For B2B and medical technology businesses, the ability to keep the sales pipeline full with high quality leads, appointments and opportunities is essential for growth. But starting with a poor-quality prospecting strategy (or no strategy at all) increases your effort, lengthens your sales cycle and cuts into your profitability.
Here’s a closer look at how medtech and B2B marketers can target higher quality prospects and increase conversions:
Define what an ideal prospect looks like
Prospects are companies and decision-makers who, on paper, have the right criteria to become customers of your medtech or B2B business. The criteria will be specific to your company.
- For a medical device manufacturer, this might be hospitals with 100+ beds and a cardiology practice.
- For a financial institution, this might be mid-market sized businesses with revenues of $250,000 to $1 million.
Identifying these readily accessible facts is the starting point for increasing qualified leads and sales conversions. Sales, marketing and even product teams can work together to create (and agree on) this important list. This will form the backbone of an effective prospecting strategy.
Segment your audience
If you’re like most B2B and medtech companies, there isn’t a “one size fits all” definition of your ideal prospect. That means an important second step in your sales prospecting strategy is creating the right market segments.
A segment is a group of prospects who share similar characteristics. This could be as simple as geography or business size: SMBs in the Midwest as one segment, and enterprise clients in Europe as another segment.
You may also use more sophisticated parameters, such as current system or product in use or number of employees. Many organizations find the most value in criteria that are unique to your business.
Have an expert refine your prospect list
Using an outsourced call center like Volkart May can greatly increase the quality of your prospecting efforts. Instead of sending mass emails to every contact in your database, or deploying your high-powered sales team on cold calls, a contact center can gather custom market intelligence on your prospects.
We work closely with our clients to develop an effective strategy. Then, our highly trained callers contact your prospects for one-on-one conversations. These calls gather the information necessary to determine which market segment they belong to—and whether they are actually good prospects after all.
Armed with this intelligence, your sales reps can focus on more in-depth follow-ups, rather than going into a call blind. Marketing gains important insights into the messages and approaches that resonate with your prospects. They can deploy future campaigns effectively and efficiently.
Companies that know how to expand their market reach to attract new prospective customers experience the most growth. Working with an experienced outbound calling center is one of the most effective ways to improve your sales prospecting.
We’d love to talk about your needs! To learn more, contact us.
