Do you want to better organize your prospecting activity to save time? Making a prospecting plan is your best ally to gain efficiency! It allows you not only to clarify your objectives, but to have a precise vision of the actions to achieve them.

However, the lack of method can lead you to postpone the moment to get started. What should you include in this prospecting plan? Where to start ? What is the structure to follow? How to bring it to life?

To no longer delay the moment to structure your prospecting, we offer you a complete guide to create your BtoB prospecting plan. 

What is a prospecting plan?

The prospecting plan is your roadmap for conquering new customers. It must be prepared in advance. It is a plan that brings together the steps and commercial actions to be carried out to achieve a specific objective. To better reach your target and obtain qualified prospects, this plan is essential.

Prospecting is essential for any company seeking to develop its turnover. Having this plan in place is the best way to ensure intelligent prospecting. This allows you to optimize your time while controlling the costs deployed for your campaigns. Note that this plan should be ready well before your campaign launches.

What good can this plan be used for? There are several positive things, but in general, the prospecting plan allows you to:  

• Structuring the actions of your marketing and sales teams; 
• Strengthen the performance of your sales team by providing them with the means (database, script, planning, etc.);
• Feed your conversion funnel with more prospects thanks to your marketing strategy (website, blog, social networks, etc.). 

Build your B2B prospecting plan in 6 steps: 

Do you know the word “churn” ? This is the term used to refer to customer attrition or loss. All companies experience this phenomenon.

If the churn rate increases and you are unable to acquire new customers, your business is headed for ruin. This is why you must prospect to fill the gap and make your business prosper. It starts with developing your prospecting plan, here are the steps you need to follow:

1 – Define your prospecting objectives 

Of course, the first step is to define your prospecting goals. These must be aligned with the commercial objectives of your company. Who is your target? What are you aiming for? What result do you expect? By answering these questions, you will be able to better visualize the future actions you will take during prospecting.

As you will have understood, your objectives must be set with precision and finesse. This is why, above all else, the most important thing is to have a buyer persona. This is the avatar of your ideal customer. This is a fictitious person on whom you must focus all your attention when prospecting. Your persona is the person most likely to be interested in your products or services. Your goal is to find people who are similar to him.

To define precise and ambitious objectives, we recommend that you adopt the SMART method. Your objectives must be Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Realistic – Time -bound. This method allows you to develop a more relevant strategy, increase your performance and make good use of the resources at your disposal.

2 – Define your prospecting target

In the first step, we talked about the usefulness of creating your persona. In this part, we will reinforce our point. You know, since your target is the profile of your ideal customer, you need to know them better to reach them better. If it is well defined, your persona will serve as a basis for building your prospect file.

To define your prospecting target, you must segment the contacts in your database. Leads should match your persona characteristics. This is why we suggest that you focus on the following points to define your target:

• Its demographic data: age, gender, location, income, sector of activity, geographic area, etc.
• Their psychological data: interests, SONCAS , sports, leisure activities, social networks, etc.
• Their needs, difficulties and frustrations: blockages, objectives, values, concerns, vision of the future, etc.

The ideal is to gather as much information as possible about your prospects. Then try to identify their needs. This is more than necessary if you want to convert them.

3 – Use a prospecting file

Once you have defined your target, it is time to put together your prospecting file. This is a file that allows you to list prospects who match your target with their contact details. It's like a library that brings together useful and relevant information about your prospects. You will make it available to your salespeople so that they can take action.

To establish a prospecting file, you have the choice between several methods. Either buy a ready-made one or create it yourself. Most businesses still use a simple Excel file as a basis. Which is too energy-consuming a practice. In addition, this type of file can distort your data if mismanaged. After all, its use still requires manual intervention, even if there is already automation.

The prospecting file allows data to be centralized in one place. The best would therefore be to bring together all the useful information on a single dedicated automated platform . We therefore recommend the Magileads solution . This tool facilitates your monitoring and allows better detection of opportunities. In other words, its use allows you to contact prospects at the right time, in the right place and with the right approaches.

The Magileads platform offers a solution to companies that want to send more qualified leads to their salespeople. This saves time and makes prospecting more profitable. You will have access to our dynamic database with more than 20 million B2B contacts as well as the PRM which guarantees optimal follow-up of your qualified leads.

If you want to know a little more about the platform, check out our online demo >>

4 – Choose your prospecting channels

Now that you have defined your objectives, your persona and set up your prospecting file. Now the challenge is to determine the means by which you will connect with your prospects. What prospecting techniques will you use? What are the preferred prospecting channels? What are the most effective channels? On which channel are your prospects ready to listen to you? Which ones allow you to obtain a return on investment the fastest? These are the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself.

