Just before the US financial crisis, fall of the banking system and the global economic meltdown, we saw a lot of global companies take keen interest in getting a foot in the growing Indian market. Though India was not spared by the financial crisis that started in the more developed countries, the economy and predicted growth rate of between 7-9% remains quite impressive as against a lot of other places and is still a lucrative market for those who have their eyes set on it. However the Indian market is not always the easiest market to capture or get into.

As simple as it may seem on the outside, there are a bunch of things that have to be taken into account from how things work, government policies, bureaucracy, work ethics, business practices, culture and a whole lot more. Getting things done right needs a complete understanding of all these factors and an ability to adjust to the local market. The best option available to most companies was to tie up with a local partner and settle into the new market with their help. Whether it was purchasing or leasiing office space, getting registration and legal work done, accounting or recruiting staff, partnering with a local firm helped resolve these issues and helped ease the process of entering and growing within a new market which comes with its own very unique set of challenges.

Marketing & sales is no exception. Understanding of the local markets, company structure, decision making process etc is key. Having that local understanding helps tremendously and it doesn’t end there. There are number of bad experinces we’ve heard about or come across where these relationships didnt work simply because the local company on the ground didn’t really understand or respect their offshore counterparts business practices and culture so there can’t be any synergy in these cases. It’s important to find that synergy where both companies have a clear idea of expectations and what needs to be delivered.

When you are looking to build your marketing databases and lists of Indian companies here are a few tips to keep in mind which will help you:-

• Although English is widely spoken throughout India and you can get around fairly well, it’s good to know hindi as well as some other regional languages to get past gatekeepers, navigating to find right decision makers and collecting intelligence. A person is more likely to feel more comfortable conversing with someone who speaks their native tounge.
• Gatekeepers are good at keeping key management shielded from calls and emails but they are also often very well informed of what their executives do and can be great sources of information to understand requirements and so on.
• The CEO or president of the company is more likely to be known as the Managing Director. Managing Directors, Directors and General Managers are often the top level executive decision makers in companies where titles like President and Vice President are not used. 
• Indian executives and decision makers are often more easily reachable on ther mobile phone numbers and are not always offended by those who call them on their cell phones. It’s a fairly widely accepted practice. 
• The best times to reach decision makers and executives in India are between 9:00 am to 11:00 am at the start of the day and the last one hour of the day which is between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm. 

This is about the time of the year when B2B marketers and sales professionals start sharing their forecasts of trends we are all likely to see in the year ahead. We all think about them, debate them, place our bets and take these into consideration and keep them in mind while developing sales and marketing strategies for the year ahead. So it just seems to make sense that we here at ReadyContacts share some of our views on what we can expect to see with marketing lists and data for 2009.

Marketing lists and data??? Change? Ofcourse. Why not? If you asked the same question just 15 years ago in 1994, the B2B marketing list would have looked quite different. For starters, it would either be a written list or perhaps an MS Excel, Dbase or FoxPro list which simply had company names, postal addresses, telephone numbers and possibly a fax number. It wouldn’t be unusual to see lists without “website urls” and “email addresses” which became a standard field in most company databases some time later. So if you are a skeptic, take my word for it…marketing data and lists do evolve!

Moving a few years ahead, 2008 has seen a lot of activity and technology which has impacted the way we sell. It’s been the year of Twitter, inbound lead generation, online marketing, SEO, content development, marketing automation, lead nurturing and a whole lot more. The absolute fundamentals of sales and marketing may not change but the approach and tools certainly have been so its only natural that the lists that we use and the data in our CRMs also get impacted by these trends and we will demand better and higher quality data. If I had to pick one word to summarize how data in the form of CRMs, cold calling lists, email marketing lists and others would change in 2009 it would be “Rich”. Marketers will demand richer data which will be reflective of what data they need to equip themselves for the kind of marketing and sales programs that are relevant in 2009.  What has become relevant is the multi-touch approach that companies have been adopting where they use multiple channels from email, phone calls, website content, newsletters, direct mail, social networking like Linkedin, Twitter & blogs to connect with companies and decision makers rather than sticking to just one or two modes of communication.

