We’d bet your sales team doesn’t solely rely on a steady stream of warm leads coming in from your website. They’re out hunting for the next big win!
But without proper prospecting techniques and tactics, your team may realize a little too late that hot lead doesn’t actually have budget, their tech stack doesn’t play nicely with your product, or their industry requires certain features and security standards.
Gone are the days of spray and pray prospecting (if they ever should have existed in the first place is a different story…). The best and brightest sales professionals are focused on ensuring that a company aligns with their ideal customer profiles before they ever send a cold email or slide into the DMs.
We believe in empowering all reps to perform at their best — so we’re giving away the secret sauce on the techniques, tactics, and technologies teams are using to excel at prospecting in today’s AI-powered sales environment.
What you need to know about sales prospecting
Sales prospecting is the systematic process of identifying potential customers (prospects),reaching out to them, building interest, and converting them into qualified leads. Sales prospecting is usually the responsibility of junior level salespeople who are just learning your product or service, how you sell it, and your sales tools, yet often more senior sellers are responsible for building their own pipeline.
Without a consistent and effective prospecting strategy that blends personalization with efficiency, your sales pipeline will cost you far more than it should in dollars and sense. While a task often given to the greenest folks, proper prospecting can make a huge difference in whether a team hits their sales quota.
As the first step in the sales process, those on the frontlines should be armed with the latest and greatest tools and tactics… but often are left to their own devices or handed an outdated sales playbook that was last updated three years ago.
But don’t fret: we’re here to help! Keep reading to discover the best new sales prospecting tips and tricks top performers are using today.
7 techniques for better sales prospecting
From using AI sales tools to video prospecting, we’re giving you real-world examples to help you improve your prospecting process today.
1. Make the most of your CRM and sales automation tools
Do you know all of the features available in your CRM? What about your sales automation tools like Outreach, Gong, or Salesloft?
You may have been provided some sales training in regards to using these tools — but have you done your own exploration? Even the best sales managers miss out on the newest feature that could unlock more revenue or at least save time. This is especially true in the age of artificial intelligence, where sales tools are adding new AI-powered features from AI agents that can help with company research or handling notetaking and ensuring all fields are updated.
These systems are powered by accurate company and contact information so you can ensure you’re reaching the right people with the right message. They also offer the ability to create sales sequences that leverage a variety of sales channels including email, phone, and LinkedIn so you can connect with prospects however, wherever.
Pro tip: Contact tracking enables teams to get alerts when a prospect is promoted or changes companies, creating an easy opportunity to engage with prospects by congratulating them.
2. Focus on building a high-quality prospect list
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel
How do you identify which companies and contacts to reach out to? If you’re still manually looking for companies that match the ideal customer profiles (ICPs) marketing put together two years ago, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Today, teams can use AI to identify patterns in existing customers to identify target audiences and use predictive lead scoring that is based not only on who is buying but actually using their products.
Newer companies or those going to market with a new product don’t have to go in blind either — sales tools like Clay use AI research and unique filters to find prospects across any region, industry segment, size, and more with all-in-one access to over 100+ integrated data providers.
Pro tip: If you haven’t checked out Linkedin Sales Navigator’s latest AI-enhanced features to help teams build prospect lists, you’re missing out!
3. Personalize your messaging to boost engagement
Personalization has been preached for years – but the actual practice of personalization can be… a hot mess. We’ve all received a cringe-worthy “personalized” email or Linkedin message that mentions our job title, a recent but irrelevant news article, and, worst of all, your alma mater but adds no actual value or real insight into our goals, needs, and desires.
Real personalization used to require real effort – like demoing the prospect’s product or going to page 3 of their Google results to really get the insider information. But now, tools like Gong enable easy, in-depth research and can even write personalized sales emails at scale.
Pro tip: Teams that use video see a 16% increase in open rates and a 26% increase in replies. Vidyard’s AI Avatars make it easy to send personalized video messages at scale!
4. Combine multiple channels to increase touchpoints
If you’re only using email to connect with prospects, you’re missing out! You’re also missing out if you think the days of cold calling prospects are dead.
The best teams are combining multiple channels with their outbound sales sequences to increase the likelihood of standing out. Many sales automation platforms enable teams to create sales sequences that include phone calls, emails, social media engagement, and even personalized direct mail and gifts via integrations with Sendoso.
