Efficiency-Driven Sales Prospecting Automations for Closing More Deals

Eugene Suslov 28 Mar 2024

Prospecting is one of the most challenging tasks sales teams are faced with, and it just so happens that it’s also crucial for closing more deals and generating revenue.

After all, it’s not so often that customers knock on businesses’ doors ready to make a purchase.

For this reason, all modern sales professionals are rigorously trained in this domain and equipped with the necessary sales automation software to ensure a constant flow of new customers in the sales pipeline.

With new types of software and prospecting techniques constantly evolving over the years, it gets blurry when deciding how to automate your prospecting workflow for maximum efficiency.

(Hint — you don’t need an entire arsenal of tools but merely a few reliable ones)

In this article, we will dive into the 5 most efficient prospecting automations to ensure your sales team does not only meet but crush their quotas.

Pain points of sales prospecting (automation to the rescue)

Believe it or not, for absolutely every major sales prospecting challenge, there is some type of software that simplifies, automates, and solves that pain point.

But first things first — what are the main challenges of prospecting?

Time-consuming → quality prospecting takes up a significant chunk of sales reps’ time, leaving them with less time to focus on building meaningful relationships and closing deals.
Finding quality leads → regardless of how much time SDRs spend looking for prospects, it won’t matter if they’re looking in the wrong place or targeting the wrong buyer persona.
Low response rates → once targeted prospects are found, engaging them effectively is no easy task, and numerous teams are hit with the harsh reality of low open and reply rates.
Pipeline stagnation → considering that all contact lists are finite, at times, sales teams have to halt their outreach efforts until they create a consistent flow of targeted prospects.
Scaling outreach → in every business, there comes a time when they have to increase the number of prospects to sustain momentum and growth, which, more often than not, leads to decreased quality of outreach.

Automation strategies for efficient prospecting

The good news is, with the rising trend of software consolidation we’ve witnessed over the last couple of years, the top sales automation providers cover multiple pain points, removing the constant need to jump from one tool to another.

Without further ado, here are the most efficiency-driven sales prospecting automations for B2B sales teams.

Contact database + sales intelligence

Finding targeted prospects has never been easier with the rise of numerous rich B2B contact databases, some of which contain hundreds of millions of verified emails and phone numbers!

Sales and marketing teams can filter their search by job title, company size, company budget, and countless other parameters that ensure they’re reaching the most relevant decision-makers.

Combined with a dedicated sales intelligence tool, companies can enrich their found prospects’ profiles with extra data points such as technographics, past interactions (such as website visits), social media engagement, etc.

This data-centered prospecting automation goes hand-in-hand with the modern customer journey, empowering sales teams to engage exclusively relevant prospects with hyper-personalized cold outreach.

Besides, it removes the tedious hassle of searching for prospects on the deep web and finding their contact details, let alone enriching their profiles with extra data points.

With modern B2B contact databases, sales teams can, for instance, create an extensive contact list of Sales Directors in mid-sized, US and UK-based IT companies in seconds, allowing them to focus more of their resources on effectively engaging those prospects.

Multichannel outreach

While email outreach remains king in 2024 and is more than sufficient for marketing campaigns, the rules are slightly different for sales prospecting.

Over 75% of B2B companies agree that supplementing their email outreach with phone, SMS, and social media increases the likelihood of getting their prospects’ attention and produces better results.

Some of your prospects may prefer emails to discuss business, while others are more likely to respond to a LinkedIn message where they get a good look at your sales rep and company.

And when these channels are interconnected, you create a more cohesive brand experience while further driving personalization. For instance, your email opening line could be related to their recent company milestone they shared on LinkedIn:

“Hey {{First Name}},

Congrats on your 10-year anniversary at {{Company Name}}!”

Sales engagement platforms like Reply will create the most optimal multichannel outreach sequence for each unique prospect and business case with the powers of AI and concrete data. These sequences ensure that sales teams effectively connect with prospects and never miss out on an opportunity with automated triggers for touchpoints or follow-ups.

Evergreen sequences

Now, you’ve got targeted prospect lists with relevant data points, and you’ve set up your tailored multichannel sequences that utilize that data to personalize outreach.

But what happens when you inevitably run out of prospects? The answer is pretty straightforward — your prospecting engine stops working.

With top-tier sales outreach tools, businesses can reach thousands of prospects at a time, but not all can refill their contact lists at such a rate.

This is where Evergreen Sequences come into play — a revolutionary sales automation feature that maintains continuous prospect engagement by automatically replenishing prospect lists, ensuring your prospecting efforts never stagnate.

In Reply, once users set their ideal customer profile (ICP) through numerous filters, they can activate ‘Evergreen mode’. In this case, even when they run out of contacts, the multichannel, trigger-automated sequences will keep running by pulling in contacts from our database that match their ICP.

As a result, sales teams won’t ever have to worry about running out of targeted prospects or having their outreach efforts halted, knowing that at any given moment, new potential customers are being engaged.

Try Evergreen Sequences and transform your business outreach into an evergreen success

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AI sales assistant

An AI sales assistant allows businesses to significantly scale their prospecting outreach while not only maintaining, but improving the email message quality.

First of all, B2B AI sales assistants have some form of generative AI like ChatGPT integrated into them, and we all know how great they are at writing emails! (as long as you provide an effective sales email prompt)

And even if you choose to write your own email copy, these AI assistants can analyze their quality and provide data-backed improvement suggestions.

But more importantly, AI sales assistants will personalize your emails in seconds by leveraging relevant data points in their customer profiles or LinkedIn profiles and then generate unique, humanized messages.

From saving tons of time to improving engagement rates, these sales automations are a must-have in every modern sales tool stack.

In fact, some AI sales assistants like Jason AI take it a step further by handling prospect replies and objections and even booking meetings on your behalf, on autopilot.

Generate sales emails and sequences, handle replies, or book meetings in a click with Jason AI

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Buyer intent

Buyer intent signals have been around for quite some time now, and integrating them into your sales stack will undoubtedly take your prospecting game to the next level.

They enable sales teams to prioritize prospects who are actively searching for solutions like theirs, leading to much higher conversion rates.

By setting in place real-time alerts when a prospect from your contact list shows high buyer intent, sales teams can reach out to them at the best possible time with the most optimal message.

Buyer intent data comes in different forms, but the most common ones in B2B include:

Hiring intent → prospective companies are actively growing their relevant departments, possibly requiring a new/upgraded software solution to handle bigger workflows.
Website visitor behavior → identify which pages prospects viewed and for how long, providing valuable insights into their interests and stage in their buyer journey.
Social listening → monitor social media conversations about your company, competitors, or industry trends to help identify prospects actively researching similar solutions.

The future of prospecting

Incorporating automation strategies is imperative in modern-day sales prospecting to effectively connect with potential customers, close more deals, and stay competitive.

However, it’s identifying the most efficient automations and integrating them into a cohesive workflow that will really take your sales efforts to new heights beyond just prospecting.

While the above-mentioned 5 automations are the most common efficiency-driven prospecting strategies, it lies on the shoulders of B2B execs to identify the most optimal processes for their unique audience and niche.

Once they do, however, it merely becomes a matter of equipping their team with the appropriate tool stack to automate those key prospecting processes. After that, their prospecting engine will continuously run, generating new customers on autopilot.