The Great Guns Marketing Blog

How do I build a prospect list??

This is the 4^th blog in our series of the 12 blogs of Christmas. In the 2^nd of this series we looked at maintaining a good and accurate prospect list. In this blog we’re going to look at how to build that prospect list from scratch.

Well, one of the many prospect list providers is a good place to start. Like most things in life, though, you need to have an idea of what you’re looking for before you start searching.

You will find that there are limits to what is available and what you can search for. The more specific you are with the people you want to target, the more difficult it will be to get hold of a list, and the more expensive it will be. For instance if you want to know which companies in the UK have an Avaya IP500 telephone system to more than 30 extensions, that’s going to be expensive, if you can find it and if it is accurate and up to date.

There are over 3 million businesses in the UK (assuming you want to target the UK) including limited companies, PLC’s and LLP’s, sole traders and partnerships. Of those, it is reasonable to expect to create a list of, say, 10,000 – 12,000 prospects that it is worth having a meaningful conversation with about the benefits of your product or service. Clearly that number will vary considerably depending on the size of your company, who you want to target, and so on.

You need to define the sort of companies you want to target, in what industries, in what geographies, etc. You also want to decide who, by job title, you want to target within those companies.

You will find that you can search for prospects by various factors such as company turnover, employee numbers, number of sites, etc. So you’ll need to use these types of parameters to search for the prospect you want to target.

Have a chat to some of the list providers and they can give you more detail on what’s available and how to approach the task of buying a list. Once you decide what you want, expect to pay something like 20 pence a record for company name, address, telephone number and decision maker name. Talk to companies like Corpdata and Marketingfile.com and they can give you a good steer.

Have a great marketing and selling day!

Matching benefits to business pressure points

How do you respond when you’re at home on the weekend, having a relaxing time with the family, and someone knocks on the door or telephones you to attempt to sell you house insurance? They don’t get a great reception I’ll bet.

Imagine how you would respond if they knocked or telephoned whilst your house was on fire? They may get a much more receptive response. If their pitch is good, and benefits rich, they would be matching benefits to the very clear pressure you were feeling at the time.

How do we, as business leaders, know what our prospects business pressures are? Watching the news on TV and reading the newspapers would give some clues as to current Euro-Zone induced pressures! Market research can help in a big way too. Actually talking to the people on the ground in your target markets and understanding what’s happening in their world and how your products and services can bring release to some of the pressures affecting them.

Information certainly is power; a statement that has been proved time and time again. Using market research to build information on your target markets and your prospects gives clear opportunities to precisely target the benefits of your products and services at the pressure points that your prospects are experiencing right now.

This can give you a major advantage over competitors that may not be as information rich as you.

I was once told a story about a marketing conference where the organisers did a small market research exercise before the event started. What they did was to talk to the ladies who would serve tea, coffee and biscuits during the various breaks. They asked what the conference attendees wanted when they came out for their break.

The ladies said that the attendees wanted tea or coffee quickly, they wanted it hot and they wanted it served in nice china.

The organisers then asked the conference attendees what they wanted during the breaks. They said they wanted a toilet, time and quiet space to make some calls, and a quick slurp of drink.

The conclusion, of course, was that we as suppliers may think we know what clients want, but clients may want something different.

If we know accurately what our prospects and clients want from us, then we can be much more accurate with targeting our marketing and sales campaigns, and sell more!

At Great Guns, we help clients in this area by calling their clients and/or prospects and engaging them in conversation finding out what they like and dislike about current products and services, and what else they want from our clients.

It’s often said that knowledge is power and the knowledge that we collect and provide to our clients gives them the power to really grow their sales and hence grow their profits.

Whilst telemarketing tends to primarily focus on lead generation and sales appointments, telephone surveys are a perfect way to undertake market research, giving an affordable and quick method to gain superb market intelligence to help you grow your business.

We recently analysed a new market opportunity for a specialist provider of digital music and signage. Our client creates dynamic and interactive Radio Stations, RadioVision and Digital Signage networks for retail estates and other corporate businesses.

They wanted to research a potential new business market: independent stores within the retail sector, and wanted a clear picture of the market – if they provide music in their store, how they provide this, if not then why not and their likely propensity to buy in the future

We managed the market research project from origination through to full completion within 4 weeks – no mean feat as the project involved 40 telephone based surveys x 20 sub categories of retail outlets – totaling 800 telephone surveys overall.

But actually picking up the phone and conducting the interviews is only half of the picture. To make the campaign a success careful planning, management and review was essential:

Planning

• We purchased prospect data split by the 20 sub sectors
• We drafted the survey questionnaire x 16 questions
• We fully tested and sensed checked the survey questions and dynamic routing
• The survey was loaded onto our CRM system to enable ease of dynamic questioning

Delivery

• Our telemarketers were fully briefed on our clients business and the campaign objectives
• Intensive role plays were undertaken before the start of the campaign to ensure a smooth go live
• All calls recorded to enable client to listen to insightful soundbites from prospects
• Daily planning and review meetings were held to ensure we were on track with regards to the volumes of completed surveys undertaken by sector

Evaluation

• In-depth analysis of the responses was undertaken – including a general overview and then split by each of the 20 sectors
• Extracted insight into the potential new market – we highlighted key issues and potential barriers plus market entry opportunities
• A detailed report was produced
• A verbal presentation was made to our clients senior management team

In addition, we just couldn’t resist generating some new business opportunities for our client, it is in our nature after all! 

If a prospect demonstrated a likely propensity to need an in-store music solution in the future then we gained their approval to pass their details onto our client - in total we generated 62 new business leads.

Our client was more than happy with the campaign. Not only did we measure the new market potential we also gave them a head start on new client opportunities, thus speeding up their market entry strategy.