How AI Helps With Sales Prospecting [+ New Data and ChatGPT Prompt Templates for...

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72% of marketing professionals believe that by 2030, AI/automation will be advanced enough to reach out to prospects completely independently.

Prospecting is an extremely critical step in the sales process and by adopting AI, you're bound to develop strategies that'll help you secure leads more successfully. But as AI technology continues to rapidly evolve, sales folks are realizing that it can be used for more than just lead nurturing.

Read on to learn more about using AI for sales prospecting, specific use cases for generative AI, and how today's sales and marketing pros are reimagining their sales strategy with AI not just in mind but at the forefront of their customer acquisition efforts.

Table of Contents:

• How AI Helps With Sales Prospecting
• AI for Sales Prospecting
• How to Use Generative AI for Sales Prospecting

AI for Sales Prospecting

Salespeople that responded to our recent AI survey said they use AI/automation in prospecting for:

• Lead scoring and qualifying leads
• Writing prospect outreach content
• Personalizing prospect outreach

1. Lead scoring and qualifying leads.

Qualifying your leads is a critical part of prospecting because you learn how relevant they are to what you offer and exactly what to say to communicate how your product/service solves their pain points.

36% of salespeople use AI/automation tools that offer data-driven insights, which includes lead scoring tools. 42% of folks also report these tools are most effective at writing content for prospect outreach (email, texts, messages, etc.)

HubSpot's Predictive Lead Scoring Software uses machine learning to identify the highest quality leads in your pipeline from thousands of data points and your custom scoring criteria.

2. Personalizing your prospecting efforts.

22% of salespeople agree AI/automation tools make their prospecting efforts more personalized. And while this particular percentage is low, how sales folks are using AI and automation tools to create prospecting materials - like writing call scripts for cold/warm calling (41%) and repurposing sales content for different audiences (47%) - is significantly higher.

Personalization can be the difference between making a case with a unique value proposition versus having a prospect feel like they're on the receiving end of a canned template. Plus, lots of salespeople are also saying that selling works best when tailored solutions are offered to prospects, making personalization more important than ever.

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AI helps you prioritize personalization by analyzing available information online about your prospects and compiling it for you to learn from. You'll get a well-rounded view of them and their business, helping you create a targeted strategy that speaks to their needs.

Personalization also helps with building rapport, which is how successful salespeople are exceeding sales targets/quotas.

Writing prospect outreach content.

AI can help you write personalized and compelling messages for prospects. Once you have the information you need about them, simply give your preferred tool everything it needs to know and ask it to write the content for you.

49% of salespeople say generative AI tools are effective for writing sales content and prospect outreach messages, and many use these tools for tasks like writing emails and social media messages.

For example, Content Assistant can help you quickly write emails to your most qualified leads. Simply note the type of email you want, what you're selling, what you want to communicate, and click generate.

Get started with HubSpot's AI tools

Some other ways salespeople use generative AI for prospecting are repurposing existing sales content (salespeople say it's most helpful for this) and rewriting messages to fit different audiences.

How to Use Generative AI for Sales Prospecting

Writing prospect outreach content gets easier with generative AI. Below, I'll go over some ways to use ChatGPT to write prospect outreach messages.

ChatGPT to Write Prospecting Emails

Your emails to prospects should be helpful, clear, concise, and persuasive, so crafting the perfect email is important.

Here's a prompt I shared with ChatGPT and the email it wrote for me.

I want to email a sales director to introduce my company, Field. Field specializes in helping people access their sales data within one app for on-the-go salespeople. Write a short email to a sales director of door-to-door sales on how my app makes it easy to access key sales data during in-the-field sales operations.

The email was a bit long, so I also asked it to be shortened.

Pro Tip: You can also leverage gen AI to write specific segments of your emails, like persuasive bullet points. For example,

• Write [number] persuasive points I can include in an email to encourage customers to buy my product that [how it works]

ChatGPT to Repurpose Prospecting Content

As mentioned, salespeople also use generative AI to repurpose messages. Let's repurpose the email above into a short LinkedIn message with the prompt:

Rewrite the above email into a short and to-the-point LinkedIn message

Here's what happens if I ask it to change the tone of the message to be witty.

Pro Tip: Generative AI tools run on a select number of memory tokens, so it's best to repurpose all your messages in the same thread.

ChatGPT for Sales Prospecting Call Scripts

A script can help you stay focused on a call and ensure you touch on all key points and relevant information.

I shared this prompt:

I'm calling a sales operations manager to introduce my company, Field. Field specializes in helping people access their sales data within one app for on-the-go access to key sales data. Write a call script to a sales operations manager about how my app is a helpful enablement tool for in-the-field sales.

Here's a snippet of what it wrote:

Pro Tip: You can also ask a tool to generate key talking points for a call or questions you can ask during a call. Here are some prompts:

• What questions should I ask a prospect during a sales call to uncover their needs so I can decide if they're qualified for my product?
• Write [number] key talking points for a call where present my product as a solution for [pain point]

Want to learn more about AI? Check out the Artificial Intelligence learning path to dive deeper into AI and different ways to leverage it.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Topics: Artificial Intelligence

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