AskCallbox: Where Do you get the List?

Building a good list is important, but it may take a long while. When you need a torrent of leads at the top of the funnel, buying a list is an easy solution.

There are several very good reasons:

You save time when you purchase updated and cleansed lists rather than clean them yourself
You know your target prospects better and can be more accurate with your campaign messaging when you buy profiled lists
You discover new businesses that you should be marketing to

When there’s a known need, nature will find a way to supply. Naturally enough, there’s an industry that focuses on sales lead generation so you don’t have to. Most of these services let you segment and sort millions of contacts online, revealing the most vital details (name, email, phone) once you purchase the list or sign up with an annual subscription.

Internal Marketing Research

Most companies have their own internal marketing data research, and coupled with advanced online searching, sales lead generators gather, cross-reference, scrutinize, and deliver email, phone, and other pertinent data. These are then supplemented with other data such as employee growth rate, business history, size of market served, and salary information. Besides selecting targets by number of employees and industry, sometimes, the targets’ location and proximity are also considered.

Third Party Sources

If you think letting internal marketing research do all the dirty work consumes so much and effort, worry not. Whether you are looking to build a target list on the basis of geography, industry, company size or any other segmentation, there are a number of different sources out there offering business contacts with email addresses and other information. While each of them work on varied models and range from a few cents per contact to several dollars a contact, it’s important to understand the underlying value proposition of each source while deciding on which one will work best for you.

InfoUSA

Best For: Do-it-yourselfers seeking a fully-curated source, especially those targeting consumers.

Overview: InfoUSA divides its sales leads into postal/phone contacts and email contacts. For the latter, InfoUSA helps you create the email message and does the actual emailing (but charges extra for fancier HTML layouts) — in other words, it won’t send you the actual email list. (This probably helps keep others from abusing the list, to your benefit.)

Hoover’s

Best For: Those seeking a fully-curated source, especially for business contacts. Plans are available for do-it-yourselfers or annual subscribers who prefer dedicated, consultative service.

Overview: With Hoover’s, you can run your own searches, using its Lead Builder tool, or you can subscribe on a monthly or yearly basis and work one-on-one with a representative, to build your lists.

Jigsaw

Best For: Do-it-yourselfers seeking a collaborative, potentially lower-cost solution.

Overview: Jigsaw is a collaborative database of contacts. You can buy contacts with money or with credits earned from sharing your contacts or correcting Jigsaw’s list. Data quality depends on the quality of Jigsaw’s collaborators.

Find the Best Fit

For most marketers, purchasing lists is still the easiest way to fill a pipeline. Again, remember to carefully evaluate what you’re getting in terms of value from each of the third-party sources mentioned above and select the one that checks all your boxes.

Reference: entrepreneur