August 12th, 2009 | Jill Ruiz
To maximize ROI and grow your business effectively, you need to have a solid, accurate database. Having a solid prospect list is the backbone of any company’s sales strategy and a critical component to continually achieve desired ROI in your marketing campaigns, Keep-in-Touch (KIT) Programs or Target Account Programs (TAP). Take the time to build and maintain your database. If you don’t, you are simply wasting time and money.
In the first of a three-part blog, I will address steps you can take to achieve the most effective prospect list:
Step 1: Conduct an internal audit—clean your current list!
Step 2: Find new prospects—build your list!
Step 3: Maintain, maintain, maintain!
Step 1: Conduct an internal audit—clean your current list!
Most companies have a prospect list already. But so many people move jobs within a given year that, lists become outdated, inaccurate and are therefore fairly useless. The very first step in developing a solid, effective prospect list is to clean up the one you already have (and if the list you have is a stack of business cards sitting on each sales person’s desk or in their LinkedIn networks, start building and documenting your list now, now, now!). It’s important to regularly validate the information in your prospect list—after all it’s the lifeblood of your sales efforts (which is why it is so surprising how many companies don’t invest in nurturing and building it!).
With that said, your sales team should be involved in and accountable for the quality of this list (although marketing and inside sales can support with research as appropriate, it’s the sales team who owns the relationship). An effective way to engage your sales team in an internal audit is to dedicate a day (or two) of your team’s time to call and e-mail everyone in their database. Turn this into a “spring cleaning” activity with incentives such as catered lunch, casual dress and/or a contest to see who can update their lists the fastest and most accurately (tracking the returned communications, either e-mails or printed pieces, against the sales person as they come in). And who knows, maybe client meetings will occur just by reaching out to update contact information!
In addition to your sales team spring cleaning, you might want to send clients and prospects periodic “update your profile” e-mails, note cards or customer surveys. Offer them incentives for replying, such as discounts on services or an attractive raffle prize. If you feel none of these efforts are right for your company, you may need to invest in outside help to clean up your list. Most telemarketing companies offer this service, but the fees can be steep and you lose the “insider’s knowledge” your sales team has of each client and prospect. Not to mention you lose an opportunity to reach out to those prospects you may not have approached in a while.
List clean-up is not a one-time solution. It’s ongoing and should become part of your sales process—an annual or bi-annual activity that not only ensures your list is always accurate it ensures the right prospects are on the list. Think about it. When you buy a list, one of the first questions you ask the list company is how often do you update the list. Why should it be any different for your actual list?
What is your advice or personal experience with cleaning the list your company already has? Do you have an internal process in place? Is that process regularly put into action? Do you think it’s successful? If so, why? If not, why not?
In part 2 of It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies that Enhance Your Marketing Campaign, I will discuss various ways to find new prospects and build your list. Please click here to continue to part 2 of this blog.
Jill Ruiz
Senior Project Manager
ClearEdge Marketing
