What are the best tools for business development?

If commercial prospecting allows the company to find new customers, the use of adequate tools is also necessary to achieve the expected results. These tools can be software, communication channels, websites or applications.

They not only allow you to find prospects, but also to personalize your commercial approach and increase your sales.

That said, finding the right tools is a real challenge for businesses. In this article, you will discover the best strategies for conducting business prospecting.

Phoning or telephone

The telephone is an essential tool for commercial prospecting. With the evolution of the concept of telephone prospecting, it is now possible for companies to cover large geographical areas in a short time.

However, the use of this tool is conditioned by the fact of having a reliable and up-to-date prospect file. In addition, a few rules must be respected to optimize the chances of success of telephone prospecting. These are :

• Creating a catchy phone script;
• Anticipating possible objections from the prospect;
• The culture of active listening;
• Continuous improvement of the telephone interview guide.

The website

Corporate websites have profoundly revolutionized the methods of commercial prospecting. The idea is to use this tool to collect personal information from prospects in exchange for relevant content. This can be e-books or white papers for example.

Among the techniques to generate qualified leads through a website, there are call-to-action buttons and landing pages. Call-to-action buttons lead to landing pages and are often placed :

• On the home page of the site ;
• In the sidebar of the blog ;
• In the contents put on line ;
• At the end of the articles, etc.

Social networks

With the explosion of digital, social networks have become real sources to find interesting business leads. However, creating an account and adding contacts is not enough to make a commercial prospecting.

The company must adopt an effective strategy and focus on long-term results. To exploit the potential of social networks, four steps must be followed.

1 – Social network optimization

Optimizing social networks means providing information related to the company. Whether it’s the profile picture and cover photo or the sections to be filled in, the company must carefully ensure that they are in line with the image it wants to convey.

Also, it must share rich and relevant content, dealing with the problems encountered by prospects.

2 – Identifying prospects

You will then have to identify the prospects and companies whose profiles are the closest to the buyers personas. The latter are generally found among the prospects who have downloaded the company’s content or who have shared publications related to their needs.

3 – Contact with the target audience

At this level, the most important thing for the company is to personalize its approach, proving to the prospect that it has the means to help him achieve his goals or meet his needs.

To do this, you will have to study the prospect’s activities on social networks, the type of content he shares in order to create a sequence of messages that will hold his attention from the moment he makes contact.

4 – Converting the prospect into a customer

The company will be able to evaluate the relevance of its strategy based on the prospect’s feedback and actions after the proposed solutions.

By assigning a lead score to the prospect, it will be easier to redefine a new strategy with highly personalized messages that will be adapted to the evolution of the customer in the conversion tunnel. Many sales software can help you in this process.

However, it should be kept in mind that the objective of these actions is to maintain a lasting relationship with the prospect. The skills of a team of professionals might be needed here.

The chatbot

Considered as the best ally of companies for commercial prospecting, a chatbot is a computer program that can simulate a conversation with users. Still called conversational agent, it is able to automate a plurality of basic tasks.

A chatbot is handy for answering simple and repetitive requests from prospects. It responds instantly, while using their feedback to make personalized offers.

This tool can therefore ensure upstream commercial prospecting, identify the most suitable prospects to become customers and transmit their information to the company’s agents.

E-mailing

This sales prospecting tool is certainly one of the least expensive. If it allows you to manage appointments with prospects, its impact remains quite low since repetitive e-mails are often considered as spam.

The company will have to adapt its e-mails to the needs and the degree of engagement of its prospects in order to convert them into customers. To do this, it will be necessary to:

• Targeting the right prospects;
• Use an aesthetic header;
• Mention clearly the subject of the email;
• Customize content;
• Proceed to send emails by priority order at the right time;
• Analyze the effectiveness of the technique used and adjust if necessary.

The SMS

SMS have a better read rate compared to e-mailing. Also, a commercial prospection carried out via SMS is easier to implement and does not require either particular knowledge in data processing or the services of an external provider.

However, in order for them not to be considered as intrusive ads, they must be well structured and must respect certain rules. The respect of these rules remains however rather difficult since it is recommended to stay within a limit of 250 characters. These are:

• Company identification: the company must make sure to mention its name in the message sent to the prospect;
• Take care of the content of the message: this implies using an appropriate tone so that the content is not misinterpreted;
• Be clear and concise: get straight to the point by using clear sentences and remaining professional;
• Ensure that grammar, spelling and punctuation errors are corrected: mistakes can damage the company’s reputation. It is therefore important to proofread the message before sending it.

If the different tools presented here are effective for commercial prospecting, it is still essential to master their mode of operation to exploit them.