Hot prospects: how to spot them and find the right time to reach out
By Etienne DouillardUpdated 4 min read
We explain it all in a video 👇🏼🎬
Identify the right moment(s)
In the dynamic world of prospecting, identifying the optimal moment to engage a potential customer can make all the difference.
Here’s an example with a fictional company we’ll call Naostre 😉
You are a CSR consulting firm (Corporate Social Responsibility), and you sell solutions to reduce companies’ carbon footprint.
❌ If you contact every company manager in bulk, many of their companies are not aware of their CO2 emissions.
👉 You will get a negative answer from your prospects.
✅ If you contact a company manager who has just attended a climate change awareness workshop, like the Climate Fresk (Fresque du Climat) or the 2 Tonnes Workshop (Atelier 2 Tonnes).
At that precise moment, they are awake to the urgency of acting and are actively looking for solutions.
👉 You will get a positive answer from your prospects.
To spot these opportunities, you need to understand your potential customer’s buying behavior.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What do your prospects post on LinkedIn?
- What do your prospects talk about on LinkedIn?
- What do your prospects like on LinkedIn?
- What types of signals would you identify as relevant?
- Look at a customer’s LinkedIn profile: what were they posting, liking, commenting on a few days / weeks before buying your solution?
- What events or activities could influence my prospect’s decisions?
- What strong signals indicate they are ready to invest in my solution?
- What catches your interest on your prospects’ LinkedIn profiles when you prospect manually?
✅ By exploring these aspects, you can seize the right moment to capture your prospect’s attention and start a meaningful conversation with them.
Let’s go back to our example and answer the questions:
- What do your prospects post on LinkedIn?
Their participation in Climate Fresks and 2 Tonnes workshops.
- What do your prospects talk about on LinkedIn?
CSR, climate change, CO2 emissions
- What do your prospects like on LinkedIn?
Posts from Team For The Planet, posts from the Fresque du Climat, posts from Bon Pote, posts from Pour un réveil écologique, posts from Ma Petite Planète etc…
- What types of signals would you identify as relevant?
My prospects are planning a carbon footprint assessment, so they interact with companies such as posts from Toovalu, Greenly, Carbo, Sami etc…
- Look at a customer’s LinkedIn profile: what were they posting, liking, commenting on a few days / weeks before buying your solution?
Our example company signed a contract in April 2023 with Baldwin Partners. That company was announcing a partnership with Captain Cause in a post by one of its employees.
- What events or activities could influence my prospect’s decisions?
Events on the topic of CSR.
- What strong signals indicate they are ready to invest in my solution?
Bad news on social media, a damaged image after industrial pollution. Lost business because of new regulations, environmental laws etc..
- What catches your interest on your prospects’ LinkedIn profiles when you prospect manually?
Whether my prospect likes the same influencer pages as Naostre.
Whether my prospect has connections in common with Naostre’s followers.
Whether my prospect is a decision-maker with more than 500 connections.
💡 Once you’ve done this work, put your thinking into practice with the next section.
If you need help doing it, MeetMagnet offers you its best advice 👇🏼🎁
Use our free prospect search
Once you’ve done this thinking, try our free prospect search 👇🏼
You connect it to ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral or Perplexity, then describe your target and the topics they care about. It sends back decision-makers with a recent buying signal, so you can contact them at the right time. Your access arrives by email.
Search for posts
Use LinkedIn search to find posts that are strong signals ahead of a purchase.
In our Naostre example, we identified several topics our prospects post about regularly.
💡 Use LinkedIn Boolean searches to get better search results
(“fresque”AND“climat”)OR“2tonnes” (Climate Fresk or 2 Tonnes workshop)
“RSE”AND(“bilan carbone”OR“CO2”OR“changement climatique”) (“CSR” AND (“carbon footprint” OR “CO2” OR “climate change”))
A good moment is a recent moment, meaning one that happened within the last 24 hours.
Use LinkedIn search, filtering by the latest Posts from the past 24 hours.
✅ A good search URL should return at least several screens’ worth of content scrolling per day (per 24 hours)
Get post reactions
Some topics interest your prospects. That’s a source of potential buying signals, don’t let these signals slip away 💨 (see also our B2B buying signals examples and what we spot with LinkedIn buying signals).
For example, among the thousands of people who like Team For The Planet’s posts, some are in Naostre’s target. Naostre offers decarbonization consulting and, in particular, solutions around wind energy. TFTP’s post comes at just the right time!
And there you go, now you know everything 🤗
You can now do this work every day, or let the MeetMagnet AI spot the prospects for your personas and write the opener drawn from their signal, reviewed before sending. Plans start at €149 excl. VAT a month, with a 7-day free trial (pricing).
If you have any questions or need help, feel free to contact us 👇🏼
Frequently asked questions
Why does the timing of your outreach change the prospect's answer?
If you contact managers in bulk who are not aware of their problem, you get a negative answer. If you contact a manager who has just been made aware of the topic, for example after a workshop like the Climate Fresk, they are awake to the urgency of acting and are actively looking for solutions: the answer is far more often positive.
Which questions should you ask yourself to spot the right time?
Ask yourself what your prospects post, like and comment on LinkedIn, which events could influence their decisions, which strong signals show they are ready to invest, and what a customer was posting a few days or weeks before buying your solution.
How do you use LinkedIn search to find these moments?
Use LinkedIn's Boolean search on the topics your prospects talk about, filter by the latest Posts from the past 24 hours, and also look at the people reacting to posts from pages your target cares about. A good search should return several pages of content per day.
Etienne Douillard
Co-founder and CEO, MeetMagnet
An engineer and entrepreneur for over five years, Etienne works every week with B2B SMEs on signal-based prospecting.
From intent to booking
MeetMagnet spots who has a reason to talk to you right now, writes the opener that stands out, and a real person keeps it on track.