Even if you don’t have the tools to automate multi-channel sales sequences, it’s worth the manual effort. But just like bad personalization is going to turn off any prospect, you don’t want to come on too strong and give off weird vibes by constantly trying to get someone’s attention.
Like all things in life, it’s all about balance.
Pro tip: Don’t forget about referrals! Reach out to existing satisfied customers on LinkedIn or having your customer success team send them an email asking if they’d be willing to make some intros.
Our free Chrome Extension makes it easy to get started or you can request a demo with our team to see our latest features including our Video Agents that can automatically send personalized videos based on actions prospects take like visiting a certain page or attending a webinar.
5. Use video to stand out and build trust
We already mentioned how video in email can increase open and response rates — but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data behind the power of personalized video.
Here are just a few b2b sales video stats:
- When teams combine video and AI agents, they are 52% more likely to see improved prospect engagement. (Vidyard, 2025)
- Over 42% of teams using video and AI are more likely to see increased win rates. (Vidyard, 2025)
- Video first touch, followed by infographic, performed 400% better, creating more opportunities than other cadences. (B2B DecisionLabs, 2022)
Recording videos used to require research, script writing, filming, and editing. But the dog days are over — Vidyard’s AI Avatars powered by AI video script generators take the pain out of personalization. All you have to do is upload a 90 second video and create your avatar that can create sales videos at scale!
Our free Chrome Extension makes it easy to get started or you can request a demo with our team to see our latest features including our Video Agents that can automatically send personalized videos based on actions prospects take like visiting a certain page or attending a webinar.
Pro tip: Our video analytics enable teams to know when prospects watched the video and where they were most engaged, so you can not only time the perfect follow up but personalize it with what interests them the most.
6. Follow up strategically and consistently
According to the data, salespeople seemingly suck at following up with prospects: 70% of reps only send one email to prospects and 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up call.
But study after study shows that one and done is never enough. Cold email outreach campaigns with three emails generally generate the highest reply rates, averaging 9.2%.
Just by crafting a personalized, thoughtful, multi-touch outbound sequence, you can see great results. Now add in video messaging in your follow-up emails and you can really heat things up!
Pro tip: If you were able to get that initial response but the prospect fell off, think about sending relevant content or invite them to an upcoming event or webinar that you think is relevant to them.
7. Keep learning from what works
Anything worth doing is worth learning from! Depending on the sales tools in your stack, making data-driven choices about what subject lines to use, what personalization is working, or what video messages are being viewed the most can be pretty easy. Sales technology companies have invested a ton of time and money into ensuring that both leaders and reps have access to data – but if they actually use it is a bit of a different story.
While integrating data and learning into your process can feel intimidating, it doesn’t have to be. First things first, don’t boil the ocean! Think about a specific thing you want to test out to get a clear understanding of what works best such as email subject lines, personalization tactics, or outreach channels.
If you’re a solo rep at a startup, think about running a few tests every quarter and tracking the results as well as you can. If you’re one rep of hundreds at a global enterprise, make sure leadership understands that all reps can and should be learning from each other.
Inbound vs. outbound prospecting: which one works best?
When folks think of prospecting, they’re generally referring to outbound prospecting. Outbound prospecting is the proactive outreach to potential customers through cold calling, cold emailing, social selling such as sending LinkedIn direct messages, and video prospecting.
Inbound prospecting refers to attracting prospects and building relationships with them through strategic content, webinars, in-person events like networking events and tradeshows, and posting on social media platforms while focusing on prospect pain points. Inbound prospecting works best for audiences who prefer to self-educate or can buy tools on their own without the need for budget approval such as self-service SaaS products.
You might be thinking… this sounds like marketing? In a sense, inbound prospecting is marketing – but it’s what happens after someone takes action like downloading a white paper or signing up for a free trial where the real efforts from sales teams come in to convert them into a long-term customer. It’s all about lead generation!
Outbound prospecting is often layered on top of inbound efforts and is generally seen in companies with more complex products, higher sales prices, and service-based organizations. Inbound prospecting builds your brand and trust within the broader market while outbound can accelerate sales velocity through strategic outreach.
How to measure and improve your prospecting success
The best sales teams know that successful prospecting is all about continuous learning. Even if you’re a team of one, you can still measure and improve your efforts – and it doesn’t have to involve complex equations or spreadsheets.
Sales prospecting metrics to track include:
-
- Response rate: Percentage of total outreach (e.g., emails or calls) that receives a reply. This includes all responses, even those who are declining your product or service. Decision makers are busy – so even getting a no can be an indicator that your sales outreach is resonating.
