Dec
12

By CommenceCRM

8 Places Salespeople Can Find More Prospects Online

Prospecting is the first and foremost essential stage in the sales management process. Anyone working in the sales industry knows how crucial sales prospecting is to maintain a large client base, increase stream of revenue, and keep the business healthy. What’s important in prospecting is to identify and connect with the right customers who are fit for the products and services that the company is offering. 

 

So where can your salespeople find more prospects online? Some of the best places where you can connect with possible prospects are online job boards, discussion forums, newsletters, live webinars, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, YouTube, Yelp, and Quora. It’s never been easier to find potential sales prospects, as sales management today has gone beyond contact referrals and events networking..   

Best Online Places To Find Sales Prospects 

 

Prospecting for new clients or buyers is the most important step for any startup or established business. Knowing your target audience and garnering more sales prospects can put any business above their competitors. And in today’s fast-paced and virtually connected world, it’s essential that sales reps know where they can find and get their customers online. 

 

Here are some of the best places where you can tap and gather new prospects to grow your business: 

Online Job Sites and Boards 

Looking through job openings and listings can help you better understand an organization and their current needs. You may find insights about their business’s objectives and goals which can help you in crafting a pitch for your service. 

 

For example, if you provide social media listening tools and they have an opening for social media analysts, you can reach out to them and offer your services to help their operations. This will be a good opening to discuss your product features and how it can help them with their current challenges and business needs. 

 

Some of the online job boards and sites that you can go to are LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Monster, SimplyHired, Indeed, and CareerBuilder.  

Discussion Forums 

Online forums are a good place for professionals and business owners to mingle and network. Sites like Reddit, BizWarriors, and StartupNation Community can be great resource places for individuals who have business related inquiries. You can leverage these sites to find information on upcoming businesses and startups and stay updated with the latest market trends.

 

You can also join or start a conversation in the community to seek out prospective customers. If you find a posting about a specific question that is related to your service, you can hop on the thread and offer your product as a solution for their problem. The only challenge is that there can be multiple conversations happening at once so you have to know to use the right keywords to narrow your search in the forum. 

Newsletters 

 Some common forms of email marketing are newsletters and subscriptions. They usually contain new product information, updates to your services, and sales promotions and discounts that can entice your current customer base to stay with your business. At the same time, newsletters can also be useful in grabbing the attention of new prospects. 

 

Upon subscribing to your company’s emails and newsletters, you should make sure that your content has a clear message that will drive them to action. Many businesses use newsletters as a way to increase clicks and visits to their website or as a medium where they announce ongoing sales and new products. 

Live Webinars 

Out of town industry events and marketing conventions are an ideal place for any sales professionals to do networking and find new prospects. And nowadays, many organizations and business companies are leveraging their online presence to reach their audience via webinars. 

 

The beauty of webinars is that they are much easier to organize than offline events and you can reach a wide number of audience simply by hosting your event via an online channel. You also have more freedom to make your webinar more interactive and engaging with specific topics, videos, and live Q&A segments. And at the end of the event, you can create a landing page where you can push prospects to action and convert them to potential customers. 

Social Media Sites Like Twitter and Facebook

 

Majority of people are now online and they spend a huge chunk of their time surfing through the web and visiting social media. That is why it’s important for any business to establish a presence in popular online networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. It’s literally free to open your business page on these sites and you can start to connect and reach out to potential prospects via online posts and video content. 

 

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are now more business friendly and they offer great packages for advertising on their platform. They can help you publish your campaign to your targeted market and attract them to your website. Likewise, these online sites can be a good place to study your prospects and learn what they are currently looking for so you can cater your services. 

YouTube 

YouTube today can be accessed for so much more than just video and entertainment especially now that people prefer to consume audiovisual content. When you are creating your sales strategy for prospects, make sure to always include YouTube in the plan. This online video hosting platform can be a great avenue to share informative and educational content that will inform the audience about the services and products you provide. 

 

In addition, the videos that are posted in your channel can stay for a long time without needing to shell out any money for promotion. People can easily find your content just by searching for it on the website. You can also immediately talk to prospects via the comments and messages section. Make a habit of regularly monitoring their feedback and responding to them to help them learn more about your business. 

Yelp

Yelp is a community and online directory where customers can research about any local business, products, and services. It makes perfect sense for you to look for prospects on this website by setting up your own business profile. With a Yelp business listing, it will be easier for people to come across your services and discover more about what you have to offer. 

 

This online site is also a great place for crowdsourcing customer reviews and business feedback. If a potential prospect sees that you have many positive reviews, the more likely it is for them to check out your service and become a new customer. 

Quora 

Quora is a popular site where people go to look for answers to their questions. For any salesperson doing prospecting, this online platform is an ideal place to do research about the industry and provide answers to other people’s inquiries. It’s important that you establish your credibility by offering smart solutions and valuable insights to their questions. 

 

Being an active member in Quora can increase your visibility and this will likely lead people to visit your profile. On your profile, you should make sure to have a link to your company website so people can be redirected there to find out more about your services and products.

Prospects vs Leads: What Is The Difference?  

 

As a sales professional, it’s important to identify the difference between these two terms to create the right strategy for achieving a sale. Now before customers turn into prospects, they are first defined as a sales lead.

 

A lead is simply a person who has discovered your product or service through your marketing and sales promotions. They are expressing an interest towards your brand but have not made any action or move to make a purchase. Leads sit at the top of the sales funnel and to increase the possibility of converting them into a prospect, you have to actively pursue and educate them through your marketing content. 

 

On the other hand, prospects are the clients that have explicitly expressed interest in availing your services. They have reached out to you personally about their queries with your business and are one step closer to making a purchase. Once you have a prospect, it’s important that all your efforts are focused towards closing the sale. 

Strategies for Successful Sales Prospecting 

 

Once you’ve identified the platform where you will find your prospects, it’s important to create a plan on how you will approach them. Here are some strategies that will help you during the process of sales prospecting: 

  • Do a thorough research about your prospect and identify their challenges to see how you add value to their business. 
  • Back up your sales campaigns and pitches with solid insights about the consumer to ensure you are targeting the right prospects. 
  • Personalize your sales pitch for every prospect. No prospect is the same and you should create your pitch according to their current needs. 
  • Establish a relationship by communicating with your prospects via email or phone. 
  • Make sure to follow up after the first communication and provide more information about your service. 

Choose Commence for Prospecting and Business CRM Solutions 

 

Having the right tools and solutions for sales management is necessary in creating a winning prospecting strategy. At Commence, we offer comprehensive CRM solutions that can help any small and medium sized business to establish and expand their presence in the market. 

 

Our software solution is designed to help your sales team with prospects and lead management, handling accounts and clients, marketing, and customer service. Skyrocket your sales and get started with Commence today. Contact us to learn more about our services.

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