How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

05/05/2014 5 min read Written by Lynton

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps SalesI’ve talked about how your website can help your sales team close leads. HubSpot may be known for marketing automation and analytics. Yet for those who have sunk their teeth into both Signals and the Prospects tool also know that HubSpot is fantastic for sales. If you’re like me, you are all over the built in sales tools within HubSpot.

The Prospects tool is yet another way to give your sales team a handle on your leads and the information they need to take action. It’s less obvious than Signals, to paraphrase Chris O’Donnell, it’s like having a bucket filled with 95% sand and 5% gold. You can spend the time and find the gold if you take the right approach. I want you to be able to find the gold, let’s go through how to use the prospecting tool and what the data is telling you.

Step 1- Start filtering the sand

There is a ton of data that is not useful to you and you need to do some cleanup.. Not everyone that comes to your website works for a telecomm,  despite what the prospecting tool looks like at first glance.

Why does this happen? The information in the Prospects tool is based on the registration of the individual IP address. Most individuals are going to be linked to, say, Comcast. Bigger businesses have registered IP addresses that will link back to them and not their internet provider. Clicking the minus box will remove the “sand” from your tool and move you closer towards just showing relevant prospects.

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

Step 2- Is your lead gold plated or 24 carats?

The prospects tool gives you the ability to see people window shopping on your website, what they have viewed, and the frequency. With a quick glance I can see how many pages Farm Design has visited, how many people have come to my website, and how many leads have given me their information.

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

Step 3- You found the golden lead, here's what to do next:

  1. Star the prospect and keep an eye on the activity so that you can take action later when they have been on your site longer.
  2. Get researching and reaching out! By looking them up on Linkedin you can do some preliminary information gathering and learn more about who is looking at the website. Did you come up with a few decision makers? Great, take a note of who they are- we are going to come back to this.

Step 4- Let’s Look Under the Hood

Summary Tab:

Digging deeper into the tool you are able to see a quick summary of this prospect. The summary tab tells you more about the campaigns the lead is enrolled in as well as the source. This gives you a quick pulse of what they have been looking at. The more bottom of the funnel content they have been reading and visiting the higher the likelihood is that they are ready to have a conversation.

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

Content Tab:

The content tab shows the pages and content a prospect has viewed. Knowing what the audience is reading arms you with information on where they are in the sales process. Did they read a case study, about us and pricing pages? If so, they are shopping for your solution and ready for a conversation. The number of page views highlights their readiness for a discussion. If they have been living on your pricing page and it’s had 50 visitors it’s up to you to take action.

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

People and Timeline Tabs:

So who do you reach out to? First, if there is a registered lead you are going to be able to see their activity in the people tab. A quick check at the timeline and you’ll see how long they have been on each page and when they were there. A quick look at their company website and you are now armed with the information you need to make a well informed sales call.

How the HubSpot Prospects Tool Helps Sales

But what do you do if there aren’t any registered leads, but you’ve seen a ton of traffic from a prospect coming to your site?

Looking up that company on Linkedin early on gave you a list of who is in the company, now’s the time to use this information to your benefit. Find the decision maker or buyer persona- put the charm on and reach out.

Always remember you are still following the principles of inbound marketing. Don’t just give the prospects you found a sales call with an awful irrelevant pitch. You are still here to help prospects, not alienate them. The prospecting tool has given you the insight into who has been looking at your website, even if they didn’t decide to download any content. Do your research and understand how your company can help. If a prospect is spending time on your website and looking at what you do and the cost, chances are they also think you may be able to provide support or a solution.

You Just Got HubSpot... Now What!?

 

 

By: Lynton

Lynton is a HubSpot Elite Partner that provides certified knowledge and tools to grow your business through integrated inbound marketing, including lead generation strategies, website designs and development, and CRM integrations.

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