|
 One of the key ingredients for a successful marketing program is a good qualified prospect. You can have the best insurance program, the best price, or the best service, but if you're approaching the wrong people, your best will be wasted.
What kind of an edge can a good prospect list provide? Well, let's say you want to sell a revolutionary new policy that you've developed for welding distributors. You're looking for leads for a direct-mail piece and a follow-up telemarketing campaign you've devised.
No problem. Someone has gathered precisely the sort of business information database you need, and they're willing to sell you the names of all the welding supply distributors in your area. Indeed, any number of lists and databases are available in almost numbing variety and detail-and most are reasonably priced. Lists of almost every conceivable description, affiliation, and category are out there. All you have to do is figure out where to find them.
Where do all these lists come from, and how can you be sure of their accuracy and reliability?
For business databases, there are basically three sources of prospect names:
- There are list compilers, such as Dun & Bradstreet and R.H. Donnelly, which essentially count every business in the country from various sources including telephone directories and Yellow Pages, and then try to verify and expand that data from at least one additional source. That's a lot of compiling, because-depending on how you count them-there are more than 10 million businesses in the United States.
- List managers will sell you names gathered from magazines, newsletters, and other sources of business owners who have a list of customers. These are known as responsive lists because each person on the list has responded in some way to an offer. They're generally highly targeted and cost more than a simple compiled list. Most of the time, these lists are worth the extra money because the people on them fit exactly the profile of the type of prospect you've identified.
- Finally, there are federal, state, and local government lists. They're generally free or next to free and can be highly targeted to a specific type of business. Lists of individual consumers are also available.
WHERE TO FIND GOVERNMENT LISTS
The main problem with government lists is that they're hard to find. My company developed a marketing program for an Emergency Medical Service (EMS), or ambulance service, in Texas. When we first began looking for prospect names, we called the state government offices in Austin. We began with a phone number that provides general information. The people there directed us to the Texas Department of Health. After talking with several people about what we were looking for, we learned that the department had a list of every EMS provider licensed in the state. We purchased the entire list for only $27.50. It included 1,300 names, which we narrowed down to the 350 prime prospects for the program. These names were used as the basis for a very successful marketing program. The only other cost was the expense to type the names into the database.
Most agents don't obtain lists this way because the process is much harder that it sounds at first. For another program, I was able to obtain a list of the Workers Compensation policy information for all the business in a particular area. But getting it took more than six months and many phone calls!
The first place to start looking for government lists is your state's Information Offices listed in the phone book. The operators at these offices usually are trained to handle information requests from people who don't know where to go within the state bureaucracy. If you're not successful, try these:
- Governor's Office-Because the responsibilities of various state offices often overlap, it might be helpful to begin your data search by contacting the governor's office. Every state has a central switchboard to field inquiries regarding state business, but the number is usually helpful only if you already know which agency is responsible for gathering and interpreting the information you're after. If you're unclear about this, the governor's office will certainly know the appropriate agency department-and, if you're lucky, even the name of the contact person.
- State Library-A vast amount of research information is available from the state library. After all, it's the official repository of state agency documents and the first place to start if you want to do all of the footwork yourself. In addition, most state libraries also shelve copies of federal government documents and publications. State libraries are paid for with tax dollars and are open to the public. Collections usually include state legal codes, state historical documents, archival records, genealogy-related information, business and economic records, statistical abstracts, and annual reports. In each library, there's usually a government information person who can provide telephone and personal assistance to researchers. There's also often a staff specialist to help with statistical questions.
INTERNET SERVICES
Another method of getting prospect names is to access the Internet. A services my company that my company is using allows you to download lists.
ThinkDirectMarketing.com (http://www.thinkdirectmarketing.com)) is a Web site that provides information, products, and services to help businesses succeed at direct marketing. A key part of the site is ThinkDirectMarketing.com, a subscription-based prospect list source. For an annual fee of $195 (at the time of this writing), you can access current consumer and business listings. The database contains 130 million consumer and business names and addresses. You can search for businesses by standard methods such as name, zip code, SIC code, and so forth. The list you create can be downloaded into virtually any type of marketing database you're using. You can download up to 250,000 names annually. The database is provided by Acxiom Corp. and is updated monthly.
CONCLUSION
Selecting the right prospect is perhaps the most important step in the whole marketing sequence. If your message is going to the wrong people, no amount of contact will get them to buy from you. The time you spend developing good prospect lists will pay for itself in additional sales.
|