Entries from May 2008
Sources of Lists or Databases for Your Business-to-Business Lead Generation
A big part of a business-to-business sales lead generation success is having a database or list of the right companies, and the right contacts at those companies, to target with your direct marketing.
Your in-house database of customers, sales rep additions and past inquiries is often your best source of new business sales leads.
However, business-to-business marketers often need additional companies and contacts to market to in order to get enough qualified leads into the sales pipeline.
The good news is that there are lots of business-to-business lists or databases available.
Some are categorized as “rental lists” which are generally “rented” for limited, usually one-time, use.
Rental lists are often appropriate for single touch direct marketing campaigns. Or for testing response from new markets, industries or niches.
A good place to start looking for these rental lists is NextMark, which lets you search more than 60,000 mailing lists, email lists, and telephone lists from hundreds of vendors.
However, for best results, I usually recommend that B2B marketers use ongoing, multi-touch campaigns aimed at well-targeted groups of prospective companies and contacts.
Fortunately there are a number of B2B database companies that allow you to buy a license for ongoing use of the company and contact information you select from their databases. This ongoing use is typically limited by the license to a single year. Some of these companies also provide access to their entire database for ongoing use, on an annual or monthly subscription basis.
Here’s a sampling of companies that offer licenses to their B2B databases for ongoing use:
- Experian’s database includes 16 million U.S.A. businesses.
- FirmaGraphix’s database includes approximately19 million U.S.A. business records and 26 million contact names.
- GuideStar’s database of non-profits gives you access to 3.3 million contacts at more than 5,000 organizations.
- Harris InfoSource’s Selectory Database includes 15 million businesses in the U.S.A. and Canada.
- Harte Hanks CI database profiles up to 10 different technology areas at more than 650,000 North American locations, and includes more than 1.5 million technology decision makers and influencers at over 600,000 small to medium businesses and large enterprises throughout North America, Latin America, and Europe.
- InfoUSA database includes more than14 million US businesses.
- Jigsaw is an online directory of more than 7 million business contacts.
- MeritDirect’s B2bBase includes over 60 million names compiled from more than 500 B2B and hi-tech lists.
- Netprospex is a relatively new source of contacts (over 2,400,000 accurate business contacts across 350,000 companies) including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses.
- Scott’s Directories Canadian corporate database includes 162,000 companies as well as medical, government and association databases.
- Zapdata gives you access to D&B’s business information on 14 million US companies.
- ZoomInfo allows you to access profiles and contact information for more than 37 million people and 3.5 million companies.
As you can see, some of these databases cover virtually every business. Others focus on specific industries or niches.
Which of these or other B2B lists or databases have you used for lead generation?
Please share your comments about these or other marketing databases or lists you have used for B2B lead generation:
- Which have you had the most success with, and why?
- Which are best for reaching specific industries or job functions?
- Which do you recommend against, and why?
Email Problems and Recommendations
It is getting harder and harder for B-to-B marketers to get email delivered and read. Here’s what to do about it.
I’ve been saying for a while now that email works best as a one-to-one marketing tactic for communicating with people you already have a pre-existing business relationship with, but email shouldn’t be the primary media format for lead generation. Here’s why:
- Unsolicited commercial email, although legal in the U.S. if you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, is perceived by many to be spam. (Read the law here)
- As a result, much of this unsolicited commercial email is blocked by filters at the ISP, corporate gateway or desktop.
- Companies perceived as being spammers often find all their emails being blocked as a result.
Despite the resulting false “opens” as email is being filtered, much (perhaps most) unsolicited commercial email is never read by the intended recipients.
Yet tons of real spam is getting through, clogging up the email inboxes of business people and causing millions of hours of lost productivity as people wade through the junk looking for important emails. This causes more and more businesses to filter their incoming email. It also causes the filtering software companies to be less forgiving about letting unsolicited commercial emails get through.
Listen In for 5 Steps to Managing Your B2B Sales Leads (New Audio)
Listen in for the five steps to managing your B2B sales leads for maximum results.
I emailed you the other day about Michael Stelzner’s great videos about the power of white papers as a lead generation tactic.
New Audio Interview
Michael just interviewed me about how best to manage B2B sales leads for
maximum results. I outlined the five critical steps, and gave lots of
practical tips you can put to work at your company.
Please listen in at: “5 Critical Steps for Managing B2B Sales Leads – with Mac McIntosh”
In case you missed Michael’s white paper videos, you can view there here: Watch white paper videos
New Video: 60,234 leads by educating people?
Still trying to lure in customers by talking about your company instead of your prospect’s needs? Big Mistake. Yet so many B2B marketers continue to “deliver messages” in marketing-speak, and are missing lots of leads as a result.
The guy in this video did something that you, as a B2B marketer, need to pay attention to. What he’s talking about is directly to your job.
In this video he shows how it worked for big-name companies (and how he got 60,000+ leads for his own small business):
What’s All the Excitement About?
- Prospects literally line up, ready to purchase after experiencing this.
- Using the strategy, businesses are becoming the thought leaders of their industries.
- Once set in motion, the strategy keeps generating quality leads, literally for years.
- Watch the video
Don’t Miss the Extra Videos He’s Launching
Here’s the cool part: He’s actually giving away a bunch of videos.
I’ve seen the videos, and they give lots of good marketing advice. You could actually take what you learn and put it to use in your marketing campaigns right away.
In his second video, he breaks out “Six Deadly Marketing Mistakes And A New Approach,” so don’t miss video #2.
Hope you find the videos useful. After you check them out, please come back and post a comment about what you think.
FYI, there’s nothing to buy at the site right now. All you have to do is follow this link and the video will begin playing in your browser:
