Making a Prospect List: Finding the Best for Your Business

Think about all the effort you put into contacting new clients. You may take a blanket approach and send out mass emails to anyone and everyone, or you might try and call every name in the phone book to see if they are interested. No matter how effective your methods are, there is always room to improve. After all, lead generation is one aspect of marketing that is always changing. It is the very start of your path to making a sale and it should get the attention it needs. Creating a list takes time and energy that turn some business owners away from the prospect. Thankfully, there are always B2B telemarketing services to help you spruce up your sales tactics. Take a break from your busy day and read about how beneficial your list can be when you build it up the right way.

The Set Up

You might think the most time consuming part of the contact process is the conversation itself. While this may be true some of the time, (especially if you have an extra chatty customer) it is often the preparation that eats up most of your day. You should decide right from the start which route you want to take. You have plenty of options available to you and you should be aware of all of them. Some people choose to start by looking up contact information for similar businesses online. Others prefer to go to companies that specialize in forming their own lists according to specific guidelines. This can include factors such as size, location, and industry. These list makers will charge a fee to get you a list of contacts designed to suit your needs. Depending on how in depth you want to be, this is often a better option as it saves you valuable time.

The Focus

Numbers don’t lie. If you are ever stuck on how to put together an effective list of contacts, take a step back and research at some figures and statistics. To see how successful different types of list are you should look into a few examples like these:

• Company A bought a compiled list of 3 industries they worked with and had a .4% positive response rate. This number may seem small, but in this particular example it did yield a $27K sale.
• Company B purchased an association list and ended up with a positive response rate of 4.0%.
• Company C purchased an association list and then appended the list with exact titles and names of contacts which lead to a 21.2% positive response rate.

A compiled list is typically created from multiple sources which can include public records, online registrations and surveys, direct response, directories, phone books, or court records. Association lists are obtained through companies who sell their customer’s information to others in the industry. There are many different paths you can choose when forming your list, find out which would be the best for your company by looking into the successes of others.

The Execution

If you have never put much thought into who you call before this point, you are not alone. Gathering all the information needed for a focused list takes patience and editing that some try to avoid. Putting in extra effort for a list might not be all that appealing at first, but if you want to see better sales numbers, it is worth it. Keep a record of your sales before you make any changes so you have a starting point for your progress. When you get around to making your phone calls, collect data and jot down your own statistics. You may notice that people in a certain area are more interested than others, or that companies with fewer employees aren’t as enthusiastic as ones with a larger work force. Put all the information you collect together and let it start you on your way to a better list. Once you have fine-tuned your key demographic, you will be able to let list brokers know exactly what you need, and even be able to put a few things together on your own. At this point you can compare your sales to before your improvements and see how much your changes helped.

Knowing which businesses to contact is a great skill to have when it comes to your marketing campaign. A well-made list is going to help you create relationships with those who have a genuine use for your products. If you put in the work you will not only know who you should try to get on the phone, but also why their business is a good choice. Do some research and take notes about what is working for you and what isn’t. Once you have a general idea of what type of customer is best suited to your service, the easier it will be to make new sales. It is a big task to take on by yourself, and that is where B2B telemarketing services come in. Professionals can assist with everything from making your list to contacting potential customers. Now that you have an idea of what will get you on your way, it is time to sit down and make your list start working for you.