If you’re in sales, there’s a good chance you spend a large portion of your time prospecting.
And while your marketing team, an explosion of social networks, and the arrival of various cloud-based contact databases (such as Spokeo, which is the subject of a Supreme Court tussle right now) have all helped with that effort over the last decade, it is still time-consuming finding the right people to talk to. Naturally, salespeople have turned to business-focused social networks, like LinkedIn, to aid their prospecting efforts.
But while cutting-edge “Sales 2.0” proponents weave their spell over the likes of LinkedIn, it can be a difficult platform for many salespeople (and Hillary Clinton, who allegedly doesn’t understand how it works) to get to grips with.
Today, Gravitocity has announced a major update to its sales prospecting web app, which now helps locate and engage business prospects by leveraging contact data found in social networks.
“LinkedIn has become a de-facto standard for individuals around the world to maintain a public profile,” Frank Tolve, CEO at Gravitocity, told me. “But without business email addresses and phone numbers for everyone, and because advanced search results are limited, LinkedIn only provides part of a solution when prospecting for new business. Other technologies are required to obtain and verify accurate business contact data, and outreach using standard email is preferred over approaches like InMail.”
The new Gravitocity interface lets users enter search terms to find targeted prospects, which can then be selectively added to an email-based engagement process. This process helps gauge prospect interest in real time by monitoring open rates, click-throughs, and visits to landing pages. Emails can be based on shared templates that incorporate the best sales practices. The system includes an automatic rating system so sales teams know which messages work better than others at gaining prospect attention.
Here’s how it works.
Simply, a salesperson searches by name, job title, industry, work experience, and other key identifiers. Gravitocity then goes to work, leveraging social networks and data repositories — such as LinkedIn, Data.com, and Zoominfo — in order to find the best prospects. Once identified, the salesperson can send emails and set up personalized landing pages (something that the new generation of buyers demand these days). Clicks, views, and other metrics are tracked to help the salesperson understand the engagement level of the prospect, as well as the best time to follow up with them.
A bulk import feature allows inside sales teams to discover current contact details quickly, and a Chrome web app adds a Gravitocity button next to Google people searches to allow the quick ingestion of contact details into the system for email outreach.
All prospects are held in a “light CRM” that allows salespeople to keep notes on their prospecting activities. These can be exported as a CSV file for upload to the main CRM, which could be good or bad news for sales organizations.
Some will like this approach because “suspects” are kept out of the main CRM until they are responding and engaging, helping to keep the main database clear of those people who are unlikely to ever buy from you.
Others prefer all data to be held in a single CRM solution, regardless of whether they are engaging or not, and Gravitocity could cause a fragmented view of the prospect base without proper management. An enterprise plan includes integration with Salesforce, for those that are interested in avoiding fragmentation of potential customer data.
The new version of Gravitocity is available today, with plans starting at $65 per user per month.
Salespeople could use Gravitocity’s new web app to avoid a ‘Hillary Clinton LinkedIn’ moment
from VentureBeat » Social Media Companies | Social Network News | VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1Q9xlmH
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