In the past many sales and marketing professionals considered a prospect as any living, breathing person. As long as a person met this criteria, they were a possible purchaser of the service or product they were offering.
Until sales and marketing efforts started to become more expensive, they never looked at how successful their sales and marketing efforts were. How many people were expressing an interest in what they offered? How many of these actually made a purchase and became a customer?
Now with the high cost of sales and marketing companies have been forced to look at the return they’re getting on what they’re spending. How much is it costing them to get a new prospect? How much profit will a new customer generate? Are they making or losing money by continuing their present sales and marketing efforts?
The most successful companies have taken a close look at their existing customer, especially the best ones. What do they have in common?
Are they in a certain age group?
Are they primarily male or female?
What is their position at their companies? Are they middle level managers or executives?
They use all of the information they gather to target people most like their best customers. They gear their marketing pieces and sales efforts to turn these people into prospects. They add them to their sales funnels and through ongoing marketing turn them into hot prospects. At that point they hand them over to their sales reps to pursue them and make the sale.
Where are you at? Do you consider every living person a potential buyer or do you limit your sales and marketing efforts to those most like your customers, primarily the best ones?
