Multi-channel prospection

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Your ideal client wakes up at 7 a.m. He drinks his coffee while watching business news on LinkedIn. On the subway, he scrolls through Instagram before arriving at work and reading his emails. He receives a few calls during the day, returns to LinkedIn several times. When he gets home, he's back on social media, reading his emails one last time and scrolling through LinkedIn looking for relevant content. 

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During all the daily activities of your ideal client, you could have been there: in an email, in content on networks, by LinkedIn message, etc. 

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That's it, the multichannel prospecting. 

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A few years ago, sales teams had no choice but to make phone calls. Today, prospecting can take many forms, and above all, combine these different choices. 

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So how do you make the right choices?

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What are the key points for an effective multi-channel prospecting strategy? 

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This is what we will see together in this article!

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Understanding multichannel prospecting

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Multichannel prospecting: definition 

Multichannel prospecting is a sales strategy that involves using multiple communication channels simultaneously to identify prospects and convert them into customers. 

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The objective of this strategy is to adapt to the prospect's different habits to optimize your chances of conversion. 

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This approach allows you to improve your visibility, and above all diversify your points of contact, therefore increasing your chances of engaging your prospects. 

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The importance of multichannel prospecting in the business world

In 2024, prospecting no longer follows a single path. Your prospect is reachable : 

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• on social networks 
• by email 
• by phone 
• via trade fairs 
• via networking events
• and many others.

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Since the Internet, and especially in recent years, the behavior of prospects has clearly evolved. They are connected 80% of their time to a screen, particularly on the Internet.

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Today, you can very easily know the behavior of the prospect: 

• What he does with his day 
• On which social network he is present 
• What is their purchasing journey? 

It’s up to you to be present where your prospect is! 

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Multi-channel prospecting also serves the objective of credibility. Being present on several communication channels shows a more accessible image of your company. It’s a proximity that prospects want today. 

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How Multi-Channel Prospecting Changed the Business Landscape 

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Multi-channel prospecting has changed the business landscape in 5 ways: 

• Points of contact : we have moved from physical visits to digital channels (email, social networks, etc.), which has revolutionized the connections between the salesperson and the prospect. 
• Personalization of messages : With all the data you have, personalizing your approach becomes (almost) too easy. For example, you can send a LinkedIn message like this: « Hello ((First name)), I just read your Linkedin post which talks about (subject), I found the initiative great and it reminds me of (subject rebound). In connection with this post I thought it would be interesting to talk to you about what we do with our client (xxxxx) on.......».
• The power of the commercial relationship : your prospects hold a mountain of information about your company. The idea is to give them maximum added value at each stage of the customer journey. 
• Acceleration of the sales cycle : with multiple channels, there are no more excuses for not finding your prospect and sending them a message. Is your prospect not responding to your emails? Send him a message on LinkedIn! This method allows you to get answers faster, and potentially speed up your sales cycle. 

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• The evolving role of salespeople : With so many new channels, the skills of your sales team have naturally expanded. In addition to converting your prospects into customers, your team must now align with the Marketing strategy, provide content, use tools to facilitate sales and analyze data. 

The advantages of multichannel prospecting

Any communication channel can be a good idea, depending on your strategy. 

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Here are 3 advantages of multichannel prospecting: 

Multiple points of contact with potential customers

The main advantage of multi-channel prospecting is that you can be anywhere. 

A large online presence means more opportunities to interact with your prospects. 

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If you are present on 3 social networks, by email, by SMS, by telephone, you already have 6 different ways to reach your prospect, each with their specific advantages. 

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Magnificent, right? 

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By being present on different communication channels, you mark a constant presence in the mind of your prospect. You become TOP OF MIND (= expression which means that you will be the first when your prospect thinks of a particular subject).

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And the day he has a need that you can meet, he will think of you. 

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Top of Mind = The first person we will think of

Improving company visibility

Instead of being limited to one or two channels, you make yourself visible where your prospect spends a lot of their time. 

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For example, if your strategy is to be active on social networks and share content for your prospects, the algorithms will put you forward more. 

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If you apply this method across multiple channels, you will significantly improve your ability to be discovered by your prospects. 

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If your prospect regularly sees the name of your company, he will be more likely to respond to you when you send him a prospecting message. He will feel like he knows you and the first connection will be smoother. 

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Increasing the conversion rate through a personalized approach

A valuable advantage of multi-channel prospecting is that it allows you to better segment and personalize messages based on prospect behavior on each channel. 

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With the information you have collected, you will be able to create messages, tailor-made offers, more relevant to your target. 

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For example, you see that one of your prospects comments on your LinkedIn posts and asks questions. A relevant hook would be to share content that specifically answers their questions, and offer them a call to discuss further. 

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The benefits of this approach: 

• A stronger commitment
• A higher response rate 

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How to implement an effective multi-channel prospecting strategy 

Enough theory, time for action! 

