Once you start a business, you quickly realize how time-consuming and energy-intensive managing lead flow is. And disorder quickly sets in. You know, however, that the growth of your business essentially depends on your ability to convert them into customers. This is when you must set up an up-to-date prospecting file or prospecting database.

In fact, maintaining a good prospects file helps increase your turnover . This is an excellent marketing lever that allows you to successfully carry out your customer acquisition strategy. It is in fact a real commercial compass insofar as it allows you to concentrate your sales efforts on your priority targets. If it is up to date, it helps you clearly understand the needs of your prospects and anticipate the expectations of your existing customers. Used correctly, it allows you to organize your commercial actions and manage the follow-up of your contacts .

What is a prospecting file?

Concretely, the prospecting file or prospecting database is a list of prospects . As a reminder, a prospect is a potential customer, that is to say a person likely to be interested in your products or services, but who has not yet made a purchase from you. The prospect file contains all the essential information concerning them. This includes their contacts, contact details, their needs and even messages exchanged on social networks with them.

What are the advantages of having an up-to-date prospects file?

You have certainly understood the reasons for keeping a good prospects file. However, you may still be wondering whether it should really be among your priorities, given that other ultra-important tasks await you at the same time. So think about these reasons for having an up-to-date prospecting file.

Save time and maintain a steady flow of business

Prospect data is grouped in one place . It thus becomes easier to find information on a particular prospect. The same goes for information updates .

Additionally, the way you should treat and nurture your cold, warm, and hot leads cannot be the same. For example, someone who already knows you will always be more likely to become your customer than someone you have to convince from scratch. So you have a better chance of conversion if you talk to 100 people who are interested in learning more about you than if you talk to 1,000 people who aren't interested. As you will have understood, having a database of prospects allows you to maintain a regular flow of business .

Understand and communicate better with prospects

The interests, consumption habits and expectations of prospects are recorded in the file. Their stage of advancement in the conversion funnel is also defined there. You can then better position yourself regarding the strategy you are going to use to convince them to buy your offer. You can therefore support them more effectively as they progress through the sales funnel. Also called “conversion tunnel”, the latter corresponds to the journey taken by a prospect until his conversion into a customer.

The data being arranged in order, it is therefore easier for you to personalize the emails to send to the customer. You will thus maintain better communication with your potential customers.

Establish a good commercial strategy

With a better understanding of your prospects' needs, their budget and their habits , you are able to provide them with relevant offers. It becomes more obvious for you to refine your marketing campaign. Concretely, you can define your buyer persona, note the engagement of your targets and feed them with relevant marketing content.

How to create a free BtoB prospects file? 

To create your prospects file for free, you can use basic software like Microsoft Excel . You can then list the useful information that you collect about your contacts . Some dedicated programs are also interesting, but they often require a certain amount of time to get started. Regular updating must also be done so as not to be mistaken about the current needs of your prospects . Indeed, these evolve very quickly.

You can list, for example, participants in trade fairs and contacts from web forms. A tip is also to filter your competitors' promotional posts to find contacts. In any case, you must choose the tool that best suits your activity. This allows you to carry out your strategy successfully.

Buying a BtoB prospect database: is it a good idea? 

In case you feel overwhelmed by your various tasks in addition to prospecting, or you simply lack prospects, it may be interesting to purchase a database of qualified BtoB prospects .

Indeed, purchasing a prospects database can also be a great investment in terms of time and profit. However, be careful that it corresponds to the prospects you are targeting and contains up-to-date information

In this regard, note that Magileads provides you with its database of 20 million qualified BtoB prospects in addition to its all-in-one marketing automation offer. The multitenant and omnichannel SaaS solution also allows you to manage your commercial prospecting from A to Z like a pro, and in an automated manner.