Faced with the numerous channels available for B2B prospecting , it can be difficult to choose your method. You have lots of choices, but don't choose just one channel. You can combine digital and physical channels. It is best to combine them for best results.

• Digital channels (Example: emailing, social networks, phoning, chatbot, etc.)
• Physical channels (Example: one-to-one trade shows and business events)

You must choose the prospecting channels according to your target, your budget and the objectives you have set for yourself.

To find out a little more about prospecting channels, we invite you to discover our article which talks about them>>

5 – Prepare your action plan

At this stage, you get to the heart of the matter, this step is very important because this is where you will define your action plan. What exactly you need to do is prepare a sales pitch or your sales script. This is a document that serves as a conversational guide for your salespeople. Depending on your target and your means, you must define the style of approach to use. The content that you will put forward is all the more important. You must study your approaches, whether you choose to do emailing , telephone prospecting, use social media or other media.

It should be noted, however, that this document must include a few essential elements, namely: 

• Open questions to allow your prospects to express themselves about their difficulties and what they think. This is an effective way to start a conversation with your interlocutor.
• The prospect's needs , their real motivations, depending on their activity, the size of their company, etc.
• Anticipate common questions from the prospect. Prepare adequate answers that allow you to appear as an expert. It is important to understand their needs in order to be able to offer them suitable solutions. So focus on advice.
• Promote your products and services. Show your added value, you know your business better than anyone, show your future customers why they absolutely need you.

To establish an effective prospecting plan, sales pitches must be prepared in advance. This allows you to put your salespeople on the same level of information. You can tell them precisely the steps to follow and the points to watch out for in order to carry out the campaign successfully. You can even illustrate your explanations with concrete examples so that they understand better.

6 – Monitor the achievement of your objectives

Implementing a sales prospecting plan takes time and represents an investment on the part of your entire sales team. Once the campaigns have been launched, it is imperative to monitor the impact of the prospecting plan defined beforehand. Whether the results are positive or not, you need to follow up on sales and also think about customer service.

Commercial monitoring involves the definition of key KPIs (Performance Indicators) which allow you to measure the effectiveness of each action you have implemented. These metrics allow you to analyze the impact of your prospecting plan. They depend on the channels used, for example, it can be the email opening rate, the customer acquisition cost (CAC) or the cost per lead (CPL). All the statistics that you will monitor must make it possible to measure the performance of your prospecting in relation to your initial objectives defined in the first step.

Tracking is also essential to spot improvements for future campaigns and improve your ROI .

Are you looking for an effective tool to ensure optimal monitoring of your commercial performance? Discover Magileads, a tool that offers a complete dashboard for dynamic analysis of the performance of your marketing campaigns and actions. You will also benefit from a PRM which will allow you to follow your qualified leads interfaced with your CRM, ERP, etc.

Would you like to know more about the platform’s features? We offer you an online demonstration >>

What to remember about prospecting planning! 

The success of your business largely depends on developing an effective business development plan. You can't afford not to acquire new customers. Here are the essential points to remember to succeed in your prospecting campaign:

Define the main objective of your prospecting plan

This is the ultimate goal you are aiming for. The objective must be precise and more ambitious, you can use the SMART method (Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Realistic – Timely) to define it.

Know your target or persona like the back of your hand

The more you know who you are dealing with, the easier it will be to turn them into a customer. After all, this is the profile of your ideal client, let's not forget that!

Use a prospecting file to centralize all information about your prospects

It is better to use an automated omnichannel platform rather than an energy-intensive Excel file. In fact, this will allow you to send more qualified leads to your salespeople while saving time.  

Define the right prospecting channels you will use to connect with your prospects

It is better to do a multi-channel campaign to get better results. You must choose your channels according to your target, your budget and your business objectives.  

Prepare your sales pitch, determine the approach you will use to contact your prospects

Take care of the content that you are going to offer to your audience. It must be relevant and adapted to your target. For the arguments, you can personalize them according to the needs of your prospect.

Track your sales performance to measure the impact of your marketing actions, improve your future campaigns and generate a better return on investment.

There is a solution that allows you to simplify commercial prospecting. The Magileads platform offers all the essential levers to automate your prospecting campaigns and increase their ROI: targeting, enrichment of your database, animation scenarios and scoring of your prospects... while putting more intelligence into your prospecting.  

If you would like to know more, we offer an online demo >>