The prospecting glossary.
B2B prospecting terms, each defined in one sentence.
- Account-based sellingA sales approach that focuses effort on a short list of accounts chosen and followed over time, each approached through several people, rather than on a large volume of contacts handled one by one.
- Buyer personaA portrait of the person to contact in a target account, described by their role, responsibilities, priorities and the situations that directly concern them.
- Buying signalA public, dated fact attributable to an account or a person, from which you can form a hypothesis about a need related to your offer.
- Cold outreachContacting a person who does not know you and has shown no interest, decided solely on their fit with your target, with no reason tied to their news.
- Data enrichmentThe process of completing an account or contact record with the information it lacks, such as sector, size, role or professional contact details, from external sources.
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)An explicit description of the companies that face the problem your offer solves, with the observable criteria that let you recognize them.
- Intent dataData, usually bought from a vendor, that estimates an account’s interest in a topic from its searches and reading on third-party sites.
- Lead scoringA method that gives each account or contact a score combining its fit with the ideal customer profile and the freshness of observed signals, to decide the order of outreach.
- Multichannel prospectingAn approach that combines email, LinkedIn and phone to reach the same person, choosing the channel of each step according to what it must convey and where the person is active.
- Prospecting sequenceA planned series of touches, by email, LinkedIn or phone, addressed to one person from a precise reason, with spaced follow-ups and a stop rule.
- Reply rateThe share of contacted people who replied, obtained by dividing the number of people who replied by the number of people reached, over a given sequence, period or segment.
- Sales follow-upA message sent to a person who hasn’t replied to a first contact, to bring something new, ask the question from another angle or close the exchange cleanly.
- Signal decayThe gradual loss of value of a buying signal as time passes since the observed fact, because the situation it described has already evolved or been handled.
- Signal-based sellingA B2B prospecting method that triggers outreach from a public fact observed at the prospect, rather than from a list worked through in order.
- Target accountA company kept in your portfolio because it matches your ideal customer profile, and that you follow over time so you can contact it when a public fact gives a reason to.
- Trigger eventA dated change in the situation of an account or a person, such as a new role or a funding round, that creates a precise reason to get in touch in the following weeks.
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