Suspect your suspects are actually prospects?

Foundational to even the most basic understanding of the sales process is the ability to clearly distinguish the key players to which our efforts are directed: Suspects, Prospects and Customers. This is especially vital because those efforts should follow different strategies based on the target. While we can all comfortably define a customer, the distinction between suspects and prospects isn’t always as apparent. Not to be confused with a prospect, a suspect is an individual identified based a potential need for your product—usually procured from list purchases, trade events, or pulled from various free online and offline sources. In order for a suspect to become a prospect, marketing must raise awareness of your product or service. When awareness becomes demand and your suspect demonstrates interest, you should then consider he/she to be pre-qualified prospect. Move them into your sales pipeline!

Tags: B2B Marketing and Communications, Database Management, Database Marketing, Marketing Best Practices, Product Marketing, Sales Process, Sales Support, Sarah Pyle, TME Communications