5 sales prospecting methods for effective outreach

Sales professionals don’t have to enjoy prospecting, but they have to do it. There’s no way around it – you need to find and contact potential buyers in order to make a sale.

So, what is prospecting in sales? And how you can optimize your prospective efforts?

What is Prospecting in Sales?

You may be wondering, "What is prospecting in sales?" It’s usually the first step in the sales process, which consists of identifying potential customers and reaching out. There are different approaches to sales prospecting depending on the size of your team, company, and industry. Let’s address five traditional sales prospecting techniques and some best practices on how to prospect.

Top 5 Sales Prospecting Techniques

If you want to be an all-star prospector, consider the methods below.

1. Cold emailing

Email prospecting is a helpful strategy to generate leads and secure an initial meeting or phone call. The beauty of email prospecting is you can send out a mass number of messages in just one click. However, these email campaigns are typically less personalized and more general, but they don’t always have to be.

According to Entrepreneur.com, Jake Jorgovan, a creative strategist, was able to generate over $12,000 through cold email!

We can attribute this success to Jorgovan’s use of personalization. He wrote and sent out each email with that one individual in mind, and he did not send an automated email that would make sense for everyone.

Adding video to sales prospecting emails

Personalization conveys sincerity as opposed to a robotic, mass email message. Better yet, sales professionals who go one step further and incorporate a video into their emails tend to see an increase in their email response rate. Using a platform like Covideo doubles as a video and sales prospecting tool that makes recording and sending personalized videos easy and effective.

Using a video prospecting approach not only adds some variation to the mix, but it helps you stand out in a busy inbox, all while building relationships with your audience. Video email allows you to send personalized videos that improve response rates, increase sales opportunities, and close more deals.

You can start by adding a video introduction, or by sending a thank you video after closing a sale. The extra effort will get noticed!

2. Cold calling

You may call 80 prospects and only talk to five individuals, which results in one warm lead. That’s why cold calling is becoming an abandoned practice in many sales departments. Most decision-makers don’t answer calls from blocked or unfamiliar numbers. Their time is better spent answering a less invasive message like a text or email.

On the flip side, cold calling “does enable success and is focused on action and initiative.” Try pairing cold calling with a more digital communication method like video email to balance out your sales prospecting strategies.

3. Social selling

Social selling is using social media to attract potential buyers through different networks online. With this strategy, sales professionals rely heavily on posting content that attracts engagement, such as shares and comments. The main goal is for sales professionals to become thought leaders by posting their knowledge onto platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Using social media can help sales professionals connect and get involved with people already seeking their service or product, making it an organic sales prospecting strategy.

4. Asking for referrals

Gathering referrals is one of the most valuable forms of prospecting strategies, and sales teams need to actively seek them from their current customers.

This can be done by ensuring that the customer’s relationship is maintained after a sale is completed. Stay in touch by sending emails with product updates, sharing relevant articles, or go the extra mile and send a video email of yourself.

Sean Kelley, CEO of CarMotivators says, “If you send your good, loyal, customers a 30 second video three or four times a year just so they remember you’ve developed a relationship, how much time will that take? Two minutes.”

New technology, like video email, is an innovative solution for enhancing business relationships and allows you to authentically ask for referrals.

5. Attending events

Events are an excellent opportunity to prospect and network in-person. For example, find a conference that would attract your target buyer, then research the attendees ahead of time. You may see a previous lead that went silent on the list, or a target account could be attending. A little preparation before the event will allow you to prospect in-person more effectively.

The importance of a sales prospecting strategy

Your sales prospecting strategy is what initially creates growth opportunities for your company. It’s up to the sales reps to connect and convert buyers, in a non-sales-y way, so their company can live to see another day.

Talk about pressure.

So, instead of dialing for hours on end to fill your pipeline, you need to identify buyers with problems your product can solve, then develop creative, varied ways to connect with them.

Pick a few sales prospecting methods to start

Connecting with your potential buyer is difficult in a world that mostly operates through a screen. Sales prospecting methods like cold emailing, calling, referrals, social selling, and video email will help you generate more leads so you can crush this quarter.

Now that you know how to enhance your prospecting strategy, it’s time to get started. Make your sales outreach more effective today and start video and sales prospecting. Try it free for 7 days with Covideo.