But the thing is, building one isn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n
So many salespeople end up with prospecting lists that include irrelevant contacts; in fact, about 40%<\/a> of salespeople don\u2019t target the right audience. Another 41% say they waste too much time talking to prospects who have no intention of becoming customers.<\/p>\n So, we thought it was a great idea to cover how to build the perfect prospecting list so you can dedicate your time, energy, and resources on prospects with the highest chances of converting. Here it is.<\/p>\n Before we answer this question, let\u2019s quickly recap what sales prospecting actually is: sales prospecting<\/a> is the process of identifying potential customers or buyers who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve identified your prospects, the next step is to add them to your CRM so you can begin lead nurture and getting them down the sales funnel<\/a> until they\u2019re ready to convert into paying customers.<\/p>\n To find out who your ideal prospects are (and begin your sales prospecting process), you need to identify what kind of companies make the best customers. Then, you\u2019ll want to define your buyer personas, or the decision makers within the companies who will ultimately sign the deal.<\/p>\n You probably have a general idea of which criteria to include already, especially if you already have customers – and *especially* if you\u2019ve already read our guide to creating your ideal customer profile<\/a> (cough cough<\/em>\u2026 with an ICP template included\u2026 cough cough<\/em>).<\/p>\n Three must-have considerations include criteria like industry, company size, and location. But<\/em>, you\u2019ll want to get more specific with your criteria checklist too. The general types of criteria \u2013 like company size and location \u2013 will produce very large prospecting lists, and include companies that won\u2019t be so relevant.<\/p>\n Here are three quick steps for determining who your ICP is:<\/p>\n The answers to these questions should highlight the common traits of your ideal customers, which you can add to that ICP template of yours. ✅<\/p>\n Then you\u2019ve got to determine who your ideal prospects are by creating buyer personas. And before you ask: yes, we have a guide (and template) for buyer personas<\/a> too.<\/p>\n Quick definition<\/strong>: Buyer personas are fictional characters that represent all of the possible decisionmakers a salesperson on your team should aim to speak to in each company that fits your ICP.<\/p>\n Here are the main criteria to consider when determining what your buyer personas look like:<\/p>\n Once you identify which traits characterize your ICP and flesh out a few key buyer personas, you will know 1) which companies to pursue and which to ignore, and 2) who within the organization you should reach out to.<\/p>\n Now that we\u2019ve established how to determine your ICP and customer personas, you should be ready to start building a sales prospecting list.<\/p>\n There are four simple steps for how to make a prospect list in sales:<\/p>\n With your ICP criteria in front of you (ie. industry, company size, maturity, revenue, tech stack, service region, and so on), you\u2019re ready to begin your search for new prospects.<\/p>\n The way you search for relevant companies depends on your criteria. For example, if your primary criteria is industry and service region, you could be able to use tools as basic as Google Maps. Let\u2019s say you are selling industrial dishwashers to restaurants. In this case, you could simply use Google Maps to identify all of the restaurants in a given region.<\/p>\n If you sell social media management software to startup marketing teams<\/a>, you will probably need to take a different approach. Tools like G2, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn could help you search for and narrow down potential customers by a range of criteria, such as company size, latest funding round, and number of employees.<\/p>\n But all these things are pretty manual, monotonous, and time-consuming.<\/p>\n With prospecting tools<\/a> like SimilarWeb Sales Intelligence<\/a>, you can instantly<\/strong> create a comprehensive list of relevant prospects based on a range of granular criteria.<\/p>\n Instead of pouring hours into your search, you simply input your criteria and hit search. The Sales Intelligence tool analyzes over 100 million websites worth of data to build a complete list of prospects that are ready to buy your product.<\/p>\n After you have your list of prospects, the next step is to find out who the right decision-maker is within the companies you want to reach out to. And with that, it\u2019s time to grab those customer personas.<\/p>\n Say you sell human resource management (HRM) software to enterprise companies. If you\u2019ve determined that your top customer personas are Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs), HR VPs, and Chief Benefits Officers, you\u2019ll want to find the individuals who hold these roles in each of the companies on your prospect list.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one great thing about LinkedIn – you can search for the exact roles you\u2019re looking for. It\u2019s a particularly good platform for understanding more about the prospect, what they do, and what interests them which is always great for outreach sales emails<\/a>.<\/p>\n BUT\u2026<\/p>\n What if you could combine your lead generation<\/a> efforts and decision-maker discovery in one platform?<\/p>\n Quick answer: you can with Similarweb Sales Intelligence.<\/p>\n Without the means of contacting your prospects, that prospecting list of yours ain\u2019t very useful.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve identified the right individuals to reach out to, it\u2019s time to start hunting down their email addresses and phone numbers.<\/p>\n Again, there are a bunch of tools that can help you with that – some examples include Swordfish AI, DiscoveryOrg, Uplead, Clearbit, AeroLeads, and so on. Of course, you can resort to contacting them through LinkedIn but we all know it has its drawbacks.