How do you create a quality prospecting file?

A B-to-B or B-to-C sales prospecting file is a database of qualified prospects. This difference is the key to the quality of a prospect file for companies. Knowing your prospects well is crucial to detecting buying intentions and focusing sales efforts on prospects with high sales potential. We've put together everything you need to know to build your prospecting file :

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What is a prospecting file?

The answer may seem obvious, but : if the basic definition of a prospecting file is "a list of potential customers", it's worth noting that the definition can vary, from one company to another, and become much more comprehensive and complex than it seems. Let's take a closer look.

Definition of the term prospecting file

A prospecting file or lead file is a list of people likely to buy products or services. These people are called prospects.

A file can contain at least one list of prospects to contact, or several different lists of potential customers, classified according to different criteria that vary according to the product or service a company is selling.

In a list of potential customers, each prospect is associated with relevant qualification criteria to identify people's present, past or future interest in the service or product concerned, as well as their purchase intention (near, far, short or long term, etc.).

Examples of prospect qualification criteria in a B to B file:

• surname, first name,
• age,
• gender,
• company name,
• company website address,
• company postal address,
• job title,
• responsibilities within the company,
• professional e-mail address,
• business telephone number,
• the company's financial situation,
• the company's market position,
• competitors,
• company needs, etc.

Before the arrival of new communication and computer technologies, files were created by hand, or even typed on a typewriter, and kept on paper.

Then came the office suite and the Excel prospecting dashboard, which improved the constitution of a customer database, but were difficult to update and prone to many errors.

Today, thanks to SaaS software (operating online) and the democratization of Internet use, prospecting files are created, rented, purchased, updated and enriched in a computerized way, even automated in some cases.

The objectives of a prospecting file

The term sales prospecting file or customer file is often used to describe the sales process:

• The computerized database of qualified contacts is actually used by sales reps to prospect, i.e. to contact people whose sales potential has been identified;
• It must be specified that the need for the service or product has been expressed and identified to these contacts, either through a marketing campaign, or through prior contact (cold call, online form, SMS, etc.), and it's this point that makes all the difference.

Criteria for an effective prospect list

The rule is to maintain the quality of your database intended for commercial prospecting, in particular with regard to all the following points :

• up-to-date contact information,
• no duplicates in the file,
• no erroneous data,
• reliable sources of information from which to draw data,
• qualification criteria relevant to your business,
• rigorous tracking and history of exchanges with each contact (calls, meetings, etc.),
• a file accessible to all relevant employees within the company, even when on the move,
• a file where employees can update data in real time,
• separation of qualified prospects, unqualified leads and customers into separate files,
• segmentation according to buying status.

For a prospecting list to be effective and lawful, it must also have been compiled in compliance with the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): the emphasis is on protecting personal data and respecting people's privacy.

How do I create my own prospect database?

It's entirely possible to create your own prospecting file. Depending on your budget and the time you wish to devote to it, you can use the following approaches.

1. Gather contact information from your website

The approach is as follows: you attract visitors to your blog by regularly publishing content, articles that interest and help the prospects you're targeting.

Your content must answer the questions they have and be optimized for search engine optimization like Google.

In each of your articles (or only in some of them), you can offer e-books, white papers, or other guide formats to be downloaded in a contextualized way, i.e. in relation to the subject addressed in your article.

To download an e-book or white paper, future customers must fill in a form and leave their contact details. These online forms enable you to collect qualified contacts yourself. Of course, you have to comply with the RGPD rules and put an unprecedented box to obtain the person's consent.

This technique really works if your content is useful and has a use value for your readers:

• on the one hand, your articles allow readers to address their concerns,
• on the other hand, help them mature in their purchasing journey.

A major advantage: you'll only collect qualified contacts that are relevant to the topics covered in your blog posts! This information, which is useful for qualifying the prospect, is intended to determine whether he or she is part of the target group.

2. Use your personal or professional network

Create your own file of prospects by using your network: you can inform your personal or professional network of your new activity, on a network like LinkedIn for example.

Your friends' friends can easily become your friends: people love to recommend a professional, a product, a service, an expertise, especially if the quality is there, and especially if it's to do a favor for a friend like you.

Use the goodwill of your contacts: word-of-mouth works well when it's spread by trusted contacts, such as members of a professional network.

People who are interested - because we're talking about prospects who are part of your target audience - will be able to come back to you and, for example, visit your site and register on their own, by giving their consent.

In this way, you can build up a free e-mail file of private individuals, or a database of B2B prospects.

Warning: it is strictly forbidden to collect e-mail addresses from private individuals on discussion forums or websites.

3. Build your B2B prospecting file with Webtracking

A B2B webtracking solution enables you to identify B2B prospects who visit your web pages, and react by observing their behavior.

Using a site tracker, the solution tracks cookies and the IP address associated with a professional visitor. This enables you to identify each B2B lead: the solution's artificial intelligence performs real-time reconciliations with a B2B database to restore their contact information.

By observing a professional's behavior on your site, you can detect his or her areas of interest, as well as the stage he or she is at in the purchasing process.

You can then offer them appropriate content by e-mail, content that will help them mature in their thinking right up to the purchase decision.

