How to Utilize New Technology to Build ‘Smarter’ Prospect Lists and Generate More Opportunities

Digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped how we communicate, market, and transact in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. As a result, a paradigm shift has occurred in the methods agencies must employ to generate new business.

Despite this shift, most agencies rely on word-of-mouth, their work, and awards as primary growth drivers. This approach, however, is no longer sufficient in an increasingly competitive market. Waiting for the phone to ring is not a sustainable growth strategy.

To predictably land 6- and 7-figure opportunities, firms must pivot their mindset and market approach from a short-term, transactional lead generation focus to a long-term,  systematic Relationship-Making™ strategy combining awareness and demand generation with outbound prospecting.

Modernizing Outbound Prospecting

Historically, outbound prospecting was an effective standalone channel for organizations seeking leads and new business. However, as the adoption of outbound tactics grew, prospects became overwhelmed and blind to traditional (old-school) outbound approaches. 

To maintain effectiveness, outbound prospecting and related tactics must adapt, evolve, and embrace next-generation approaches, including hyper-personalized account-based prospecting, specialized business development teams, cutting-edge sales technologies, and “smarter” list development.

This article will concentrate on “smarter” list development by leveraging your company’s team member’s professional networks, identifying prospects displaying buying signals, and traditional cold prospect lists.

1. Warm Outbound Prospecting: Mining Your Professional Network’s Goldmine

Warm outbound prospecting is a powerful yet often overlooked strategy for generating new business. The approach focuses on leveraging existing connections within one’s professional network, where there is already an established foundation of trust and familiarity. 

While most of us do an average or better job connecting with professional colleagues on platforms like LinkedIn, most do not nurture those relationships well. Yet clients move on to new companies,  junior contacts get promoted into decision-making roles, and even our colleagues from our firms go client side. Experience shows that these contacts are more receptive to engaging in conversations and convert more quickly than cold prospects because of the established know-like-trust absent from cold prospects.

• Clients move on to new companies
• Junior contacts get promoted into decision-making roles
• Colleagues from our firms go client side

Despite the clear advantages of warm outbound prospecting, many firms struggle to leverage their employees’ networks effectively. These challenges may be due to non-business development team members feeling uncomfortable reaching out to their contacts or lacking a systematic approach for engaging with these connections. To overcome these challenges, a more structured and accessible process must be implemented for team members to participate in.

One method agencies can implement involves  exporting LinkedIn contacts into a CSV file (a little-known feature of the platform), which can be reviewed and used to identify connections that fit the firm’s ideal client profile. Including both decision-makers and influencers in this list is advised. If a prospect is at a good fit company but not in a decision-making role, they will often provide a referral to a decision-maker because of their relationship with you.

The initial list may contain a large number of connections, but after filtering according to your ideal client profile and buyer persona, the lists will be cut dramatically (we’ve built a proprietary tool to automate this step). But, by involving 10-20 team members in this process, most firms can easily create a list of 100-200 valuable prospects more likely to engage faster.

Once the list is refined, the next step is crafting compelling messages to engage these contacts. It is essential to offer something valuable–a “give to get”–to incentivize the connection to meet or provide a referral. Examples of “give to gets” may include original research, free workshops, audits, PR opportunities, or invitations to a fireside chat or networking with peers.

When composing the message, personalization is critical. Customizing the opening for each prospect by referencing a shared experience, how the connection was made, or an inside joke to establish rapport and maintain the existing relationship. Sending a sequence of 2-3 follow-up emails is recommended, as a substantial number of replies often stem from these subsequent messages.

Continue Reading: Why Understanding the Modern Buyer’s Journey is Critical for Predictable Agency Growth.

Warm Outbound List Building Process

1. Export LinkedIn Connections
2. Review & Filter List
3. Select Relevant Decision-Makers & Influencers
4. Write Personalized Messaging
5. Reach Out (3-4 Times if Necessary)

Although warm outbound prospecting is highly effective, it has its limitations. This strategy relies heavily on the existing networks of team members, which can be smaller for newer firms or those who have not actively maintained their professional networks. However, the focus should be on leveraging the networks in place, regardless of size, to generate a list of high-quality prospects. But to build a significant pipeline, firms must extend beyond their networks.

2. Intent-Based Prospecting: Uncovering Prospects Actively Seeking Services

Intent-based prospecting has emerged as a crucial yet frequently overlooked method for identifying potential clients actively in the market for services. Research shows that a mere 10% of the market is actively seeking or intending to change services, and the challenge lies in pinpointing these companies. By utilizing advanced technology, firms can uncover mid-funnel or bottom-of-funnel prospects demonstrating buying signals.

Various buying signals may indicate a prospect’s interest in a service, such as researching topics online, engaging with a company’s website or social channels, interacting with email newsletters, or downloading gated content. Targeting these companies that demonstrate intent is a strategic approach to acquiring new business.