<\/p>\n BUT\u2026 here comes another \u201cbut\u201d.<\/p>\n Similarweb Sales Intelligence can streamline this prospecting task for you too. Yep, that means you can generate leads using our range of filters to make sure they fit with your ICP, you can find the right decision-makers for your sales pitch<\/a>, and you can get all their contact information in just a couple of clicks.<\/p>\n On top of that, you can download the relevant (and direct<\/em>) contact information from your entire prospect list straight into your CRM or to your desktop on an Excel spreadsheet.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what you call \u2018easy prospecting\u2019.<\/p>\n Finally, you\u2019ll want to rank your list of prospects by priority of who you want to target \u2013 or who you should be targeting \u2013 first. This is known as lead scoring<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although every prospect on your list technically fits your ICP, there may be more strategic, reliable, or valuable prospects than others. Or, you might determine that one customer persona, say mid-level marketing managers, are actually slightly better targets than marketing VPs as they respond quicker, encouraging shorter sales cycles as a result.<\/p>\n Oh yeah, that\u2019s another thing Similarweb Sales Intelligence can help you do.<\/p>\n [image of lead scoring + caption]<\/strong><\/p>\n So you\u2019ve determined your ICP criteria, built out a few customer personas, identified individual prospects, found their contact information, and scored them.<\/p>\n Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. ✅<\/p>\n But the work isn\u2019t over yet – to be honest, it never really ends.<\/p>\n Building a prospecting list is not a one-and-done job. It needs continuous maintenance and refinement to make sure it\u2019s evolving alongside your sales team and business goals.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a few of the best ways to manage a list of prospects and keep it fresh:<\/p>\n For busy salespeople who\u2019ve got a lot on their plates, with some added pressure from their bosses, building a prospecting list can seem daunting. Even if you use an automation tool to create the list, you\u2019re still responsible for analyzing your customers, defining your ICP, and determining your customer personas.<\/p>\n But taking shortcuts can <\/em>create more problems than they resolve – here are four common sales prospecting mistakes that you want to avoid when building an efficient and effective prospecting list:<\/p>\n Never, and we mean never<\/em>, purchase a lead list. If you do, you\u2019ll end up with mostly junk contacts, broken emails, outdated roles, and totally irrelevant companies.<\/p>\n ☝️That combination is one that you almost definitely (\/definitely definitely) want to miss.<\/p>\n It will do the opposite of speeding up your prospecting process. If anything, you\u2019ll spend more time cleaning up the list than it would have taken to build one yourself.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re making your ICP too general, you\u2019ll end up with lots of prospects who wouldn\u2019t actually make a good customer. That = not a good use of your time and resources.<\/p>\n Instead, take the time to really analyze your customers and determine a more robust and specific set of criteria with which to define your ICP.<\/p>\n Okay so, this scenario is less common, but it still happens. You might be being too <\/em>specific with your ICP criteria, meaning you end up missing out on great potential customers.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s important to pursue companies that have the necessary traits you\u2019re looking for, you\u2019ll also want to be flexible and test potential with companies that bring something new to the table as a customer.<\/p>\n You may or may not have heard us go ON about the importance of sales and marketing alignment. You know, smarketing.<\/p>\n Close alignment with marketing is crucial to effective sales in general, but it can be particularly helpful when building a prospecting list. Often, marketers are involved in developing customer personas, as they rely on this information when building targeted campaigns. By working together and gaining their input, you can create more comprehensive personas that aid in your outreach.<\/p>\n Working side-by-side with marketing also helps with continuity throughout the buyers\u2019 journey and beyond, which is great for customer experience.<\/p>\n You may have noticed the words \u2018Similarweb Sales Intelligence\u2019 sprinkled throughout this guide to prospect list building, and for good reason too.<\/p>\n Similarweb Sales Intelligence simplifies and speeds up the process of building a sales prospecting list (and the rest), helping you to sell way <\/em>more efficiently. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n Sound good to you? Book a demo or talk with one of our experts to find out exactly how Similarweb can work for you and your sales goals this year.<\/p>\n Who is the ideal prospect?<\/h2>\n
Defining your ICP<\/h3>\n
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Defining your buyer personas<\/h3>\n
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How to build a sales prospecting list<\/h2>\n
1) Find companies that match your ICP<\/h3>\n
![\"lead](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/lead-generator-and-contacts.png\")
<\/p>\n2) Identify the right decision-makers<\/h3>\n
![\"sales](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Contacts.png\")
<\/p>\n3) Find their contact information<\/h3>\n
4) Scoring your leads<\/h3>\n
The importance of maintaining your prospecting list<\/h2>\n
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4 common sales prospecting mistakes to avoid<\/h2>\n
1) Buying low-quality lead lists<\/h3>\n
2) Casting a net that\u2019s too wide<\/h3>\n
3) Casting a net that\u2019s not wide enough<\/h3>\n
4) Lack of alignment with marketing<\/h3>\n
Build a prospect list quickly with Similarweb<\/h2>\n
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