4. Build your B2C prospect list with Retargeting

Retargeting consists of sending a message to Internet users who have visited your website and then left it to go to another site or online platform, without having taken any positive action for your business.

Using retargeting advertising solutions such as Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, YouTube, etc., it's possible to target visitors to your site and offer them complementary messages such as a guide, a promotional offer, a webinar related to the subject covered on the web page they were exposed to on your site, etc.

By clicking on the advertisement, the user is redirected to one of your web pages containing the offer or content of your choice, accompanied by a data collection form.

It's up to you to be creative and get your future prospect interested!

Another solution: renting or buying prospect files

Buying a customer database, a company file or renting email addresses are all relevant practices that have been in use for some time.

Today, some of these online databases have become powerful tools for building a highly-targeted prospecting file for both B2B and B2C.

Today, you can use these tools to create your own qualified customer database (some prefer to use the term quality database) with an incredible number of criteria for :

• rent a postal address file for a specific geographical area,
• detect business signals emitted by companies on the web,
• get a global view of a market by identifying its players,
• select all ETIs, for example, or only SMEs,
• restrict your search to a particular sector,
• target a specific age group, in a specific trade,
• target individuals with pets,
• qualify key accounts in your market with the utmost precision,
• etc.

These databases offer several advantages:

• information is kept up to date,
• the possibilities for cross-referencing different criteria are virtually infinite,
• targeting is ultra-precise,
• you only target contacts who have given their consent (B2C),
• you save precious time in qualifying relevant profiles.

When you purchase a customer file to build up your BtoC or BtoB database, the price varies according to the number of criteria required.

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The different prospecting tools

We present here a selection of high-performance prospecting tools and software for building your prospecting file, some of which are indispensable for maintaining the quality of your data at all times.

The CCI for targeting companies in France

Corporama, the intelligent B2B database

Here's one of the benchmarks in sales intelligence - which has already won over more than 2,000 marketing and sales managers from SMEs and ETIs - to be discovered as a matter of urgency in the video below:

The Corporama solution lets you :

• qualify a database of B2B prospects based on 25 criteria, by cross-referencing data from 11 million professional contacts with 60,000 sources of information;

• receive the hottest prospects on a daily basis. This is a predictive lead scoring solution: it detects business signals and automatically triggers an alert that is sent to sales reps for personalized contact;

• communicate with your CRM, to import and export leads and keep information up to date in your customer relationship management solution.

Kestio, the 100% digital sales support tool

Discover Kestio, the platform that helps you improve your company's sales and marketing performance.

The Kestio platform lets you :

• help you build your prospecting file (data criteria, contact details, etc.),
• unlimited access to resources and tools, and live exchanges with their team of experts,
• expert support in optimizing your sales strategy.

Visiblee, B2B webtracking solution

Video overview of the solution:

Visiblee is a B2B webtracking solution that enables small and medium-sized businesses :

• identify visitors to your website and obtain their contact information. Visiblee fetches information from external sources such as B2B databases;

• observe the behavior of each visitor to detect the hottest or coldest leads, and segment your prospecting base;

• set up an appropriate prospecting campaign to educate and nurture cold leads by pushing appropriate messages and content, known as lead nurturing;

• focus on the hottest leads using behavioral targeting.

CRM software for prospect file management

As we saw earlier, effective sales prospecting depends on keeping contact data and history up to date.

This ensures that all employees involved have access to the same contact-related information, whether the contact is a prospect or a customer (billing, customer support, stages in the purchasing process, etc.).

Updating data on an Excel file is outdated and error-prone. CRM software lets you manage your prospecting file, organize your canvassing and provide a collaborative workspace that saves time and boosts productivity not only for sales and marketing staff, but for the whole company.

Here are a few CRM solutions (in alphabetical order) to illustrate the capabilities of such a tool.

Axonaut, the successful marriage of CRM and ERP

Video overview of Axonaut software :

Some SMEs turn to Axonaut because they want a tool capable of centralizing all company data, while at the same time being functional for all business areas: sales, human resources, administrative management, cash management, and organizational functionalities that save precious time.

Sellsy CRM: SMEs and VSEs say thank you

Sellsy CRM video presentation:

Companies now have a comprehensive tool for prospecting and building customer loyalty .

It centralizes all your interactions with prospects and customers, and provides you with a dynamic pipeline view to process your opportunities and maximize your chances of closing sales.

And to speed up your sales cycle, the tool even lets you create personalized quotations, turn them into invoices in just one click, and get paid directly online.

Simple CRM, the all-in-one CRM and Sales Intelligence solution

Simple CRM video presentation:

The strong point of this solution is its HaPPi artificial intelligence: the technology detects your company's strengths and weaknesses, and also generates business opportunities by picking high-potential contacts from the web, and proposing them to the sales team, who then spend less time prospecting.

But it has much more to offer: a collaborative approach, business intelligence, automation of marketing actions and sales processes, ERP modules, quotation and invoicing, document management, etc.

Teamleader, CRM with integrated project management

Teamleader CRM in video :

Up-and-coming small and medium-sized businesses, as well as start-ups and high-tech companies, appreciate the solution's collaborative features such as shared calendars, task and call management, and planning tools, which complement the CRM module 's functionalities (quotations, sales opportunity management, dashboard, reporting).