5 Rules to Use Prospect Lists Like a Pro
According to recent Hubspot research, 61% of marketers say generating traffic, and leads is their top challenge. That's more than a half! Furthermore, 68% of businesses are struggling with B2B lead generation.
Manual lead generation requires high marketing efforts, a lot of time and resources, thus making it difficult to run your own business. So, it makes sense that purchasing a business prospect list is still a common practice for B2B sales.
But, buying a qualified prospect list is only half of the work, the rest strongly depends on your marketing campaign and sales processes. Unfortunately, not all entrepreneurs and salespeople use prospect lists correctly, which ends up with low conversions and reputational damage.
Read about the common mistakes when buying prospect lists
Here are 5 rules to get a great launch of your sales.
1. Mind the rules
Sending cold emails can end up blocking your accounts, huge penalties, and the impossibility of any digital communication in the future. To avoid this refresh your CAN-SPAM knowledge and stick to fundamental rules of email marketing and communication:
- Don’t use false or misleading header information like altering the “to” and “from” to falsify a conversation record
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines
- If your message is an advertisement, you need to say so
- Your postal address always needs to be included on any commercial communications, including emails
- Recipients need to be able to opt-out of future communications
- If someone breaks the law on your behalf, you’re still in trouble
If you use cold calls refresh your Telemarketing Rules knowledge and take the Do Not Call (DNC) List seriously.
It is also worth keeping in mind the cultural, geographic, and industry rules that your potential clients may adhere to. By taking the time to study them, you can most likely reach an understanding. Pay attention to:
- Time zone
- Religion
- Greeting
- Tone of voice and use of slang
- Business structure and decision-makers
- Company culture
2. Do a prospect research
Knowing your customer is the basis for every deal.
Study all the available information about the person from prospect list with whom you are going to contact using Google, LinkedIn, Company Website and Social Media, Owler, and CrunchBase.
Don't stop until you can compose a full-fledged buyer persona, describing his interests, behavioral characteristics, and traditions, as well as the interests of the company, its management structure, and corporate culture.
The more you know about the prospect, the easier it will be for you to personalize your offer and find common ground. B2B outreach campaigns tailored to the needs of the recipients receive 30% better response rates.
Be cautious! It is better not to send an email to a person about whom you can't find any information, this may be a spam trap.
3. Outline a campaign
Before you launch your outreach campaign make a short document describing the strategy keypoints:
- Establish SMART goals you want to reach
- Outline perfect Buyer Persona you want to target on (or few segments)
- Create a message that will interest your customers and choose Tone of Voice
- Prepare answers to all possible customer questions
- Build a Sales Funnel, mailing and sales sequences
- Set KPIs to track your progress
Thus, your efforts will be systematized, consistent, and analyzable.
4. Provide a value
Decision-makers receive hundreds of emails a day offering products and services, but more than 90% of them remain unread.
Your letter should offer real value to their business and be clearly beneficial on their part.
Spammers blast their entire pipeline at once and rarely get answers. Pro-sellers "heat up" their prospects and conduct a dialog before purchase offer.
Be a trusted advisor, not a seller. Show your interest in the client's business and share solutions to the problems they are facing or tactics for successful growth.
5. Be personalize
Some sellers get access to prospect lists and use it like a magic wand - they send several hundred letters and expect that some of the recipients will definitely be interested in buying. This method doesn't work and only wastes the potential of business prospect lists.
Remember the rule quality > quantity? By writing the letter, you must make it clear that you have studied the interests of the person and the company and made sure that what you are selling is matching their needs. Database segmentation will help you write different emails based on business size, industry, target market, country, or job title.
Besides, it is worth clarifying how you found this person and who you are. Speak in the client's language and get rid of too enthusiastic or too cold expressions, otherwise, your letter will look unnatural and will be ignored.
Key findings
Buying a prospect list might seem like a risky decision, but the main thing here is the correct use of it. Following these 5 rules will help you get the most out of prospect lists and avoid wasting time and resources.
First of all, you should familiarize yourself with the rules and laws, and then build a sequence of outreach campaigns based on research, customer focus, and personalization.
