Sales teams are constantly under pressure to do more with less. Without a sales prospecting plan, a lot of time and effort will be wasted trying to connect with, and nurture leads that may not even have the intent to buy. Predictive prospecting is all about getting ahead of the curve by identifying how, where, when, and with whom to invest your time.
This guide will look at predictive prospecting from the ground up and how to supercharge a prospecting campaign through sales intelligence.
What is Predictive Prospecting?
At its core, predictive prospecting involves gathering a database of high-intent or qualified potential buyers, donors, clients, or consumers. These leads are highly valuable because they represent the people that are most likely to buy from your brand. By enabling high-precision targeting, predictive prospecting allows you to prioritize efforts on customers with the best predictive ROI or LTV.
This data can also be used to identify important patterns, such as where to find prospects, conversion triggers, etc. This allows for even better predictive prospecting because it helps you predict consumer patterns that lead to better outcomes or higher returns.
In the long run, this will help you know your audience and market better by understanding their mindset and learning what drives them.
Predictive marketing is dependent on a number of factors to be truly effective:
● High-quality, relevant data
● A consumer-centric marketing and sales approach
● A proper tech stack, including sales intelligence, discovery engine, marketing automation, and CRM, leverages machine learning, automation, and AI.
When used correctly, it can help marketers and sales teams to:
● Find look-alike audiences through mirroring models.
● Discover new opportunities by analyzing data using pattern recognition.
● Launch personalized, relevant, value-based campaigns at scale.
● Transition from mass-personalization to hyper-personalization to improve the customer journey.
Predictive prospecting shares many similarities with sales intelligence. Sales intelligence software that aids salespeople in lead generation, creating ideal customer profiles, data quality management, and more. In a way, effective predictive prospecting is predicated on sales intelligence.
Accurate, curated data is the foundation for predictive prospecting, and this is exactly what sales intelligence is meant to provide.
How to Enable Predictive Prospecting Through Sales Intelligence
As mentioned, the success of your predictive prospecting will largely hinge on the effectiveness of your sales intelligence. As such, choosing the right sales intelligence solution will play a determining factor in applying predictive prospecting to your sales processes.
With that in mind, here’s how to choose the right sales intelligence tool if predictive prospecting is your goal:
1. Prospect Intelligence
Knowing key data points about your prospect is what allows you to do a predictive analysis of their consumer behavior and conversion triggers. At the minimum, you need to collect and track the following information for each prospect:
● Contact information
● Job function
● Management level
● Organizational charts
● Professional certification
● Academic and employment history
You may also collect other data depending on whether you operate in the B2C or B2B space. However, the above should be universal for nearly all situations.
2. Tech Stack
Evaluating a target’s tech stack is one way that you can identify potential sales opportunities. What are they currently using? Is there a gap where you can deliver extra value? Are they using solutions from any of your direct competitors?
This in-depth information is useful for finding an angle to initiate conversions, grab your prospect’s attention, or run targeted displacement campaigns. You’re much more likely to engage your lead if you can effectively provide them with an immediate solution to one of their pain points with a direct value signal.
3. Intent
Being able to measure intent is one of the pillars of predictive prospecting. You want to differentiate prospects who are likely to make a purchase decision from those who are not. You also want to know when that’s likely to happen so you can take full advantage of timing your outreach.
To really be valuable, intent data must be up-to-date and preferably real-time, if possible. Intent signals can take many forms, such as using a particular search phrase, a digital download, or other behavioral events.
4. Real-time Alerts
Often, the vendor with the best timing wins the prospect. It’s about aligning your outreach with critical moments in the customer journey. This makes it one of the most telling competitive advantages regarding predictive prospecting.
One of the reasons why software solutions are so vital in sales is that they can collect, analyze, and parse data much quicker than humans. What’s more, they run 24/7. Combined with real-time notifications, they can allow you to beat your competitors when key signals pop up, such as intent-rich actions.
5. Integrations
In today’s world, it’s very rare for a business software solution to operate in complete isolation. Even in sales, teams typically rely on an entire stack of solutions to aid them. Sales intelligence must slot seamlessly into that stack alongside CRM, sales automation, and lead generation tools.
Sales Prospecting: Next Steps
Once a sales team understands the importance of predictive prospecting and how to enable it through sales intelligence, all that’s left is to incorporate it into your sales process. That can be done by following these steps:
- Establish goals for the prospecting campaign
- Identify and qualify sales prospects
- Choose the channels to focus your sales prospecting efforts
- Create a step-by-step sales prospecting plan
- Write scripts for product or sale pitches
- Continue to optimize your predictive prospecting over sales cycles
Conclusion
If predictive prospecting is the hero that will save the day for your sales team, then sales intelligence is its superpower. When used correctly, predictive prospecting helps businesses make more sales, offer more customer value, and build stronger relationships.
