Prospecting

New Customer Prospecting

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 convert into strategically significant customers. Prospecting, therefore, is the effort to win new, first time customers.

Prospecting is an outcome of the market segmentation and targeting process.

• Market segmentation divides a heterogeneous market into homogeneous subsets, even down to the level of the unique customer.

• 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.

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.

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

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)Opens in new window). Major search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft).

2.    Company Websites

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

3.    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 CEOExpressOpens in new window provides a wealth of information and access to other sites that may be of use to busy chief executives.

4.    Social media

An increasing number of suppliers in the B2B marketplace are developing a presence in social mediaOpens in new window such as Facebook and LinkedIn. For example, salesforceOpens in new window 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 engagementOpens in new window. 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.

List of prospects can be developed from many sources such as telephone directories, business lists, chamber of commerce memberships, professional and trade association memberships, website registration and magazine circulation data.

Lists can also be bought ready-made from list compilers and brokers. Lists of prospects, organized by their Standard Industrial Classification code, are widely used. Some lists are of poor quality: out of date, containing duplications, omissions and other errors. High-quality lists with full contact details, including phone numbers and email addresses, tend to be more expensive. Lists can support direct marketing efforts by phone, email or face-to-face.

Canvassing involves making unsolicited calls, sometimes known as cold calls. This can be a very wasteful use of an expensive asset — the salesperson. Some companies have banned their salespeople from cold-calling. Others outsource this activity to third parties. Some hotel chains, for example, use hospitality students to conduct a sales blitz that is essentially a telephone-based cold-calling campaign.

Telemarketing is widely used as a more cost-effective way of prospecting than use of a salesperson. Telemarketing, sometimes called telesales, is a systematic approach to prospecting using the telephone and, sometimes, other electronic media such as email or web chat.

Telemarketing is usually done by staff in company-owned customer contact centers, or outsourced.

Outbound telemarketers make outgoing calls to identify and qualify leads. Inbound telemarketers receive calls from prospective customers. In addition to prospecting, telemarketing can be used for other customer management purposes such as cross-selling, handling complaints and winning back at risk or churned customers, for example.