers to approach for referrals. They may be prepared to write an email of introduction, provide a testimonial or receive a call to verify the credentials of a salesperson.

We discuss four main online sources of leads: search engines, company websites, portals and social media.

  1. Search engines

Provide an indexed guide to websites. Users searching for information type keywords into the search engine’s web form. The engine then reports and lists the number of hits; that is, web pages that are associated with the keyed word or words. Users can then click on a hyperlink to take them to the relevant pages. To ensure that your site is hit when a prospect is searching for a supplier, your website needs to be registered with appropriate search engines or optimized for those search engines (for more information see Search Engine Optimization (SEO)). Major search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft).

  1. Company websites

Company websites can be fruitful sources of new customers. The Internet enables prospective customers to search globally for products and suppliers.

  1. Portals

Portals are websites that act as gateways to the rest of the Internet. Portals tend to be focused on particular industries or user groups and offer facilities such as search engines, directories, customizable home pages and email. For example, the portal www.ceoexpress.com provides a wealth of information and access to other sites that may be of use to busy chief executives.

  1. Social media

An increasing number of suppliers in the B2B marketplace are developing a presence in social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. For example, salesforce.com has a Facebook page that in part aims to appeal to potential customers.

When prospective customers reach an online destination they want to find engaging content that is relevant to their reasons for conducting the search. Content can include blogs, white papers, videos, presentations, podcasts, reports, case studies, testimonials, competitions and games, tools and surveys. Interactivity can help build engagement. To help qualify a lead, companies may want visitors to register prior to their accessing content. Registration effectively provides companies with permission to follow up and qualify the lead.

The series:
  1. Peppers, D. and Rogers, M. (1997). Enterprise one-to-one. London: Piatkus.
  2. Hofmeyr, J. and Rice, B. (2000). Commitment-led marketing: the key to brand profits is in the customer’s mind. Chichester: John Wiley.
  3. Godin, S. (1999). Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  4. Buttle F, (1998). Word-of-mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 6, 241 – 54.
  5. Groeger, L. and Buttle, F. (2013). Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: evidence from case study research, Journal of Marketing Communications, 20 (1 – 2), 21 – 41.
  6. Villanueva, J., Yoo, S. and Hanssens, D.M. (2006). The impact of marketing-induced versus word-of-mouth customer acquisition on customer equity. Working paper 06 – 119. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.

New-to-company customers can be very expensive to acquire, particularly if they are strongly committed to their current supplier. Commitment is reflected in a strong positive attitude to, or high levels of investment in, the current supplier. These both represent high switching costs. A powerful commitment to a current supplier can be difficult, and often is too expensive, to break, as described in later post. High potential value customers are not always the most attractive prospects because of this commitment and investment. A lower value customer with a weaker commitment to the current supplier may be a better prospect.

The series:
  1. Peppers, D. and Rogers, M. (1997). Enterprise one-to-one. London: Piatkus.
  2. Hofmeyr, J. and Rice, B. (2000). Commitment-led marketing: the key to brand profits is in the customer’s mind. Chichester: John Wiley.
  3. Godin, S. (1999). Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  4. Buttle F, (1998). Word-of-mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 6, 241 – 54.
  5. Groeger, L. and Buttle, F. (2013). Word-of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: evidence from case study research, Journal of Marketing Communications, 20 (1 – 2), 21 – 41.
  6. Villanueva, J., Yoo, S. and Hanssens, D.M. (2006). The impact of marketing-induced versus word-of-mouth customer acquisition on customer equity. Working paper 06 – 119. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
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