When it comes to complex b2b sales and selling a product or service that is so specific in nature that you need to identify an equally specific role within your target organization the options you have before you to source such leads are narrowed down. Most company and contact databases have general contacts which are not role specific. Most vendors who sell b2b lists build these based on titles or departments and will need to be carefully filtered to get what you need. Depending on your product there maybe some niche conference or event lists which may be able to provide you with relevant decision makers but they may few and far between which makes relying on them for a steady supply of leads unpredictable. This is where building tailored business contact lists for such specific roles one of the best options.

In the past we have helped locate roles as specific as engineering decision makers responsible for testing durability of servers used in military installations and tough environments. Managers responsible for storage of R&D engineering data and decision makers who are responsible for analytical software used to predict trends in the market for financial investment organizations. The common trend in all of these is that they are very specific roles in nature and possibly the only ones who can really evaluate the value of the specific offering being pitched to them. The only way to accurately locate these specific decision makers is by connecting within the company and asking around within the right department for the person closest fit to the role. It can be highly time consuming while actually building out the list as tracing specific people within an organization is never easy but can be highly time saving when a salesperson has a direct contact he can connect with and pitch the offering to directly. So if your product is complicated or you need to reach a very specific person within a very specific role, customized lists are your best bet.

When you are selling into mid-sized and large organizations, most likely you have multiple business contacts within your target account who drive, influence and take decisions. Depending on the industry vertical as well as the way your target accounts are organized, it is possible to have varied business contacts who take part in the decision making process. For example, if you are selling a web security product in the Education, Banking and Health care markets, you will find that the types and roles of contacts who drive the final decision in each of these verticals are varied. Understanding the web of contacts that drive and influence decisions for your product is critical for your sales and marketing success. Before you embark on expensive email, direct mail and telemarketing campaigns, the first order of business must be to acquire all business contacts at your target accounts who are expected to take part in the overall decision making process.

It is also critical to understand how every industry vertical may be different before defining who are your target contacts in each of the verticals. We recommend that you identify these by the roles and responsibilities they hold so that you get the right set of contacts to start with. Missing the mark on this critical foundational piece can lead to failure of all subsequent sales & marketing campaigns. Focus on understanding your decision makers and define them well for every vertical. Then simply build out a list of such role-specific decision makers and influencers to create your core CRM database of business contacts who you care about the most. Getting this right is crucial and its important to use the right team internally or outsource list building to the right vendors who gets it.

Fail on the core list and you will just see more failures in your sales & marketing campaigns. The list is at the heart of your sales machine, and its success or failure.

Conference lists and relying on them completely as your source of leads is a thing of the past. Buying conference lists as target lists for running campaigns is always an option but its not always everything its cut out to be. Some of the drawbacks of conference lists are:

• They are a list of potential prospects who attended a conference and not a list of your own ideal target accounts
• The attendees list of a conference may or may not be the best point of contact for your campaign and although they may be generally relevant to your campaign the key decision maker for your product or service may be in another role
• While if the conference list is very recent most of the data including contact details should be fresh and accurate but dated conference lists sold well after the actual event can have outdated data and may not be as effective in the campaigns
• Unless every company or attendee at that conference is a potential target for your business there is a good chance you will end up paying for data that you don’t need in the form of accounts or attendees that are not relevant to your campaigns
• The right conferences don’t always happen according to your sales plan and targets so relying on them completely for your lists may not be the best sources to depend on

Developing custom B2B lead lists can involve more work but can be highly effective since they overcome the drawbacks of traditional conference lists. With on demand lead list building services like ReadyContacts.com the process can easily be outsourced for a price thats well worth the ROI and provide better value than traditional conference lists. So the next time you find yourself waiting for the next conference to happen so you can find new contacts to fill up the lead funnel, try a customized list building effort and you may be pleasantly surprised.