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Finding more sales prospects starts with knowing which companies and people are worth targeting. A larger prospect list can create more cold email outreach opportunities, but the quality of those prospects will ultimately determine how useful that list is to your sales team.
For B2B sales teams, that means defining your ideal customer, finding companies that match those criteria and identifying the right people to contact. Signals such as changes within a company or activity that suggests buying intent can then help you decide which prospects to prioritize and generate more sales pipeline through your outbound campaigns.
The guide explains how to find sales prospects for B2B outreach, from defining your target audience and sourcing prospects through to verifying contact data and using AI sales agent software to automate parts of the process.
What Is a Sales Prospect?
A sales prospect is a person or company that fits the type of customer your business wants to reach and has the potential to buy your product or service.
In B2B sales, prospects are usually identified using criteria such as company characteristics, job role and whether they have a problem your product can solve.
A prospect is slightly different from a lead. A lead may simply be a person or company you’ve identified or collected contact information for, while a prospect has been assessed as a potential fit for your business.
Finding good sales prospects involves identifying companies that match your ideal customer profile, finding the right people within those businesses and deciding which prospects are worth prioritizing.
How to Find the Right Sales Prospects
Finding enough potential customers remains a challenge for many sales teams. Pipedrive’s sales research, found that almost half of sales and marketing professionals regularly (24%) or usually (21%) struggle to find enough sales leads.
Basic company and contact information can help narrow the market, but it doesn’t always tell you whether a prospect is worth contacting right now.
Changes within a company, recent activity and other buying signals can provide additional context when deciding which accounts deserve attention.
Timing can also affect which prospects you prioritize. An account that matches your ideal customer profile (ICP) and is showing signs of a potential need for your product may be more relevant than a similar company with no indication that its circumstances are changing.
Defining Your Ideal Customer Profile and Target Accounts
An ICP helps you narrow your prospecting to companies that are more likely to be a good fit for your product or service. Rather than searching across an entire market, you can use your ICP to define the characteristics a company should have before adding it to your prospect list.
Begin with what you know about your existing customers. Industry, company size, location and revenue can help define the types of businesses you want to reach. Depending on what you sell, you may also want to consider factors such as the technology a company uses, how its team is structured or whether it is currently hiring.
An ideal customer profile (ICP) template can help you define these criteria and turn them into a framework for finding new prospects.
Identify the Right People Within Each Account
Once you’ve identified companies that fit your ICP, determine who you need to reach within them. The right contact will depend on who is likely to influence or make the purchasing decision, so look beyond job titles when deciding who to approach.
For larger accounts, there may be several relevant people involved in that decision. Identifying more than one potential contact can give you better coverage of the account and reduce your reliance on a single person responding.
Your ICP and target account criteria can then be used when searching lead databases, prospecting platforms and other sources for potential customers.
Agency founder
Sourcing Sales Prospects Using Signals and Intent Data
With your targeting criteria defined, the next step is building your prospect list. B2B contact databases and prospecting tools give you a way to find companies and contacts that match your criteria. Intent data and other signals can then help you decide which prospects to prioritize.
These signals can include activity on your website, changes within a company or other events that suggest a potential need for what you sell. Combined with your ICP, these signals give you another way to decide which prospects to contact first.
Use Buying Signals to Prioritize Prospects
Some signals can indicate that a prospect may be more relevant right now. A company repeatedly visiting important pages on your website, for example, may warrant more attention than an account identified solely because it matches your industry and company-size criteria.
Changes outside your website can also uncover potential prospects. Hiring activity, funding, technology changes and movements within a company can all provide useful context when deciding whether an account is worth researching further.
The B2B data enrichment guide explains how these signals can be used to identify and prioritize potential buyers.
Turn Prospecting Signals Into Action
When a company matches your ICP and shows relevant activity, you can identify the appropriate contacts within the account, verify their details and decide how they should be approached.
Automation makes it easier to monitor these signals and act on them without repeatedly rebuilding prospect lists manually. Higher-priority accounts can be researched and contacted sooner, while other suitable prospects can remain available for future outreach.
Enriching and Verifying Contact Data Before Outreach
Finding the right company or contact doesn’t necessarily mean you have enough information to start outreach. Prospect data can be incomplete or outdated, so contact records should be enriched and verified before they’re added to an active campaign.
Enrichment fills gaps in your prospect data. Verification then confirms whether the email addresses you’ve found are valid. Cleaner contact data reduces the risk of sending outreach to inaccurate or outdated addresses.
Enrich Your Prospect Data
Check that each contact still works at the company and holds a role relevant to your outreach. Additional information about the contact and their company can then help you segment prospects and tailor your messaging.
Depending on your outreach strategy, enrichment can fill in missing contact details or company information for records you’ve already found.
Brandon Charleson
Verify Contact Information Before Outreach
Email addresses should be verified before prospects are added to a cold email campaign. Invalid or outdated addresses can increase bounce rates and make it harder to maintain a good sender reputation as your outreach scales.
Verification is particularly important when you’re sourcing larger numbers of prospects from different databases or enrichment providers. Removing invalid addresses before sending gives you a cleaner prospect list and helps protect your sending infrastructure.
Enriched and verified contacts are then ready to be added to your outreach workflow or synced with your CRM.
Why Use Instantly to Find Sales Prospects?
Instantly brings B2B prospecting and cold email outreach together, allowing sales teams to find relevant contacts and turn them into active outbound campaigns without moving between several different tools.
You can search for prospects using criteria based on your ideal customer profile, find contact information and use additional data to help decide which accounts are worth prioritizing. Once you’ve built your prospect list, contacts can be verified before being added to your outreach campaigns.
For teams looking to automate more of the prospecting process, Instantly’s AI Sales Agent software can find prospects that match your ICP, research potential customers and prepare personalized outreach. That reduces some of the manual work involved in finding and contacting new sales prospects.
Cold email campaigns and responses can also be managed within the same platform, keeping prospect research and active sales conversations connected.
Start your 14 day free trial and find your next sales prospects with Instantly.
Key Takeaways
Finding sales prospects becomes easier when you know exactly who you’re looking for. Define your ICP first, then identify the companies and people that fit those criteria.
Prospecting tools can expand that search, while buying signals give you another way to decide which accounts deserve attention. Before anyone enters an outreach campaign, check that the contact information you’ve found is accurate and verified.
As your prospecting grows, AI and automation can take over some of the research and repetitive work involved in keeping outbound campaigns supplied with relevant prospects.
Frequently Asked Questions About Finding More Sales Prospects
How Do You Find Sales Prospects?
To find prospects for sales, start by defining your ideal customer profile and identifying companies that match it. B2B prospecting tools, contact databases and buying signals can then help you find relevant companies and identify the right people to contact.
How Can You Find New Sales Prospects Easily?
AI prospecting software can make it easier to find new sales prospects by letting you search for companies and contacts based on your targeting criteria. You can then enrich and verify the contact data before adding prospects to your outreach campaigns.
Can AI Help You Find Sales Prospects?
Yes. AI sales agents can help find companies that match your ICP, research potential customers and identify relevant contacts. They can also automate parts of the prospecting and outreach process, reducing the amount of manual research required.
What Is the Difference Between a Sales Prospect and a Lead?
A lead is a person or company you’ve identified or collected contact information for. A sales prospect has been assessed against your targeting criteria and identified as a potential customer worth pursuing.
Further Reading
- How to Generate More Sales Pipeline – Learn how to turn prospecting, outreach and follow-up into qualified sales opportunities.
