5 essential levers to increase the performance of your prospect relationship management (PRM)

Apart from purchases of consumer goods or impulse purchases, becoming a customer may require time for reflection and preparation. This is the case for commercial relations in B2B, but also for the B2C of the purchase of more expensive or engaging products. This pre-purchase phase is an opportunity for brands, which must maintain the relationship with their prospects until conversion: this is called prospect relationship management, or PRM. The time of massive prospecting campaigns by phone, email or mail is over: today, acquiring a new customer is based on a finer and more personalized relational communication: this is the challenge of prospect relationship management, or PRM.

Prospecting optimization solutions exist at each level of the customer journey, from targeting to nurturing (maintaining the prospect relationship).

1. Publish content and generate interest

The purchase of an engaging product or service goes through a preparation phase by the prospect, and therefore a search for useful information and content. By creating informative content, the brand can therefore position itself higher in the prospect’s journey.

Thus, for a travel brand, it is for example very useful to offer practical content on destinations, preparation advice, or even testimonials. This content responds to each stage of the preparation: from inspiration (choosing your destination) to preparing for the trip once the destination has been chosen (practical advice, information on the destination, testimonials).

This content is part of an inbound marketing approach: the prospect naturally comes to the brand, on their own, because it answers their questions.

2. Collect data

Once the prospect has been attracted to the brand, the next step is of course to collect data in order to be able to contact the prospect again, in a “lead nurturing” approach.

Behavioral data

Behavioral data may be of interest to personalize the site during a future user session.

For example, keeping the user’s search parameters makes it possible to define a display of products adapted to his profile or his search during future visits:

for a trip: number of people, types of accommodation
for a clothing product: size, color, etc.

For an e-commerce site, behavioral data is useful for optimizing the site’s e-merchandising, i.e. the products highlighted or suggested. The visitor’s profile is gradually refined over the course of their sessions and the products consulted: the order of the products in the catalog or the suggested products can then be adapted according to the segment to which the visitor belongs.

Newsletter subscription and smart pop-in

Even if behavioral data is useful, the most important thing for the PRM is of course to collect contact data, and generally the email. The easiest way is to offer a subscription to a newsletter. You still have to offer it at the right time, and with a convincing message.

The suggestion of subscription to the newsletter can be made intelligently, thanks to a “smart popin”: this device consists of displaying the newsletter subscription window at a relevant time, for example when the user is about to leave the site by closing the browser tab.

Similarly, a smart pop-in can offer a download of relevant content to the visitor. This technique is rather used in B2B, to offer a guide, a study or a white paper.

Creating an account to access a service

Even more effective for collecting data on a prospect: offering a value-added service in exchange for creating a user account. The prospect, even before his purchase, enters into an in-depth relationship with the brand, because the latter accompanies him in a more personalized way in the response to his need.

There are many examples, but we can cite for example 3D design tools in the field of interior design, or the configuration of a car model.

3. Centralize data to make better use of it

Customer Data Platform

The prospect data collected must be centralized in a suitable platform. Of course, this platform must unify prospect data and customer data: this platform is generally what is called a Customer Data Platform (CDP).

This platform will allow relational communication tools to use all the data collected on prospects and customers. It provides the means to segment and analyze PRM/CRM data, with a continuous view of the customer lifecycle.

Here is the diagram of a CDP, in this case, the Decide AI solution from the Dékuple group:

Lead Scoring

Once prospect data is centralized, it becomes possible to create “heat scores” to prioritize leads. A lead score corresponds to the conversion potential of a lead based on the behaviors detected.

The criteria are to be adapted to each case, but it can be for example:

• the frequency of visits to the site, the quality of these visits
• the type of content consulted (example: offer page)
• downloading one or more content
• use of a service
• subscription to the newsletter, and interactions in this newsletter
• interactions with a chat bot

Lead score analysis screen with CDP Decide AI:

This score makes it possible to trigger specific actions to transform the lead. These actions again depend on the context, and are very different between B2C and B2B. In B2B, a hot lead is usually contacted by a salesperson. In B2C, for a high-value product (e.g. booking a trip, buying a car, etc.), the contact can also be contacted by a sales advisor or a call center operator. For a less engaging product, the detection of a hot lead can simply generate specific targeting in the media or via relational communication levers (SMS, etc.).

Segmentation, personalization

In the same way that behavioral tracking makes it possible to give a heat score to a lead prospect, it makes it possible to place the lead in segments: for example, by affinity with product categories, or by theme.

For this, the content distributed via the site or emails must themselves be associated with themes, categories and products, in order to allow this segmentation.

A personalization engine then makes it possible to dynamically personalize the content of the site, or the emails sent to the prospect in the lead nurturing sequence.

4. Marketing automation sequences to maintain the relationship until conversion

Marketing automation consists of creating programmed sequences of messages, on different channels (email, SMS, push, etc.) in order to accompany the prospect’s journey until conversion.

These “journeys” (automated sequences) are for example:

• follow-up messages in the event of an untransformed quote request
• reassurance messages to convince the prospect of the relevance of the brand choice
• messages encouraging contact to benefit from a special offer or service
• etc.

5. Conversion Optimization (CRO) Techniques

While not exactly PRM, website conversion optimization techniques complement a PRM device. In concrete terms, CRO consists of optimizing the routes, ergonomics and call-to-actions of a site, in order to optimize conversions at each stage of the conversion funnel.

This optimization is based in particular on analyzes of behavior on the website to identify points of friction and blockage, but also by AB testing different design options.

Optimizing on-site conversion also involves adding features to promote interactions, such as the use of chat bots.

Example of a bot set up by Dékuple for Algeco: