CRM Insights

How to acquire GOOD B2B prospect lists

May 7th, 2013 by Ultimate Lead Systems

Your company is planning a major new business development initiative and everything’s ready to go…almost. The marketing message, email and collateral are ready. Your goals are established and your sales team is on-board and committed to doing their part with follow-up.

There are a number of ways to go about generating leads, but you want targeted and well qualified sales opportunities. The “promise” is there, but the missing ingredient is the prospect list. It’s the most important, usually the most expensive and frequently the most challenging to find. List vendors often promote accuracy rates exceeding 97%, but the reality is often far less. As the marketer, how can you make sure you’re getting a quality list and your money’s worth? Consider these 5 tips:

1. Establish Clear & Realistic Campaign Goals

Establishing clear campaign goals is a critical first step. Typical and acceptable direct mail response rates run from .5 %to 1.5%. Email campaign rates are usually better with reports in the 7%-15% range. Consider setting goals with a longer view and an realistic target lead conversion rate (Example: 20%-25%). Give some thought to your typical sale and profit margin. You can then set a profit goal by using the following formula: List size x Response Rate x Conversion Rate x Margin= PROFIT! Plug in values that fit your products and business.

2. Clarify Your List Criteria

Buying the right B2B lists requires solid knowledge of existing customers including SIC/NAICS, revenue by size, geography, and the buying influences known to be involved in the purchase and/or approval of your products. Any other factors known to influence the purchase of your products should be considered.

3. Choose the Right Vendor

There are many list vendors – Hoovers, D&B, and Lexus-Nexis to name just a few well known ones. Naturally, you want to get the best data for the best price, but that requires knowing the origin of the data you’re buying, testing the data, and getting some guarantees.

Data Origin

Generally speaking the closer a vendor is to the data source the better. Publications manage and update their own circulation lists. D&B (Hoovers) and others compile their own lists. If you want accurate B2B lists, look for vendors that compile and update their own data.

Brokers & Resellers

Although many brokers and resellers offer web based tools for searching and downloading data, they typically aren’t involved in their vendors’ data cleansing, updating or verification processes and have no control over the data accuracy. You’ll often pay a higher price to these resellers, so they can make their profit.

B2B List Aggregators

The biggest benefit or convenience that comes from buying from aggregators is that they typically consolidate data from a large variety of sources. That can also be the biggest drawback. The large amounts of data can include outdated, duplicate or conflicting records from the different sources. Which of their data sources provided the most accurate, up-to-date data? It is usually impossible to tell. While aggregators can make purchasing convenient, questionable quality can result in reduced campaign success.

Trade Publications

Trade publications with specifically targeted audiences are solid sources for qualified lists and often offer email campaign management services to solicit their audiences. Learn how and when the publications verify their circulations, however. Publications with both paid and controlled circulations have audited circulation statements known as “ABC” and “BPA” Statements. (See paragraph 3B on BPA statements for 1 year renewal rates) Check these statements and other sources to verify that the numbers touted by the publication are real, live, verified individuals. Avoid publications with low 1 year renewal rates, or purchase only those names verified within the past year.

Trade Associations & Trade Shows

Trade associations often have membership lists for sale and trade show promoters will often sell lists of their registered attendees. Search the web for associations and trade shows that serve industries and job functions important to you and see what lists are available. These can make for well targeted campaigns.

4. Sample & Test the Data

Once you’ve found your preferred vendors, here’s how you can make sure you get the most out of their data:

Obtain a sample B2B list and make sure they have all the data fields you need for your campaign (i.e., name, title, address, email and phone).
Run a small “test campaign” to sample lists from various vendors and compare results. Consider buying from sources that guarantee minimum results.
Know what the vendors are willing to do if results fall short of the minimum results like email bounces and other delivery or quality metrics.

5. Make Your Purchase

Taking the above steps require patience, but these same steps will lead to greater long-term success. Acquiring the right B2B lists and partners and keeping an eye on metrics and continuous performance improvement will enable you to zero in on your best available lists.

Five years with Thomas Publishing and over 25 years in this business have taught me a lot about how lists are built and maintained. Some do it well and others not so well. How do you qualify your list providers? It’s an ongoing challenge and your fellow marketers would love to know what works for you.

Good hunting!

Some B2B List Sources:

Hoovers, D&B, Lexis-Nexis, Penton Lists, Reed Elsevier, Thomas Publishing,

Visit SRDS.com for information on 9000+ publications serving hundreds of vertical markets.

Posted in Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Marketing, New Business Development, sales | No Comments »

Social CRM…Is it time to get on board?

Apr 16th, 2013 by Ultimate Lead Systems

Chances are your company has more “followers” on social media platforms than it has email newsletter subscribers or updated names in your old direct mail list. If not, perhaps it’s time for a fresh look at how you communicate with your customers and marketplace in general. Like it or not, the marketing world is making a major, some say paradigm, shift to social media. If your company is not on-board, perhaps it’s time to get your social CRM ticket punched.

Michael Scisson’s recent article in AdAge Digital, “What CRM Means In A Social Age”, identifies some of the major themes, challenges and need for new strategies that this shift in marketing present. He starts with this:

Social CRM Defined

“An effective Social CRM strategy must focus on better understanding, anticipating and responding to the needs of existing and potential customers by leveraging social data to create stronger, mutually beneficial relationships. Technologies, content, and data management strategies are likely to vary wildly from previous CRM practices, thus creating a new landscape for the marketer.”

Social media and social CRM represent even larger challenges to enterprise level organizations, especially those prone to move slowly. Scisson raises some solid points to consider.

It’s About Strategy Not Tools

Atanas Popov and David Volpe comment in Direct Marketing News, that Social CRM is about strategy not about technical tools. They comment on a New York Times article about L.L. Bean’s engagement with customers using Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Having the tools is one thing. Knowing who you want to engage, when, and with what information is what drives successful social CRM engagement. Popov and Volpe make some excellent strategic recommendations. They state, “With consumers in control of communication, it’s up to businesses to harness social media and initiate new sales and service models.” Read More >

Don’t let the Social CRM train leave the station without you.

In the end, it is about leveraging marketing channels, strategies and tactics to drive more sales. If you haven’t created a game plan for engaging your customers and prospects via social media, it’s wise to assume your competition has. You will want to be on the “right track” and part of the conversation. That will require the right strategy as well as the right tools and ability to measure results. There are plenty of resources and support companies available to assist you with your plans.

The Social CRM train is ready to depart. All aboard!

Posted in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Lead Generation, Marketing, Social CRM, Social Media | No Comments »

Launching & Sustaining Successful CRM Programs

Apr 1st, 2013 by Ultimate Lead Systems

I recently had a new business meeting with the marketing management team for a well known national truck service chain. The discussion initially focused on successful trade show and other lead management. The discussion then turned to CRM. This company had recently signed on with the industry’s 800 lb gorilla, Salesforce.com. The problem was they couldn’t get their prospect (lead) data loaded into it, or get Salesforce customized in a manner that enabled them to manage the data the way they needed to. (Sound familiar?)

A Successful Launch!

What followed was the more telling and not unfamiliar commentary. Privately, the Marketing Director said, “Even if Salesforce doesn’t work for us it is not going to go away.” (This must be music to Marc Benioff’s ears.)

All too often, despite tremendous time and research expended investigating and evaluating CRM programs, CRM initiatives fail to live up to expectations and even fail outright. Once a CRM investment is made it can be difficult and expensive to change course. Some companies then just bury their heads in the sand and keep throwing good money after bad. Buying from the “Big Names” is often seen as a safe, justifiable bet, but it by no means is a guarantee of success. Wrong choices can be career killers and no one wants that. But safe bets are not always best bets and choices should not be reduced to that.

CRM programs do some things exceedingly well and others, well, not so well. Let’s assume that they are all pretty good at managing accounts, contacts, call reports, sales opportunities, forecasting, providing “tickers” notices, reporting, etc. Obstacles to CRM success are not software related. Here are a few of the CRM “Achilles Heels” that are easy to avoid with a little planning:

1. Too complicated. CRM programs typically have many stakeholders. In an effort to please nearly everyone you can run into the risk of pleasing no one. The many features and “bells and whistles” can be impressive, but they can just as easily confuse users who become “lost in the application”. This can lead to dissatifaction and disuse. Limit your focus on the features and functions that really matter to you and that will or even “must” be used. The KISS approach makes a lot of sense with CRM programs.

2. Failure to invest in comprehensive training. CRM programs, even the simple ones, require serious and ongoing training. Remember learning how to use Word, Excel and Powerpoint? You can’t do it in one or two sessions. CRM user training needs to be in depth if you want your users to use it successfully. (See my post on the “20-60-20 Rule” for more information on training.)

3. Requiring compliance. Establishing realistic usage or compliance goals is “Key” to success once you’ve trained your team. It also requires ongoing monitoring. Once you have your team’s “Buy-in”, if you don’t expect compliance your users will be happy to accommodate you. And if your CRM program isn’t used it is a waste of resources as well as opportunities. Good software will never make-up for poor management.

