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 or prospects to be qualified. It is this difference that makes the quality of a prospect file for companies. Getting to know the prospect is crucial for detecting buying intentions and concentrating sales efforts on prospects with high sales potential. We've put together everything you need to know to compile your prospecting file :

See all software Lead Generation

What is a prospecting file?

The answer may seem obvious, but : While the basic definition of a prospecting file is "a list of potential customers", the definition can vary from one company to another, becoming much more comprehensive and complex than it might seem. Let's develop the subject.

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 may contain at least one list of prospects to be contacted, or several different lists of potential customers, classified according to different criteria that vary depending on 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 intention to buy (near, far, short or long term, etc.).

Examples of criteria for qualifying a prospect 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,
• business email address,
• business telephone number,
• the company's financial situation,
• the company's position in its market,
• competitors,
• the company's needs, etc.

Before the arrival of new communication and computer technologies, the file was compiled 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 creation of a customer database, but were difficult to update and prone to many errors.

Today, thanks to SaaS software (operating online) and the democratisation of Internet use, prospecting files can be created, rented, purchased, updated and enriched in a computerised, and in some cases automated, way.

The objectives of a prospecting file

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

• The computerised database of qualified contacts is actually used by salespeople to prospect, i.e. to contact people whose sales potential has been identified;
• It should be pointed out 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 is this point that makes all the difference.

The criteria that define 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 that are relevant to your business,
• rigorous tracking and history of exchanges with each contact (calls, meetings, etc.),
• a file that can be accessed by all relevant staff within the company, even when they are away from the office,
• a file where employees can update data in real time,
• separation of qualified prospects, unqualified leads and customers into separate files,
• segmentation according to the stage of the buying process.

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 can I create my own database of prospective customers?

You can create your own prospecting database. Depending on your budget and the time you want to devote to it, you can use the following approaches.

1. Collect contact information on your website

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

Your content should answer the questions they have and be optimised for natural referencing in search engines 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 contextualised way, i.e. in relation to the subject covered in your article.

To download it, the future customer has to fill in a form and leave their contact details. These online forms allow you to collect qualified contacts yourself. You must, of course, comply with the RGPD rules and leave the box unchecked to obtain the person's consent.

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

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

A major advantage: you will only collect qualified contacts that are relevant to the subjects covered in your blog articles! The purpose of this information, which is useful for qualifying prospects, is to determine whether they are part of the target audience.

2. Use your personal or professional network

Create your own file of prospects by using your network: you can tell your personal or professional network about your new business, 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 favour for a friend like you.

Use the goodwill of your contacts: word of mouth works well when it is 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 - can come back to you and, for example, visit your site and register themselves by giving their consent.

In this way, you can build up your email file of private individuals free of charge, or a database of B2B prospects.

Warning: it is strictly forbidden to collect email addresses from individuals on discussion forums or websites.

3. Building your B2B prospecting file with Webtracking

A B2B webtracking solution enables you to identify B2B prospects who visit the web pages of your site and to react by observing their behaviour.

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 behaviour on your site, you can detect their areas of interest, as well as the stage they are at in the purchasing process.

This enables you to offer them appropriate content by email, content that will help them to think things through right up to the point of making a purchase decision.

4. Building your B2C prospect list with Retargeting

Retargeting consists of offering 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.

By using retargeting advertising solutions such as Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, YouTube, etc., it is 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 to which they were exposed on your site, etc.

Clicking on the ad will redirect the user to one of your web pages containing the offer or content of your choice, along with 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 up an ultra-targeted prospecting file for both B2B and B2C.

You can now 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, for example, all SMEs 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 a number of advantages:

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

See all software Lead Generation

The different prospecting tools

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

CCIs 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 directors from SMEs and ETIs - to be discovered as a matter of urgency in the video below:

The Corporama solution allows you to :

• 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: the solution detects business signals and automatically triggers an alert that is sent to sales staff for personalised contact;

• communicate with your CRM, to import and export leads and keep the 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 allows you to :

• receive help in compiling your prospecting file (data criteria, contact details, etc.),
• unlimited access to resources and tools and live chat with their team of experts,
• benefit from expert support in optimising your sales strategy.

Visiblee, B2B web tracking solution

Video overview of the solution:

Visiblee is a B2B web-tracking solution that enables SMEs and SMIs :

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

• observe the behaviour 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 a lead nurturing campaign;

• focus on the hottest leads using behavioural targeting.

CRM software for managing your prospect file

As we saw earlier, if you want to prospect effectively, it's essential to keep the data and history associated with a contact up to date.

This means that all the staff involved have access to the same information relating to a contact, whether a prospect or a customer (invoicing, customer support, stages in the purchasing process, etc.).

Updating data on an Excel file is outdated and a source of errors. CRM software lets you manage your prospecting file, organise your canvassing and provide a collaborative workspace that saves time and increases productivity for sales and marketing staff, as well as 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 that is capable of centralising all the company's data while being functional for all business areas: sales, human resources, administrative management, cash management and organisational functions that save precious time.

Sellsy CRM: SMEs and VSEs say thank you

Video presentation of Sellsy CRM :

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

With it, you can centralise all your interactions with prospects and customers, and have a dynamic pipeline view to process your opportunities and maximise your chances of closing sales.

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

Simple CRM, CRM and Sales Intelligence all in one

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 can also generate business opportunities by picking out high-potential contacts on the web and offering them to the sales team, who then spend less time prospecting.

But it has many other assets too: a collaborative approach, business intelligence, automation of marketing actions and sales processes, ERP modules, quotations and invoicing, document management, etc.

Teamleader, CRM integrating project management

Video overview of Teamleader CRM:

Aspiring VSEs and SMEs, as well as start-ups and high-tech companies, appreciate the collaborative features of the solution, such as shared diaries, task and call management and planning tools, which complement the CRM module 's functions (quotations, sales opportunity management, dashboard, reporting).