Intent Sources

• Website Visitors
• Social Media Engagement
• Email Newsletter Engagement
• Gated Content

Website visitor ID tracking is one effective method to identify intent. Digital tools like LeadFeeder and LeadMagic identify anonymous website visitors, converting website traffic into tangible company names. Through specialized algorithms, machine learning, and extensive databases, these tools analyze visits and leverage IP addresses to determine the origin of each visit. While specific visitors/contacts cannot be identified, knowing the company will help prioritize target lists.

Social media engagement, particularly on LinkedIn, is another valuable source of intent data. Prospects who view the LinkedIn profiles of key stakeholders at your firm, engage with posts, or follow your company page may be exhibiting buying intent. Unlike website visitor ID tracking, social media engagement reveals the individuals involved, enabling direct outreach to these prospects.

Email newsletter engagement is also an excellent indicator of intent. Platforms like Mailchimp can track opens, clicks, and engagement frequency. Regularly analyzing this data can provide insights into potential in-market contacts, allowing for personalized follow-up.

Gated content and webinar leads present another opportunity for intent-based prospecting. Firms often overlook these contacts, but reviewing the list and identifying prospects that fit the ideal company profile and buyer personas can yield valuable leads. Follow-up communication should focus on offering to answer questions about the content or webinar.

When crafting messages for these prospects, it is essential to consider the intent source. In some cases, referencing specific engagement details, such as a contact who commented on your LinkedIn post, can create a personalized touch. However, when dealing with contacts identified through website visitor ID tracking, it is best to avoid mentioning specific page visits to avoid being intrusive.

In all cases, offering value to prospects – the “give to get” approach – is a best practice. Competitors are also reaching out to these prospects, so standing out is crucial.

Intent-based prospecting has its limitations, too, as the number of prospects in this category depends on website traffic, social presence, and content. Nevertheless, even a few prospects identified through intent-based prospecting have a higher-than-average likelihood of being in the market, making an effort to target them worthwhile. Like warm outbound, it probably won’t be enough to reach your new business goals.

3. Cold Outbound Prospecting: Effectively Targeting the Untapped 90% of Your Market

It is improbable that every prospect within your total addressable market is already part of your team’s network or actively engaging with your digital or social channels. Thus, a proactive business development program will likely still require cold outbound.

When most think about outbound, they typically refer to traditional cold prospecting. Cold outbound involves building a list of prospects where you have no existing relationship or intent signals.

The first step is to create an ideal company profile, considering firmographics such as industry, company size, and geography where the firm has experience. Utilizing databases and platforms like ZoomInfo and LinkedIn will help identify companies that fit the typical client profile.

Upon establishing a list of target companies, the next step is identifying relevant contacts within these organizations who may be interested in your services. This process involves creating a buyer persona, which outlines the job title, title rank (e.g., C-suite, VP, Director), and years of experience. Using the same databases and platforms, you can then source the contact data of these prospects for outreach.

Cold Outbound List Building Process

1. Create an Ideal Client Profile
2. Create Buyer Persona(s)
3. Build Account/Company List
4. Build Prospect List

In cold outbound prospecting, the approach should differ slightly for warm and intent-based prospecting, focusing on fostering long-term relationships. Warm and intent-based prospecting is geared towards capturing the 10% of prospects in the market, while cold outbound prospecting targets the remaining 90%.

When approaching large and enterprise companies, you may contact five, ten, or even more prospects within the organization. There are various tactics to employ in these situations, such as a top-down approach, where you reach out to the C-suite members, who may refer you to someone on their team. Alternatively, you can use a bottom-up approach, targeting manager-level prospects to secure a meeting, learn from it, and turn them into your champion within the organization.

As with warm and intent-based prospecting, offering value to prospects is crucial, particularly in cold outbound prospecting. These prospects are not familiar with your company, nor are they explicitly demonstrating interest in the market at present. You must adopt a “give-to-get” mindset to break through the noise and stand out.

The Final Word: Unlocking Growth with Next-Gen Outbound Prospecting and Smarter List Building

Agencies must adapt their go-to-market strategies to drive predictable growth by embracing next-gen outbound prospecting techniques, including smarter list-building. 

Warm, intent-based, and cold outbound prospecting lists can also be used for awareness and demand creation programs. The contacts can be put into an email newsletter list, targeted directly through LinkedIn paid ads, or engaged organically on LinkedIn.

By building smarter lists for outbound prospecting and warming up and nurturing the audiences through demand creation, agencies will better target and forge long-term relationships that result in 6- and 7-figure opportunities.

By shifting your mindset from short-term, transactional lead generation to long-term, systematic Relationship-Making™, your agency will unlock its full growth potential and thrive in the increasingly competitive business landscape.