The different stages of implementing a multichannel prospecting strategy

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Step 1: Define your target audience 

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In addition to understanding your prospects, you must understand your audience, and define in advance: 

• Who will read your content?
• Who may be interested in your business? 
• What are their obstacles and how can we respond to them?

This can have different behaviors from one channel to another.

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Step 2: Choose the right communication channels 

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Depending on the habits of your audience, you must select the most suitable channels. In 90% of cases, in the B2B world, you will favor emails and LinkedIn. 

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Maybe you are a decoration company and your prospects are on Instagram. Maybe your prospects prefer phone calls. 

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It’s up to you to adapt 🙂

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Step 3: adapt your message to each channel 

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Once you have adopted the right communication channels, you must adapt for each of them (otherwise, it would be too easy!). 

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You are not going to send the same message by email as on LinkedIn, for several reasons: 

• your prospect is not at the same level in the purchasing journey 
• You are not going to distribute the same information 

The tools needed for successful multi-channel prospecting

Having a personalized message for each prospect, on each channel,…it’s a long and tedious job! This is why there are ready-to-use multi-channel prospecting tools: 

• And CRM (Customer Relationship Management) 

A CRM tool will help you centralize all information about your prospects. You will also be able to monitor interactions on each channel and see the opening rate of your messages. 

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Examples of tools: Hubspot, Salesforce

• Automation tools 

Automation tools will save your life! They allow you to retrieve the list of your prospects, collect valuable information about them and automatically send a personalized message to each of them.

This is what Humanlinker offers: the all-in-one tool which concentrates information collection, message suggestions and sending automation. 

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PS: you can test for free by clicking here ! 

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• Social media management tools 

You can also use social media management tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to make sharing content easier. 

• Analysis and reporting tools 

Last but not least type of tools: analysis tools. Thanks to them, you analyze the impact of your messages and can adapt them according to the results. 

Best practices for effective multi-channel prospecting

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With Humanlinker, we have tested dozens of multi-channel prospecting strategies. Here are the 5 best practices for prospecting effectively: 

1. Segment your prospects : the more you create “categories” of prospects (according to their behavior, habits, type), the more you will send the right message.
2. Personalize your messages : the magic of good multi-channel prospecting is the right message to the right person, at the right time (the strong point of Humanlinker) 
3. Ensure consistency between your communication channels : each action taken must have meaning for your strategy, and in the eyes of readers. The idea is therefore to adapt your message while keeping a similar tone and common values ​​for all your content. 
4. Analyze your performance : if each channel has its own strategy, each action must be analyzed. This will allow your team to optimize performance and obtain better conversion rates. 
5. Test and adapt : in Marketing and Sales, the worst thing to say to yourself is: “we’ve always done it like this”. With the multitude of existing strategies, we advise you to constantly test and try new ideas. Don’t hesitate to A/B test your messages to maximize your performance. 

Examples of success in multi-channel prospecting 

Let’s take the example of 2 companies that have succeeded in their multi-channel prospecting strategy: 

Doctolib

Doctolib (which you probably know) has a very strong B2B approach when it comes to addressing healthcare professionals. To do this, they implemented a very effective multi-channel prospecting strategy.

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They use: 

• LinkedIn campaigns
• Very personalized emails 
• Webinars and physical meetings in specialized trade fairs

This strategy has led to reaching a large number of prospects in the medical sector, while having a personalized approach for each segment of their potential customers. 

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We all know where this strategy got them! 

The Owl

Le Hibou is a French platform specializing in connecting companies with freelance IT and digital experts. They therefore have 2 main targets: freelancers and B2B companies. 

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To carry out their multichannel prospecting, they have: 

• Publish content and prospect via LinkedIn 
• Shared resources via their blog and webinars 
• Segmented and personalized all of their email campaigns
• Completed the strategy with phone calls to engage decision makers 

Today, Le Hibou works with more than 500 big companies who trust them. 

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What lesson can we learn from these two examples? 

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The important thing is to have a specific and personalized approach for each channel. Without forgetting good segmenter son audience : by industry, by role in the company, by geography…

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Test multichannel prospecting for free to get more sales appointments

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Concretely, how to implement an effective multi-channel prospecting strategy? 

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It's all well and good to talk about personalization and segmentation, but without automating these actions, it can become a real headache! 

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The secret to successful multi-channel prospecting: tools used on a daily basis. 
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Thanks to artificial intelligence, you will be able to:

• Import your list of prospects and collect all the information 
• Obtain ultra-personalized message templates and suggestions using AI
• Automate the sending of hundreds of personalized content to your different segments
• BONUS : create multi-channel prospecting strategies to expand your online presence

Don’t hesitate to test our solution for free, without obligation! You will be able to test all of our functionalities and create prospecting courses multicanaThey are effective. 

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Test for free by clicking here ! 

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You understand, to seduce your prospect, don’t hesitate to go through the door and the windows! 

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To summarize, here is how you should establish your multichannel prospecting: 

• define your audience and segment it 
• Establish yourself on different channels to speak to your audience 
• Personalize your approaches, your messages, your content. 

Personalizing your content means satisfying your prospects.