The prospecting stage is a crucial part of the buyer experience—as you hopefully know by now, a buyer’s initial impression of your company can push a deal forward or end your chances before the deal’s really even started.
But because there are hundreds of prospects and only so many hours in a day, it can be tough to get that first impression right for your most qualified buyers. Take a look at what you can do to nail this first stage of the buyer experience.
Identify buyers and determine the best approach
The first step of prospecting is to identify your potential buyers and how best to reach and educate them on your product. During this stage, which includes touchpoints with marketing, website content, and sales, your potential buyer is trying to solve a problem, get an answer, or meet a need, and they are searching for the information that will help them do so.
They likely don’t know who you are or what you have to offer. What they do know is the information they are trying to obtain. It’s important to ensure you’re providing the optimal experience and the knowledge they need to avoid discouraging and consequently losing out on potential buyers.
As you start out, you need to identify your buyers, as they are at different levels of awareness. Make sure that the needs of buyers in each category are properly addressed. You have buyers who:
- Know what problem they have and are actively looking for a solution.
- Have a solution currently but don’t know that your product/service is the better option.
- Don’t know if they have a problem.
Each of these situations will require a different approach and different content—you will need to draw in those who don’t even know they have a problem, while those who have identified a problem will need help scoping it. Make sure you understand where your buyers stand—create buyer personas so you know how to provide a tailored experience, and then map out the outreach each should receive.
Once you’ve properly identified your buyers, you’re ready to start educating them. The strategies you take will depend largely on whether you have an inbound or outbound sales motion.
Inbound: Sync with marketing
According to HubSpot, one of the most common challenges inbound teams face is a lack of cohesion between marketing and sales. These two departments need to constantly be in sync—marketing should hand off information about their buyer personas so sales can understand their prospects and provide a tailored experience.
SDRs should not start their interactions with a prospect blindly. Reps need to be aware of what interaction prospects have already had with a product or service through inbound marketing efforts and how they reacted to it. Reps need to understand what potential buyers already know; otherwise, buyers will feel like the content is aimed at someone else. Map out the nurture flows so that your sales team can see the journey from the very beginning and customize their approach with a prospect accordingly.
