Get a List and Get Going

Lisa Bowen, www.prospectstogo.com

“There’s a lot of information available for free,” points out list broker Lisa Bowen, “but you have to consider the time to find it, too. You can often get an alreadycompiled list for less than you think. For business-to-business (B2B) marketing, try InfoUSA or Dun and Bradstreet. For business-to-consumer marketing, InfoUSA is a good choice. Or work with a full-service list broker like me to license 5,000 names or more. You can get a list, and download the data into your contact management system. This can be absolutely worth it in terms of productivity. Instead of working on compiling the list, you can get on the phone.” Bowen recommends:

To search out your own B2B prospects, try using a combination of LinkedIn and Data.com’s Jigsaw. With Jigsaw, you can download lists of companies for free. On LinkedIn, you can search for companies and find out who the key players are. Then you can get phone numbers and e-mail addresses from Jigsaw. Either pay a membership fee to access contact information, or build up points by entering other contact information you’ve collected.

It’s easy to find a list of companies that fit, but it’s harder to get the names of all the marketing directors or human resource directors. You have to search online or call and ask, “Who is the person responsible for…?” But if you can’t find a list that’s exactly what you need, buying the closest match can be easier than compiling one from scratch.

Keep in mind the difference between prospects and suspects. Prospects are people you have talked to, so you and they both know they need your services. Suspects are people you think should need you, but they don’t know it yet. When you buy a list, you’re getting suspects. To turn them into prospects, you have to contact them.