4. Inability to customize to meet your needs. Out of the box CRM software can be challenging to customize and in some cases impossible. If your CRM program isn’t easy to customize to meet your business needs then you’ve got a real problem. The trouble is compounded if you have limited access to people who know how to customize the program at a reasonable cost..and are good at it! Before you buy give it a try and get real-life samples of successful customization and integration from the vendor.

With CRM programs fast approaching being completely web and cloud based, with the integration of social CRM fast becoming integral components of traditional CRM offerings, and with programs becoming increasingly complex, launching and sustaining a successful CRM program will be even more challenging in the future. Keeping the above four items in mind can help management achieve and sustain CRM success. The biggest obstacle to launching and sustaining a successful CRM program, however, is the failure to admit a when a choice hasn’t lived up to expectations, pretending it has (or ignoring it!) and continuing to throw good money after bad. It happens, as my prospect stated above. It doesn’t have to happen with you.

Posted in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Lead Management, Managing people, Marketing, New Business Development, Social CRM | No Comments »

3 Sales Myths That May Be Killing Your Business…

Sep 18th, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

CRM programs are meant to help companies better leverage their sales opportunites. Beyond your CRM program is how you manage not just your data but your customers.

CBSNews Money Watch had a recent post everyone in sales should read. It is a common belief that “More” is always better in terms of prospects, that every opportunity is worth pursuing and every customer worth having. It “ain’t necessarily so” and there can be any number of reasons why.

Are you pursuing the “right” prospects? Sales people are often times in search of “whales” or huge customers with huge promise and the lure of big commissions. The challenges of landing “whales” are many including the typically far longer lead time, the number of buying influences that must be cultivated and the fierce competition. Another challenge of landing huge customers is keeping perspective. What percentage of your of business will they represent, how thin is your margin going to be, how big will the support demands be and what happens if you lose them down the road. It can make more sense to profile your best customers by size, margin and service demand and seek out more prospective customers like them. It can be far better to have ten $50,000 customers than one $500,000 one.

Are you focusing on the “right” customers? The same rules for prospects apply to customers. While some in business would consider it sacrilege to say, the truth is some customers just aren’t worth having. In fact, some can destroy your business if you aren’t careful. Some customers can kill margins, demoralize staff with unrealistic demands and the loss of a single “Whale” can devastate your business.

But don’t just take my word for it. Author Tom Searcy raises points worth serious consideration in his column about the 3 Sales Myths May Be Killing You… Give it a look. It may change how you look at your customers and prospects and generate ideas that can help you build a better, more profitable and stronger customer base.

Tags: Business Management, crm, crm how to manage data, crm how to mange, lead management success, sales lead management, sales success, tom searcy.cbsmoneywatch

Posted in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Lead Management, Marketing, New Business Development, sales | No Comments »

How do you measure Social CRM R.O.I?

Sep 6th, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

Gartner Inc. recently reported that half of Fortune 1000 companies won’t see

ROI (Return-On-Investment) from their Social CRM initiatives. Why? Because most companies fail to tie their social networks to clear business performance goals and objectives. Well, some things never change. It was not that long ago that the same thing was said about marketing and advertising in general.

It is a significant observation, however. With so many companies scrambling to get on the social media “train” before being left behind, how many have developed strategies and goals that look something like: Social CRM media investment X dollars must yield – > Y sales dollars? How many are executing social media strategies by design? Albert McKeon probed the subject in his recent post: Half of Fortune 1000 won’t see ROI from Social CRM Analyst Predicts!

Integrating CRM programs with social media is currently at the forefront of CRM technology initiatives. The reasons are obvious. Think of the data in LinkedIn alone or Facebook and you quickly get the picture. It is no doubt the key reason Salesforce purchased Jigsaw. On the other side of the coin, advertising in social media outlets is starting to take a beating as more companies seek to quantify the value of their social media marketing efforts…and they just aren’t seeing it. (Facebook, the “Big Dog” in particular, is getting clobbered as is their stock price.) Dollars have been poured into social media advertising, but advertisers are starting to seek a tangible payoff.

Capturing and leveraging social network information requires the right tools and expertise. It also requires a game plan with clear goals especially in the B2B space. If you have a legacy CRM program it may require even more. How are you leveraging social media to build your network and drive more sales? How are you integrating your social media into your CRM program? What do you expect as your “Social CRM” payoff? Good questions to ask…important answers to get.

