Is your marketing bringing you many prospects, but your conversion rate remains quite low? You're struggling to turn these prospects into customers. And therefore the feeling of letting many opportunities slip away.
Your first instinct is often to look for the source of the problem with your sales teams. However, difficulty converting your prospects can also result from prospecting errors. And these errors harm your business performance in the long term.
To avoid this, we share with you in this article 5 prospecting mistakes that you absolutely must avoid .
Mistake #1: Not targeting
Doing mass prospecting , making cold calls or sending emails to hundreds of random contacts are all tasks that you can accomplish quickly and without much effort. However, all of them can be much less profitable than doing targeted prospecting ...
Do you want to close more sales? So avoid carrying out blind marketing actions as much as possible. Before you get started, always clearly identify your personas and their needs.
To do this, always carry out a study of your personas . Carry out not only a quantitative study, but also a qualitative study of them. This will allow you to collect as much information as possible about them (age, gender, location, profession, consumption habits, etc.). Subsequently, you will be able to analyze their opinions and behaviors more easily and above all know precisely their needs .
You would have understood it. Carrying out a study of your personas will allow you to have a more precise idea of your ideal customers. Once this study has been done, all you have to do is identify your contacts .
As a reminder, in the context of BtoB sales, your prospecting targets must be identified in relation to their function . It is therefore up to you to choose between contacting marketing managers, technical managers or project managers within a company for example.
To be able to quickly select and contact these different managers, remember to use a good database . If yours is not yet solid enough, platforms like Magileads can allow you to use one. In the case of this French customer acquisition and loyalty platform, it will be a database including nearly 20 million named BtoB contacts and updated daily , ideal for facilitating your targeting strategy. In particular, it will give you the possibility of choosing your contacts based on several criteria (sector of activity, position, civility, etc.) to then send them automatic messages on the channels of your choice (e-mail, SMS, VMS, Linkedin , etc.).
Know that by carrying out good targeting, you will increase your chances of coming into direct contact with the right people . This will also give you the opportunity to best adapt your arguments to the needs of your targets. In short, what better way to convince them and hope to close your sales.
Mistake No. 2: focusing your messages on your offer rather than on the needs and problems of your prospects
If in your messages you have mainly talked about the characteristics or functionalities of your products, do not expect too much to be able to close sales. Indeed, with this kind of content, you will not convince anyone.
The fact is that today, what BtoB prospects want is above all to be certain that your products or services can solve their problems . Instead of praising them about the qualities of your products, in your messages, above all, make them understand what you can really do for them and the reasons why they should absolutely do business with you .
To do this, you will obviously have to have identified the needs of your targets. You will achieve this by avoiding making mistake #1. When you have clearly defined the needs of your prospects, all you have to do is offer them your best solutions, emphasizing the benefits that they can concretely bring them .
All in all, emphasize above all the value that you will be able to bring to your potential customers . Reassure them and instead of trying to sell them your products at all costs, make them feel that if they decide to choose you, they will reap many benefits .
In addition, during your first discussions, always ensure that you establish a real relationship of trust with your prospects . If they ask you questions, answer them, always clearly and precisely. So, once convinced and reassured, they will naturally buy from you.
Mistake #3: not personalizing your offers based on your prospects
If you really want to close more sales, avoid sending the same messages to your prospects . Instead, send them personalized and contextualized messages. In this way, you will be able to more easily enter into an interpersonal relationship with them, which will then increase your power of persuasion.
Also know that personalizing your messages will be the best way to show your interlocutors that you took the time to do research on them . Through these messages, you can also let them know that you have indeed taken note of their needs and their challenges before deciding to offer them your solutions.
When you write your next prospecting emails, consider adding variables such as the name of your contact, their function, or their sector of activity. These may be small details, but they can make a big difference.
Mistake #4: not automating your reminders
Did your targets not react to your first message? You will therefore have to follow up with them to hope to close any sales. However, as you must already know, making reminders is also a very time-consuming task . Furthermore, for these to bear fruit, sending them at the right time remains essential .
Do you want to be able to follow up with your prospects without rushing them? Do you want to do this before they have opted for your competitors' offer? Automate the sending of your messages . To do this, use automation tools like those offered by the Magileads platform. These will allow you to follow your prospects and know when to follow up with them.
Digital tools will also help you carry out different actions to strengthen your relationships with your prospects . Before automatically sending them your reminders, they will, for example, offer you the possibility of doing “lead nurturing” : sending various relevant content (newsletter, white paper, etc.) to your contacts to bring them, slowly but surely, to maturity. .
Mistake #5: betting everything on a single prospecting channel
You are aware that consumer habits and behaviors are constantly evolving . If you want to be able to sell more, don't put all your eggs in one basket. By that, mean: don’t bet everything on a single prospecting channel .
Sure, it could work. However, this would mean depriving you of any other chances to sell that you might have by leveraging other channels.
Today, consider carrying out omnichannel prospecting instead . In addition to e-mailing and telephone prospecting, for example, also use LinkedIn . Currently, this network is in fact considered one of the most effective channels for B2B sales.
Please note that to achieve precise targeting , carry out omnichannel prospecting or automate the sending of emails and reminders , several marketing automation platforms now exist. This is particularly the case for Magileads: a French SAAS omnichannel customer acquisition and loyalty platform . On this, different tools have been grouped together in order to allow companies to better generate the commitment of their prospects, customers or partners through the creation and launch of effective marketing campaigns.
