Discovering new leads and prospects is key to any business' success. But how do you find more prospects? One of the hardest things to do is to find new clients. And if you don’t have the resources or time to spend on hiring a marketing team and getting some leads, then this list of seven prospecting ideas will help you get more prospects by yourself.
Prospecting is an essential element of any sales process. Even a few minutes spent on prospecting can save you from wasting your time and efforts when it comes to closing the deal.
We will discuss 7 prospecting ideas that will help you improve your prospecting skills and make them more efficient.
Before we dive into the details of prospecting ideas, let’s take a step back and understand what “prospecting” really is.
Prospecting is the art or practice of seeking out new customers for your business; looking for potential clients who have needs that you can satisfy with your product or service.
As an entrepreneur, it is important to know how to get in front of as many people as possible so you can sell them something they need (or want) and make money doing it! This means knowing where all the good prospects are hanging out at.
The easiest way to find prospects is in your own network. You can use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to see who you know that might be a good fit for what you do or sell . Then, when they have needs that are similar to yours (or want something like yours) , it's time to reach out and make the sale!
One of the most important things you can do is to develop a relationship with other people in your network. This will allow you to ask them for business, and they may want to give it back!
It’s also very helpful when they have already purchased something from someone else that sold similar products or services so it makes sense that this person knows how much their needs are worth.
Prospecting is not a one-time thing. It’s something you do every day and it will become second nature to you over time. But there are some things that can make prospecting much easier for both yourself and your prospects.
The best way to find prospects is by doing what I call " prospecting at scale ." You don't have time to make every single phone call, but it's still important that when you do make calls (and emails), they get answered.
I'm going to share with you my favorite prospecting ideas and the way I find leads for my business . It's called " prospecting at scale.". This is what works best for me because it allows me to build relationships quickly, which is important in any type of sales situation.
You don't want to waste time on people who aren’t likely buyers or won’t be interested in buying from you , so this method will allow us both more time to be productive! Here are some things that work well:
You can’t take a business from 0 to 100% in one day. It takes time, effort and money to reach your goals. But you don’t have to do it all alone!
You need the help of experts who know what they are doing when it comes to promoting their services online – so here is my list of top 6 prospecting tools that will get you on track for success:
1. Google AdWords- Google has a very powerful advertising platform that can bring your business to the top of search engines for just about any keyword you want to target.
You don’t have to be an expert on SEO or even know much about marketing in order for this service to work; all you need is a list of keywords and their definitions and then let them do their magic!
The best part? It only costs $5 USD per day, which means it will cost less than one cup of coffee each month if used properly – so why not give it a try now?!
2. Facebook Ads- This platform is also a very powerful one, and you can use it to promote your business in many different ways.
You can create an ad that will be sent out to people who “Like” your page or even increase the amount of friends these users have so they are more likely to see the ads! The great thing about this service is that there are no limits on how much money you may spend – meaning if you want quick results then just go for it!
3. Twitter Ads- You might not think of Twitter as being a place for businesses, but with over 500 million active users and the ability to post tweets that can be seen by over 100 million people, it is a very powerful social media platform.
You may not know how to use Twitter Ads yet, but there are many companies out there who do – so why not get in touch with them?
4. Google+- Google has also built their own social network called Google+, which allows you to create posts and connect with other users from all around the world!
This site’s goal is for everyone on Earth to become one big community; therefore if your business helps unite different groups of people then this platform is a great place to advertise!
5. LinkedIn Ads- LinkedIn is similar to Google+, except it’s more of an actual business network than just a social media site.
You can connect with other professionals, post updates and even create your own groups – all of which are very useful tools for promoting yourself or your brand in the future!
6. Pinterest Ads- Pinterest is a very powerful social media site, and it’s definitely worth taking advantage of if you want to promote your business!
It allows users to share pictures from around the world, which can then be seen by millions of people – so why not use this platform for advertising?
To get more leads, you need to make it easy for people to respond. Many businesses today are using the same old prospecting ideas that have been used forever: cold calling and email marketing.
While these ideas can yield some results in a short period of time, they’re not as effective over long periods of time or when your company is relatively unknown in its industry.
So how do you reach out to prospects with new prospecting ideas?
You use creative sales techniques like social selling and content marketing! These ideas help potential customers become familiar with your brand before making an actual purchase. The pulse survey benefits for business startups are numerous and range from increased brand awareness to better understanding your customer needs. It's time you started gathering some valuable data with this quick.
Here are some ways to use social selling and content marketing in your business:
1) Leverage Social Selling To Increase Sales By 10% - 15%- Social selling is a great way to generate leads for your business, but you have to make sure that the people who see your posts aren't just random internet users.
You want them to be people with whom they might actually do business! Look at what's trending on Facebook or Twitter and find out which companies are currently making money from their social media efforts. Then, target those companies' fans by posting about similar topics related to their industry.
For example, if you sell a product for pet owners, post about your cat sitting services on social media and ask people to share the posts with others in their network who might be interested in it as well.
2) Create Content To Increase Your Email List By 5% - 10%- You can use content marketing to generate leads by creating blog articles that are relevant to your target audience's interests.
You can also create videos or infographics that explain how other companies have used products similar to yours and why they were successful . Even better: once you've created this type of content, you can use it to generate email leads for your business.
3) Use Social Media To Build A Community Around Your Brand- When people are interacting with the brands they trust and like on social media, their perception of those companies is likely to be more positive than negative.
This means that if a customer has purchased from one of these brands before (even years ago!), he or she will likely feel comfortable buying again in the future!
In addition, because many customers are already familiar with some types of products , they're also more willing to try new ones when presented by someone they trust.
4) Develop A Social Media Strategy To Increase Your Website Traffic. You can use social media to drive traffic to your website by posting about new products, promotions and coupons that you're offering on Facebook , Twitter and other platforms.
You can also create a blog post or an infographic that features the benefits of using one of these products (in addition to linking back directly from the content). In this way, people will see what they might be missing out on if they don't buy it right away!
5) Create Content That Will Help Build Your Email List By 10% Per Month- If you have a website, you can use social media to drive traffic directly to your sales pages. This will result in more leads and better conversion rates than simply relying on email marketing alone!
In fact, we've seen that it's possible for some companies to increase their lead generation by as much as 10% per month when they're using content marketing effectively.
6) Create Content That Will Increase Your Social Media Followers By 5-10%. You don't need hundreds of thousands of followers on each platform before the benefits start showing up; however , if you can get a few hundred people to follow you on Facebook , Twitter and other platforms, it will help your social media marketing efforts tremendously.
This is because when someone follows you on these channels, they'll see more of the content that's being posted by others (and thus be more likely to click through).
7) Create Content That Will Increase Your Website Traffic By 5-10%- You can use this same strategy for increasing website traffic as well; however , if you're doing everything else right then getting 10% growth from each piece of content should be achievable!
In addition, since many people will visit your website after seeing something on social media, you can use the same strategy to increase traffic from that source as well.