Posted in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, sales, Social CRM, Social Media | No Comments »

Social CRM…How to build better business relationships!

Jul 31st, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

Social CRM. You’ve heard the term but what is it? Like CRM, it means different things to different people and businesses. I think it is fair to define it this way:

“Social CRM is about communicating targeted, meaningful information via social media tools that meets the needs and interests of those who choose to engage you.”

The key words here are:

Meaningful – The information needs to fill the needs of those who follow you. Simply pushing out information you want the world to know about your company or products is a thing of the past.

Engage – As the old saying goes, “the buyer buys more than the seller sells.” With social media the customer “chooses” to engage you which takes you right back to providing “meaningful” information.

The information you provide may include technical information, problem solving tips, new product information or updates on old products, or links to other meaningful resources. It may also involve a certain amount of corporate “boasting”, news releases, or special promotions.

SocialMediaToday.com is an excellent source on current social media trends and tips. Successful social media efforts require strategy and a way to measure success. An important aspect of social CRM strategy involves monitoring what others are saying about you, too - both good and bad (this is called “sentiment tracking”. Social media monitoring tools enable companies to hear the negative things people are saying about them…enabling them to take action to correct problems and improve their “customer relationship”. The President of KAYAK.com reportly monitors negative social media comments about his company. The story told of how he personally responds quickly to negative posts so he can convert them into a positive experiences.

Our own website traffic has quintupled since we began our social media program. Buying behavior is changing and engaging customers and prospects in the social arena is required. Are you planning a “social media” strategy? Is your goal to grow direct sales or generate new leads? Who in your organization will oversee and execute your social media game plan. Most importantly, how will you measure your social media success?

For more thoughts on the subject, check out this Forbes magzine article on “The Five Imperatives of Social Media Success”. Make sure that when customers are talking you are in on the conversation. You can bet your competition will be.

How are you managing your Social Media engagement? How are you measuring your social media success?

Tags: crm, crm strategy, how to build better relationships using CRM, social crm, social media strategy, social media today, social media today.com, the five imeratives of social media success

Posted in CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Lead Generation, Marketing, New Business Development, Social CRM, Social Media | No Comments »

What are the Hidden Issues & Costs of CRM?

Jul 25th, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

The promises of CRM programs are many – better management of customer information, increased sales, improved customer service and communications, tracking sales performance by sales person and much more. But there are hidden, or often unrecognized issues and costs that should be considered. After twenty plus years experience with sales lead management and CRM programs, I would like to share a few examples:

A recent customer asked if we could import a number of files into their CRM program with Ultimate Lead. These were lists of companies that were members of different B2B trade associations like IMARK and STAFDA. The challenge was identifying duplicates among these thousands of records, so that no company would be entered into the system more than once. Companies found to be in multiple lists would be flagged as being members of each association. (Not particularly difficult if you have the tools and know how.) We added a multiple choice field listing the associations, “dupe checked” the lists, updated the existing records and imported the new companies. The customer was delighted.

Another customer, a lift truck dealer with forty plus locations across the U.S., wanted to add UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) filings to their CRM database. UCC filings show companies and the lift trucks they have purchased or leased by purchase date, make, model and year. This required customization to capture the lift truck data under each company in the database, an import routine to add new records each week, and a way to search the new data. The CRM program now enables them to see what lift trucks are owned by whom, when trucks were purchased or leased, when 3 and 5 years leases are about up, and much more. A new dashboard was created to show market share by brand, top fleet owners and fleet value by territory.

These are just two examples of custom programming and processing needs. Others have included customization to handle the integration of Blue Book Invitation-to-Bid leads, Buyerzone, 123 Forklift, Dodge Reports and many more. Some CRM programs today include customization for niche markets like finance and real estate. Even so every company has it’s own needs and data sources and customization of some sort is almost always required. So questions regarding hidden issues and costs requiring answers include the following:

What special functionality or reporting do you require of your CRM program?
What special data handling needs might you have and who will provide it?
If customization is required, can your program be customized and who is going to do it for you…and at what cost?

The promise of CRM programs is increased sales from better serving your customers’ needs. Meeting that promise requires that your program address YOUR specific needs and objectives. Achieving that requires much more than out of the box software and includes costs and resources above and beyond the software price.

What are your unique or “hidden” CRM needs or issues? What are your “hidden” costs? Who in your organization will be your “resident expert” and who is going to handle your day-to-day processing and IT support? Who will serve in a ”HELP” desk function for your users? These question will all require answers. Getting answers to these questions before purchasing a CRM or lead management program makes sense since your answers will no doubt influence what you purchase. Once the P.O. is issued you’re commited.