- Contact rate: Percentage of total outreach that turns into a qualified sales conversation. These are the yeses from total response rates.
- Conversion rate (lead to opportunity): Percentage of leads that become sales-qualified opportunities. This goes beyond just positive responses – these are those who make it to the next phase of the sales funnel and turn into sales qualified leads (SQLs).
- Pipeline value from prospecting: Estimated deal value of opportunities that originated from prospecting efforts. This helps leaders understand the actual revenue coming from reps and can be measured across the team and individually.
- Revenue from prospecting: The actual revenue generated from closed deals that originated through prospecting efforts. In bigger teams, account executives (or whatever your business calls the closers!) have a big influence on this number but it’s still critical to track – including measuring between the lost and won revenue. A big gap can be an indicator of issues in closing, not in prospecting!
Did you spot the metric we didn’t mention? Activity volume. This old school way of measuring rep productivity is outdated and can lead to teams focused on quantity rather than quality. If your company still focuses on this as the top prospecting metric and sales goal that matters, you’re doing everyone a disservice.
While there are no set numbers for any of these metrics, some general data about reply rates, open rates, etc… can be found online. However, we think the best way of measuring prospecting effectiveness is based on your company’s own historical data.
Again, don’t try to boil the ocean and improve every metric at once. Teams often find that by focusing on improving a specific metric, others will naturally rise.
While your sales software should automatically track most of these metrics, individual reps should also keep track and report to management. This isn’t just for showing productivity, it’s also ensuring that compensation is correct if team members receive commission or bonuses.
What’s next and how to tackle prospecting challenges
Every sales team is feeling the challenges and changes happening. Whether it’s the rise of AI, budgets being slashed, or standing out in the inbox — the problems start coming and they don’t stop coming.
But if folks in sales are good at anything, it’s adapting and overcoming. As we look to the future, it’s about keeping that attitude and continuing to evolve.
What’s on the horizon: Tech innovations and video strategies
While trends come and go, some things are bigger than just hype. In Hubspot’s recent State of AI report, they highlighted that 43% of sales professionals indicated that they use AI at work. From generative AI tools like ChatGPT or those specifically designed for sales communications to AI Avatars helping teams scale video outreach, it’s clear that technology will continue to be the foundation of sales.
We’re also seeing the rise of AI sales agents — tools that automate sales tasks like lead qualification, follow-ups, scheduling, and sales coaching. Vidyard recently released our Video Agents, enabling teams to automate the creation of personalized videos based on actions prospects or customers take such as after attending an event or filling out a demo request.
As we look to what’s next in sales prospecting, we’re feeling excited! Enabling those in the front lines to spend more time connecting with potential buyers instead of handling repetitive (but necessary!) tasks will unlock more revenue for all.
Tackling future sales prospecting challenges
While sales is evolving, the problems that salespeople face are likely to stay the same. Identifying high-quality prospects, finding ways to break through the noise, and dealing with rejection are sales challenges as old as time.
Whether you’ve been in sales for decades or are just starting out, knowing how to overcome while not burning out is key. Leaders need to provide sales coaching beyond the basics such as empathy training and objection handling. While having a growth mindset is critical, even the best of us can get tired of hearing no.
If you’re hearing too many nos, it’s likely less about you and more about bigger issues underlying your prospecting efforts. Whether it’s relying on outdated sales scripts and playbooks to not having the right tools, don’t go right to blaming and shaming.
Sales managers and leaders need to ensure they’re focusing their team’s efforts on high-value sales activities and ensuring their teams know how to prioritize efforts and manage their time.
Starting with ensuring that teams have the right sales prospecting tools and know how to use them is the best first step.
Partnering with Vidyard to take your prospecting to the next level
We’ve talked about innovative sales prospecting techniques, top metrics to track, and the most important metrics to track. All of this is underpinned by having the right tools and using all of their available features to enhance efforts.
Vidyard believes in empowering every rep to be their best — and it’s at the core of every product decision we make. Our sales video messaging technology has helped over 100,000 teams around the world achieve better results, faster. Don’t just take our word for it — read how Pavilion was able to increase response rates 2x and achieve an 8x ROI through personalized video.
While you’re at it, take Vidyard for a free test drive or request a demo with our team to see our latest features including our Video Sales Agents and AI Avatars.
Good luck out there!
