Article provided by TransUnion
How and why to build a targeted list of companies using sophisticated, strategic search and segmentation filters.
Prospect, what prospect?
A client prospect list is the first cornerstone of any intentional, strategically sound marketing and sales campaign. It’s also easy to get wrong — especially in the B2B space where measurable quality is much more valuable and actionable than mere quantity.
In a highly competitive environment where growth opportunities are constrained by the unpredictable fluidity of broad economics, industry conditions, POPIA regulations or specific company developments, the time and cost-effective use of sales and marketing resources has become critical to business success.
Pursuing a lead using inaccurate information or making inappropriate offers is wasteful and can be demotivating. It’s critical to confidently identify companies that represent a qualified, POPIA-compliant opportunity to market a targeted campaign or sell a highly specified solution.
“Your list is one of the most valuable assets of your business, but it is hard to do well.” – Henry DeVries, Forbes Magazine
The rise of sales intelligence
Fortunately, the accelerated progress of sophisticated, data-driven sales intelligence software solutions — like D&B Hoovers — has made targeted list building incredibly intuitive and highly effective.
The best way to build a POPIA-compliant sales prospect list is to strategically filter precise criteria that can help narrow and sharpen the focus down to the maximum number of most valuable and viable leads.
Modern techniques and technologies can help simplify building focused lead lists, but each step is filled with nuance and deliberate decision making.
Research by HireDNA reveals more than 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of sales.
Company criteria
The D&B Hoovers solution helps achieve this with intuitive prompts that filter leads according to company types (within specified industry categories), and defined by size, advanced financial information, geographical location, and conceptual search criteria using key phrases that match your offerings.
Ideal customer profile
In addition to also identifying a target’s industry peers per category and territory, Hoovers goes deeper still. It offers prompts that enable you to capture company organogram, reporting structures, personal and biographical data, and level in the company/job function of decision-makers to help squarely match and target contacts with an ideal customer profile.
Automated buying signals
No viable prospecting list is static. The most valuable list is smart enough to automatically update you to filtered company news and buying signals in the dynamic world of modern business. Once alerted, you can trigger a targeted sales campaign or design a marketing approach fuelled by topical insights to inform meaningful conversations.
Easy integration
Once you have a strategically defined, refined and focussed sales prospecting list, you want it to be easy to manage and action. Hoovers makes this possible by saving the new leads as a standalone spreadsheet with alerts pinned to your Hoovers desktop or integrated into an existing list.
The new sales and marketing landscape
Investing valuable time and resources on marketing or selling to prospects who lack the ability, need or urgency to purchase your differentiated offering is no longer necessary.
According to Gartner, 9 in 10 companies use two or more lead enrichment tools to learn more about prospects.
Any future-focussed business looking to extend sales to local — and international — business customers can now quickly build a profitable pipeline by targeting more intelligently. Hoovers’ dynamic search and comprehensive list-building capabilities enable you to create actionable lists that continually update for the latest insights on the most viable opportunities.
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