Tags: crm, crm cost, crm implementation plan, CRM Success, true cost of crm

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Sales lead management…it’s about “Reeling in New Business!”

Jul 18th, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

I recently had an engaging conversation with the V.P. of Sales & Marketing on a new business call. We discussed the differences between the sales lead management processes for companies with direct sales people versus independent reps and distributors. Sales teams cry out to marketing for sales leads, but all too often we know what happens with them in all three sales channels, typically, not much. Nothing new here.

The 2012 International BMA Conference was recently held in Chicago. Keith Pigues, dean of the school of business at North Carolina Central University commented that, “The thing that I have taken away is that the more B2B marketing changes, the more it stays the same. We have lots of new tools and techniques, but…” (Marketers face age-old challenges with new tools.)

Be it social media, banner ads, email marketing, trade shows or “tweets”, marketing’s objective is to help drive sales. In the B2B space, this often means generating sales leads. Companies need to get their marketing and sales teams on the same page regarding “what makes a lead a lead” (Qualification). They also need to be in agreement about how “leads” will be followed up and what feedback will be required to track results. Training on how to effectively follow-up on leads can greatly improve results as well.

Sales lead follow-up can be a required, built into your day process with a direct sales force. You can request, cajole and incentivise independent reps. Ordinarily, when you send sales leads to distributors that is the last you will hear about them. You can merchandize and demonstrate how you are working to support their sales efforts, but getting feedback requires special efforts and relationships. One client of ours who sold through industrial distributors actually billed his distributors $10 for each sales lead they didn’t receive feedback on. A symbolic gesture, but they received checks!

Despite today’s new technologies, the B2B sales lead follow-up challenge remains as it always has. How do you get sales people to follow-up on the leads you worked so hard to generate? How do you get YOUR sales people to follow-up on YOUR leads…and “reel in” the big sales?

Tags: business development, crm, Increase sales, Lead Management, sales, sales lead management, sales management

Posted in Customer Relationship Management, Lead Management, Managing people, New Business Development, sales, Sales Management | No Comments »

Does “Phishing” spell the end of email marketing?

Jul 6th, 2012 by Ultimate Lead Systems

There is something “fishy” going on with my email and I’ll bet you are having the same problem. It’s call “phishing”…and it spells BIG trouble for email marketers.

I receive nearly a hundred emails each day. Hundreds of other emails get flagged as “spam” going into my “Junk” mail folder. More and more I receive official looking emails (with corporate logos) claiming to be from Facebook, LinkedIn, the USPS, UPS, FedEx, my bank and even the IRS. The problem is they are all fakes and attempts to game access to my computer or obtain personal information from me and from you.

Clicking the links in these emails can spell disaster and providing any personal information can lead to identity theft. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission provides some excellent advice on how to avoid getting compromised by these fishy and “phishing” emails. Read more here…

On any morning I delete about three quarters of my emails coming from unrecognized senders with suspicious subjects. As our Inboxes are increasingly flooded with spam and now “Phishing” scams, how long will it be before users go with totally private, “permission based” email communications preventing ALL emails from unapproved senders? Exact Target, Constant Contact, iContact, SilverPop, MyEmma and other email campaign programs already require opt-in and double opt-in permission based email sending, but the law breakers and scammers won’t be stopped. They could care less for the rules.

Personally, I think spam and now “phishing” is on it’s way to ruining email marketing as we now know it except as a very specialized and selective B2B marketing tactic. With email marketing compromised, the latest fad is spam “texting”. With it also comes text message “phishing” along with ”vishing” and “smishing.” One would hope the “Do Not Call” lists would help prevent this. But good luck with that. The Opt-In email rules and email “black-lists” didn’t stop spammers. Read more on text message “phishing”. But I am “wishing”!

LinkedIn is a good examples of what private, “permission based” email networks may start to look like. You need to be introduced to someone to make a connection and woe to the person who flaggrantly solicits their networked members. Your connections can quickly and easily drop you. Will we start to see more private networking and emailing? My bet is “yes”.

Until then the questions and challenges remain. How are you protecting yourself, your employees, email server and network from “phishing”? Corporate policies, education and training are the first line of defense. If you are a marketer, are you planning email marketing alternatives? If email marketing is losing its effectiveness, it is probably time to start.

Posted in Customer Relationship Management, Email Marketing, Marketing | No Comments »