Whats the result on lists and data? I believe we will start seeing more companies need richer data on their target accounts and decsion makers. We will see data points such as Linkedin account, company blog and Twitter id become standard fields in many databases. Companies will demand these details to connect with their customers, comment on their blogs, follow them on twitter and connect with them through these channels. Even inbound leads through online form fills which are incomplete will only be really valuable with complete contact data and the more information you have on your accounts and customers, the more you understand them, the better informed your own reach out will be. 2009 will see a shift in focus on quality of data i.e.

• Richer company or account data including detailed profiles, product lines / offerings, news, intelligence, blogs and online channels
• Inbound leads that have been cleaned, completed, qualified and enriched with additional data points
• Decision makers which have been qualified, relavent or useful for the database and can be nurtured till ready
• Complete contact details for decision makers including direct phone numbers, email addresses, profiles, blog links, social/business network profiles, Skype / Twitter ID, RSS feed etc

Cold calling is tough. Super tough. Some claim cold calling is dead. Other’s say cold calling doesn’t work. While all of these are true, none of them are 100% true and valid for every sales scenario. B2B software sales are still largely driven by sales teams calling into their target accounts and figuring out opportunities and closing sales with people they never knew before. So no, cold calling is not dead. Its very much alive and still a big part of how sales happens in the B2B world. Now here’s an important point though: cold calling done randomly doesn’t work. Cold calling to random contacts that you can get for free online is useless and an utter waste of time. Cold calling into accounts you know nothing about is like banging your head against the wall. 

When you are selling your brand new product or service, I agree that you must explore and optimize all possible channels of generating warm leads including inbound marketing, SEO, email marketing, webinar marketing and so on. But you must realize that for a large percentage of B2B products and services, nothing happens without human contact and relationship building. There is no escaping from getting on the phone and building a rapport with your prospects unless you are selling a simple sub-$100 web-based application. 

So the important thing to consider is how can you maximize the productivity of your sales team’s efforts by replacing random cold calling with smart and educated cold calling. Random cold calling is when: 

• You pick up a list from any source available and start dialing
• You call into all sorts of companies without understanding whether or not they are qualified at a high level atleast
• You don’t know who your key stakeholders are
• You don’t understand all necessary facts about your target accounts
• You rely on cheap or free sources of large number of contacts who may or may not care about you or your products/services

The success of cold calling really depends on how you are doing it. Don’t rely on Yellow Pages, large lists of companies and contacts from web companies that focus on quantity over quality. Focus on your specific needs, identify a process/system/partner that will deliver the precise data that you are looking for. Tweak and repeat and you are bound to succeed. 

Autoresponder is a killer application in the B2C world. B2C marketers like online retailers have long used autoresponders to engage customers, bring them back, drive sales and increase the value of every customer on an ongoing basis. Some of the tricks that work really well include:

• Send follow-up emails at regular intervals within 21-30 days after the transaction with a logical sequence of order confirmaiton, thank you, new promotions and so on.
• Send a follow-up email every time a shopping cart is abandoned with a few items in it
• Personalize recommendations based on the user’s transactions in the past
• Do not send the follow-up emails from a transaction beyond the 30 day period

As I was reading a related case study earlier this morning, I couldn’t help thinking about how an autoresponder strategy is completely missing or broken in B2B - lead nurturing is the closest to autoresponders, I know but its just no where close to the level of sophistication in B2C. At ReadyContacts, we build a lot of targeted business contact lists, profiles and qualify inbound leads, so I can extrapolate and predict how few B2B marketers are doing systematic lead nurturing today. Here are some ideas to think about:

• Apply the autoresponder strategy to every inbound lead and every website visitor that can be identified
• Follow-up within minutes of the activity with an email
• Trigger an alert to the sales person for that account or geography suggesting it might be a good time to call the lead
• Personalize the reachout based on where the lead came from, what pages on the website did the lead read, and if the lead downloaded any documents. This data must be handy and communicated to everyone involved instantly.
• Schedule a combination of email and phone follow-up loops within 7 days of the activity only.
• If relevant, end the loop with a direct mail trigger which can sit on the lead’s desk as a reminder.
• Then add the lead to your CRM database for reachout via other scheduled initiatives.

These are just a few ideas. I am sure there are a ton more that are common place in B2C that we can learn form. Add your thoughts in the comments and share your B2B autoresponder stories.

The most common scenario in marketing a product to C-level executives is the constant struggle with their executive assistants to let you in on their boss’ calendars. Its just a natural instinct of every executive assistant to say NO to every one. Its understandable considering a lot of people calling in are just trying to hawk their products and services and trying to get a recommendation from top down. However, this poses a real challenge to marketers who are trying to reach executives with real valuable proposals. MarketingSherpa recently had an interetsing case study of how Lori Widzo, VP of Marketing at Knoa Software innovated by turning this situation upside down. Lori’s team focused on politely requesting executive assistants to see if they can pass on a message to their boss and if its valuable schedule a meeting Knoa’s top sales executive. I think it was brilliant and there is a lot to learn from it. At ReadyContacts, we have yet to build a list of executive assistants for top executives at large firms, but I won’t be surprised to see our customers or prospects coming up with such a list building need. Its just an incredibly efficient thing to do especially for niche B2B software where search marketing or inbound marketing is not always productive. Here’s a small except from the MarketingSherpa case study:

SUMMARY: Marketers trying to reach top execs often view executive assistants as gatekeepers that block access to these prospects. With the right approach, those gatekeepers can open the door.

Find out how a software company with a little-known product landed 15-minute phone briefings with high-level prospects. Hint: They added a twist to their telemarketing campaign by enlisting executive assistants as their messengers and facilitators.

….

Lori Wizdo, VP Marketing, Knoa Software, wasn’t having much success with common lead generation tactics, such as white papers and search engine optimization. Her company’s software, which monitors end-user performance of applications, such as CRM systems, was so new that few people were searching for it.

“It requires a conversation with a prospect to actually position what we do as a solution,” says Wizdo, “because the positioning is based upon a conversation that takes into account the context of customer, their industry, a specific pain, or a goal they are trying to achieve.”

Online lead-gen tactics weren’t giving her sales team enough chances to have those conversations. Wizdo needed a way to directly reach out to target executives, who often use executive assistants as gatekeepers.

A great DemandGenReport article by Kenneth Krogue, President of InsideSales.com titled Picking 5 Of The Top 5 Time Wasters of Inside Sales & Lead Generation simply echoes our belief that spending more on building better lists translates to spending less time looking for people and more productivity. Among the ‘5 Time Wasters’ that Ken brings across very well, the first of them is relying on “Poor Lead Generation Resources”. Here is a paragraph from the article:

TIME WASTER #1: Poor Lead Generation Resources
Why cold call if you can have inbound leads generated from an effective marketing campaign at a fraction of the cost? Our biggest and best clients take this seriously and use web, radio and television outlets to provide sustainable and scalable sources of qualified leads.

It’s all about the leads. We don’t see nearly as many successful companies leaving the lead generation process to their sales people. If you don’t provide pre-qualified leads, at least provide your sales teams with good lists to call. Good lists cost roughly 5% to 10% of the money you spend on labor costs and can increase results dramatically (we have seen results as high as 1300%), yet some companies we studied left their reps to spend as much as 40% of their time looking for someone to call. Not only are you wasting your most valuable resource—your sales team—you risk losing your most effective sales reps to companies that are willing to give them a higher rate of success by providing warm leads.

We also advocate using dialing technology to triple or quadruple the contact rates of new leads and allow
salespeople to spend less time between conversations with decision-makers. Dialers that connect your sales reps to a live call as soon as he or she has ended another call will keep your sales reps busy making sales—increasing their success and profitability.

Best Practice: Invest in good leads or lists. The Internet is already the fastest growing and least expensive source of leads for almost every business. Create an effective website and generate leads.

A quality list for you sales team is worth the extra cost in terms of budget or time. Spending time on a poor list where you have to look for people, dont have complete contact information and eventually reach people who are not the right people to talk is pure waste. Work with good data and you will get better results. Read on to check out the Ken’s other 4 top time wasters for inside sales and lead generation here. If you find your inside sales team spends too much time trying to locate decision makers and people to speak to, build a good list now!

Getting started with building custom target lists of decision makers for your sales and marketing campaigns using ReadyContacts is probably not as complicated as you may have thought. A number of customers who we have spoken to are initially a bit wary of what the process will involve and how much of their time and assitance will be required during the process. The answer: Very little!

In fact it’s really about defining exactly which decision makers or influencers you need within your target companies and conveying this requirement clearly to the ReadyContacts team who will handle the rest.  Here is a quick slideshow on how you can get started if you need to have a custom lead list built:

See! Now that wasn’t so tedious was it? If you want to try this out yourself our free trial offer is still on and we can help build you a small sample list to evaluate. Simply fill in the request form!

When any company is looking out for B2B lead sources and especially for a database of companies and key executive contacts, Dun & Bradstreet’s Hoovers Online company database is on everyone’s evaluation list. Having been around for several years and with a comprehensive database of over 23 million companies, its rightly amongst the most widely known online source for company and executive information for business to business marketers. Other than the sheer volume of data that Hoovers maintains, the amount of data on each company ranging from financial figures to locations is very comprehensive and an excellent source for company intelligence which can be useful while targeting them.  

As a business to business lead source, the Hoovers Online database comes with some of the high level executive contacts in each company, some with email addresses and some without. Although they have only high level executive decision makers such as the CEO, President, COO, CIO, VP Finance, Treasurer, VP Human Resources and so on, it can be a good source of leads provided your best target contact is a very high level executive. Hoovers currently offers connectivity to Salesforce CRM and works well to populate your Salesforce account with target companies and high level contacts.

While the Hoovers Online database is an asset to almost any marketing team, if you are on a budget which doesnt suit the subscription fee required to access Hoovers or the business contacts you need are more deep-rooted and more specific roles than the high level key executives it offers, then it may make more sense to use a custom role based list building service like ReadyContacts or evaluate other alternative sources. If these are not constraints, a Hoovers subscription is always a valuable asset to have.

If you ask any business to business sales person ‘what is the one problem you face more than anything else and would like to find a solution to?’, they will say hitting voicemail box and spending minutes or even hours without actually getting to speak to a decision maker. In fact we resigned to the fact that the only way to get around this is to have more business contacts and make more calls while keeping your fingers crossed that the decision maker will pick up. I’ve been there myself and its a helpless feeling knowing that if there was a way to get to talk to more decision makers in a day, you would have much better results. So when I learned about a solution developed to tackle exactly this while reading Aaron Ross’ blog post “connectandsell 100x roi in generating pipeline!?” I was thrilled thinking “finally a solution to the voicemail box problem!”

Cold calling is an indispensable part of selling and the biggest impact to its productivity is the low availability of decision makers on the phone and spending a lot of precious selling time simply attempting to connect with them. By filtering out voicemail boxes and connecting sales people directly with decision makers using an innovative system, this is exactly what ConnectAndSell have addressed and solved so that your productivity shoots up and you could get more connected calls delivered through every hour than you would if you had to sift through large business contact lists.

One of the reasons we advocated using customized role based business contact lists for cold calling is the ability to have direct contact numbers and extentions for each of the decision makers located so that you can navigate through departments and gatekeepers and maximize your connectivity with decision makers. The downside is that you can still hit a voicemail. I would imagine building a robust, custom business contacts target list and combining it with a solution like ConnectAndSell would help step up the results from cold calling or teleprospecting by more than 100%. It’s worth checking out!