How do you know how much effort you should put into pursuing a specific prospect? How can you prioritize one contact over another? Those scenarios aren’t always easy to navigate.

Prospecting is a spectrum. There are going to be sales opportunities worth pursuing to different degrees for different reasons. But, how can you tell what those degrees and reasons actually are?

The sales matrix is a tool you can use to make sense of different opportunities. Let’s take some time to establish what a sales matrix is and how you can use one to improve your prospecting efforts.

What is a Sales Matrix?

A sales matrix is a tool used to help you gauge the urgency and viability of sales opportunities. In many cases — like inbound prospecting — the matrix gives you insight into potential customers’ interest in your business as well as their fit for your product or service. It can be used to weigh those factors together and determine how much attention a contact deserves at a given point in time.

Sales matrices are designed to show you how receptive a prospect might be to what your business has to offer. It allows you to consider a prospect’s potential fit and general interest when deciding how to allocate its resources on outreach or prospecting.

One of the key metrics to an inbound prospecting matrix is fit. It covers the more technical side of the process. It’s where you consider factors like company size, annual revenue, industry, and purchasing authority.

The other side of the inbound prospecting matrix is interest. Companies can check all the conventional, practical boxes for your product, but if they aren’t actually sold on you, you won’t win their business. If you find a business is a great fit but lacks interest in what you offer, you should do your best to nurture that lead.

Why Make a Sales Matrix?

A sales matrix — specifically an inbound prospecting matrix — is a great way to help you prioritize your leads and coordinate your outreach more efficiently. It helps you understand which prospects will be most receptive to more involved sales efforts, which ones are going to be best to nurture, and which ones won’t be worth your time.

But how do you determine both factors in a matrix? Figuring out fit is more straightforward. You should have an idea of what kinds of businesses are best suited for your product. That’s where traditional prospecting tends to end.

The concept of inbound prospecting considers whether a company is actually interested in your business. It gives a more holistic view of the viability of turning a prospect into a customer.

But how do you gauge interest? What can a company do to show it’s inclined to do business with you? Website visits can be a valuable reference point. Having resources that allow you to keep track of those visits can be crucial to any inbound prospecting efforts.

Someone who’s viewed 24 pages on your website is more open to hearing from you than someone who’s never heard of your business. That’s why it’s crucial to consider interest alongside fit when prospecting.

However, unless you had inbound prospecting tools, it would be impossible to know whether or not either company is interested in your business before you contact them. And without understanding someone’s interest in your company, you’ll waste time barking up the wrong tree time and again.

Inbound prospecting flips this problem on its head, with the easy-to-understand Inbound Prospecting Matrix:

Sales Matrix Example

If a prospect is a good fit and interested in your company, they should be your first priority.

Other prospects should either be nurtured or removed from your pipeline, dependent on their location on the matrix.

Understanding when companies are interested in you helps delivering customized, relevant messages to prospects who are already interested in your business.

Learn more about how to get started with a sales matrix on our partner HubSpot’s blog. Need help getting started with your marketing needs?

 

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