By The PhantomBuster TeamLead prospecting is the process sales teams use to identify and qualify leads who are most likely to purchase from them. It's an essential step in the lead generation process.
This article will showcase some of the best lead prospecting strategies and tools for finding more qualified leads quickly.
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Lead prospecting is the process sales teams use to identify and qualify leads who are most likely to purchase from them.
Lead prospecting and lead generation are not the same. While lead generation has a broader scope—collecting all leads—prospecting entails finding highly relevant leads and reaching out to close a deal. Lead prospecting falls at the very beginning of the sales process.
The top lead prospecting methods your team should try include social prospecting, social selling, and lead scoring and segmentation.
The best social prospecting tactics to create fresh lead lists are scraping LinkedIn profiles, social media posts, engagers, comments, and likes and exporting group members or events.
The most relevant social selling methods are automated engagement and automated connection requests.
Lead scoring and segmentation are also part of the lead prospecting process, as they help create intent-based lists.
PhantomBuster is one of the best LinkedIn prospecting tools. You can create intent-based lead lists using pre-built automation called Phantoms, which lets you scrape granular data from LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Apollo.io is a sales intelligence and engagement platform that provides detailed contact search information, AI-based lead scoring, and lead signals. Its prices start at $49 per month.
Amplemarket is an AI sales platform that helps businesses identify buying intent signals and social prospecting through LinkedIn. Prices are not publicly available.
What is the meaning of lead prospecting?
Lead prospecting is the process sales teams use to identify and qualify leads who are most likely to purchase from them.
It involves various steps like prospect research, lead segmentation, list building, and data scraping.
Lead prospecting vs. lead generation process
Lead generation is a broader term that describes both the inbound and outbound processes of generating potential leads.
Inbound lead generation is how marketing teams attract potential customers through lead magnets, forms, paid or organic traffic, social media, and more.
In comparison, the outbound lead generation process focuses on how sales teams identify potential customers using intent signals to create highly qualified lead lists to fuel the outbound process.
Lead prospecting is the first step of the outbound lead generation process. It is the stage where sales teams use tools to scrape data and create lead lists.
Where does lead prospecting fit inside the sales process?
Lead prospecting is at the very beginning of the sales process. Without it, sales reps lack data for reaching out to potential customers.
When done right, lead prospecting ensures better outreach efforts, more qualified leads, fewer customer objections, and better close rates.
Top lead prospecting techniques for sales and marketing teams
Cold calling and cold emailing are the most popular tactics for prospecting. However, not the most efficient.
An intent-based approach to sales prospecting helps identify more qualified leads with a better potential close rate.
Here are some sales prospecting tactics to try.
Social prospecting tactics
Social prospecting helps sales and marketing teams identify and engage potential leads across social media platforms. This technique can help you gather fresh and accurate data for prospecting.
Here are the best tactics you can try.
Scrape LinkedIn profiles
LinkedIn profiles are ripe with data you can use for targeted sales strategies and B2B prospecting. You can find someone's contact details, position, previous work history, skills and qualifications, mutual connections, etc.
Using a tool like PhantomBuster's LinkedIn scraper, you can easily scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn and get a detailed lead list.
Use Boolean search operators to refine a LinkedIn search, then copy and paste this URL to PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Search Export.
The tool will help you build a list of leads you can reach. You can also set up this Phantom to work on autopilot throughout time to constantly get a new stream of leads that fit these criteria.
Scrape sales prospects from social media company posts
People who like and comment on posts from certain companies can be high-quality leads.
You can target competitor companies (or adjacent ones in your industry) and scrape the lists of people interacting with their content, fueling your sales strategy with fresh data.
PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Post Commenter and Liker Scraper does just that.
Simply add a LinkedIn URL to scrape posts from, connect your account with LinkedIn using the PhantomBuster Chrome extension, and choose what you want to extract.
For example, someone who frequently comments on posts about data analytics can be a great potential customer for a dashboard product.
Based on those insights, you can further segment them into a category and create a personalized sales pitch.
Extract leads and prospects from relevant LinkedIn groups or event attendees
LinkedIn groups and events attract individuals focused on particular industries, products, methodologies, or topics. This provides opportunities to craft more tailored lead-generation strategies.
We recommend linking your LinkedIn account using the PhantomBuster browser extension and inputting the group URL or event you'd like to scrape.
Specify the number of leads you wish to extract from the LinkedIn Group Members Export, which will be compiled into a list.
Pro-tip: You can automate the process with PhantomBuster so groups are scraped repeatedly in the background, and you don't have to do anything else.
Social selling tactics
People buy from those they know and remember. And, with the right tools, you can automate engagement, such as likes and follow, to build relationships before reaching out.
Instead of a cold call, you can make a warm call with someone who remembers your name.
Automate engagement
Tools like PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Auto Follow let you automate engagement on LinkedIn.
Just connect your profile with the PhantomBuster account, give it a URL with search results, and watch as the Phantom engages with others on your behalf.
Automate connection requests on LinkedIn
One way for leads to remember your name during phone calls is to add them as connections on LinkedIn first. Doing this manually is a chore, but luckily, automation tools can help you.
We recommend using the LinkedIn Outreach automation to create a LinkedIn outreach strategy with connection requests, introduction messages, and up to three follow-ups.
PhantomBuster will add those profiles gradually, keeping your LinkedIn account safe.
Lead scoring and segmentation
Sales prospecting tools allow you to scrape countless data points, but not all contacts will be qualified leads.
This is where lead scoring and segmentation come in—you can use them to prioritize your most valuable leads.
AI lead scoring
Nowadays, most CRMs, such as HubSpot, have this feature. Based on the CRM data, the tool predicts how likely leads will turn into paying customers.
This saves time and money for your reps, helping them focus only on the most valuable leads that will go further down the sales funnel.
PhantomBuster can help you update your CRM data and put your sales pipeline on autopilot.
Try our HubSpot Contact Sender to send LinkedIn data directly to your customer relationship management tool so you have the most accurate data for AI lead scoring at all times.
Intent-based list building
Your lists of potential customers can get even better when you use intent signals to make it easier to segment, personalize, and sell to a specific audience.
For example, someone who attends a LinkedIn event or follows specific influencers in your industry can be an excellent target for segmented, personalized outreach based on intent.
Use PhantomBuster's AI LinkedIn Profile Enricher, powered by ChatGPT, and customize a prompt to calculate a score based on your criteria. The AI will use available data that was previously scraped to analyze each contact on your list.
This helps cut down large lead lists, saves time, and increases sales productivity. For your reps, it also means help prioritizing and knowing which leads to call first.
Best sales prospecting tools to put your sales pipeline on autopilot
Much of sales prospecting can be automated, freeing up the time for your sales team to deal with actual leads on the phone or email.
Here's a roundup of the best tools to get the job done.
PhantomBuster
PhantomBuster is a LinkedIn prospecting tool that captures fresh, real-time data about your leads. It helps you create better customer relationships and close more deals.
Some of the main ways PhantomBuster helps:
Building high-quality lead lists: Start with a LinkedIn search to find leads who match your ICP, or leverage intent signals to scrape fresh leads from LinkedIn.
Scraping events and groups: Extract leads from LinkedIn events and groups to better segment your leads and personalize your outreach.
Automating LinkedIn engagement: Automate likes, follows, connection requests, and event invites.
Pricing starts at $56/month for 20 hours of execution time and 10,000 AI credits.
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is a sales intelligence and engagement platform that lets you find the best leads in its database of over 275 million contacts and 73 million companies.
Top features include:
Detailed contact and account search: With over 65 different filters to choose from, you can target warm leads instead of a cold audience.
AI-based lead scoring tools: Define your lead scoring criteria and let Apollo deliver the best leads for you.
Lead signals: Identify companies already browsing your website and target them first to shorten your sales cycle and increase conversion rates.
Prices start at $49 per month. This unlocks 900 mobile credits and 12,000 export credits per year.
Amplemarket
Amplemarket is an AI sales platform with various features for data and lead generation, multichannel engagement, and email delivery optimization.
Some of its top features include:
Buying intent signals: Leverage data analytics to track and analyze user behavior and engagement signals, allowing you to identify prospects showing intent to purchase.
Contact and company search: Build lists or enrich your CRM with data from over 300 million business profiles worldwide.
Social prospecting: Get lists of leads from LinkedIn, filter them based on job title or engagement, export, and get started with outreach.
Amplemarket does not disclose its pricing publicly.
You have to reach out to get a quote. However, basic online research shows that it costs around $500 monthly, forcing you to get an annual contract.
Conclusion
Lead prospecting used to be a tedious, manual process of finding relevant information to target potential customers better.
But prospecting efforts are now much easier, so all you need to do is find the right tool to fill your sales pipeline with qualified leads.
With PhantomBuster, you can find high-quality leads and enrich them with valuable data, enhancing your sales outreach. Then, all that is left to you is closing deals.
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