If the need to squeeze everything possible from tight marketing budgets wasn’t already enough, the current enconomic meltdown is just going to make marketers even more accountable for every dollar spent and squeeze even more results from every campaign. Direct mail campaigns wont be an exception and being more expensive in terms of designing the copy, printing the material and postage costs involved, the quality of the direct mailing list is where the focus will have to be. 

A mailing list scrub and data cleansing effort is on several best practices guide for improving results on direct mail marketing campaigns. Rightly so since the worst possible scenario for a well drafted and carefully thought out expensive direct mailer is not getting to its intended receipient. The number one cause? Wrong or incomplete contact address data. So why should you use a list scrub before launching your campaigns?

1. The cost per lead of direct mail marketing is amongst the highest and can average between 1$ to 10$ so every mail that is not delivered to its target adds up to a significant wastage.
2. Non Standardized addresses make it difficult to interpret correct locations and often result in delays. The small task to standardizing addresses and normalizing formats can go a long way in saving time and money
3. Missing zip codes, state codes or street names are common in a lot of databases and often overlooked while labels and envelopes are being printed. Small omissions. Big cost.
4. Addresses do change from time to time and data does go bad. Verification will help filter out redundant addresses from your database and update them.
5. The incremental cost of cleansing a list may add cost per lead but will in fact save a lot more by increasing accuracy and delivery. 

You have a company which matches your criteria as a perfect prospect. You have your pitch ready, plenty of good collateral and now all you need is to find perhaps one key decision maker and 2-3 influencers to target your cleverly crafter message to and get a foot in the door. So you look up the company website, find and address, a contact number and you dial in. A friendly voice greets you and asks you how they could assist you. You tell them you are looking for someone in a specific role and need their name and email address. The friendly voice turns suspicious and says “are you selling something?”. End of round one. Round two and you repeat the process, this time only a bit more tactful not to get caught. The friendly voice says its against company policy to give you that information but they can transfer the call. Reluctantly you agree as you’re running out of options. The call is transfered and you reach their voicemail. End of round two. Round three…

Locating decision makers and building a high quality marketing database is a lot of work. If you have cold called to locate specific decision makers who are the right targets for your marketing you would know it takes a lot of time. Infact, quite often it takes up time that can otherwise be spent on pitching or selling. As with a lot of other business activities such as data processing, technical support and so on, marketing database building and management is often best outsourced. 

Again as with most other outsourcing decisions the main questions you need to ask yourself are:

• Is it crucial to what we are doing?
• How much overhead does it add doing it in house? Cost? Time? Additional Staff? Management time?
• How much reosurces would it free up if it were done by someone else that can re-directed towards something of more value?

I was going through an interesting post by Chris Golec of Demandbase titlted “The 5 Key Elements of Microtargeting” and it’s a great read since the practice of microtargeting campaigns to get better results is gaining in popularity among marketers and sales persons. From our own experience we know that communicating highly relevant messages to focussed target groups can yield much better results than spending on hitting large lists of irrelavant contacts. Two of the elements (points 2 & 3) in particular which Chris mentions:

1. Do not sacrifice quality to save pennies: If not updated, any given list is likely to become more than 25 percent out of date after just one year. Microtargeting only works if you have fresh, high-quality contact data.
   
2. Only buy the business contacts you need: Many data providers require marketers to buy large lists of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of contacts to meet their minimum. Yet, a highly targeted campaign may only focus on an audience of hundreds, or even fewer. Over-sending to thousands to fulfill the data provider’s requirements is a recipe for disaster.

When you are looking for decision maker business contacts within specific target accounts there are a a few names that instantly come to mind like Hoovers, Onesource, Spoke, Jigsaw, Zoominfo, ActiveContacts and Linkedin to name some of them. While each of these are great sources for company information and locating business contacts and decision makers in companies, they are quite varied in terms of what they offer and the model on which they are based. While selecting a source for your contacts its good to know what these are and weigh them out to determine which is the best source for your specific requirements. Here’s a quick overview on Linkedin.com and Jigsaw.com, two contrasting models that revolve around business contacts and b2b leads:

Linkedin

• What is it?
  • Linkedin is an online business network built to connect business professionals much like social networking sites such as Facebook.com, Orkut.com & Bebo which are a network of friends and social relationships. Users sign up and setup a profile for free and start linking to other connections or professionals they know who also have Linkedin accounts. This will give you access to not only your connections profile information but their connections and connections’ connections as well. In short the more connections you personally know and add to your account, the larger the business network you will have access to.
• How do you locate business contacts?
  • Once you have built your network by adding connections you can search through your network of contacts by various criteria such as company name, location, industry, keywords, contact names, titles and so on. By clicking on a contact name you will have access to any information that contact has made available on his/her profile which can include a lot of detail such as previous employment history, position, job role and responsibilities, interests, education background as well as testimonials from others who have worked with them. In short there is usually a lot you can tell about the person professionally from viewing their profile which is a huge plus for sales and marketing professionals
• What are the pros of Linkedin as a business contacts source?
  • Sign up and setup is free, you can get started and build a business network of contacts over some time without any upfront investment
  • If you know about 50 people who you can add as connections it can give you access to up to 2 million contacts or more
  • Users often provide a lot of details about themselves professionally from current position, roles, responsibilities, areas of specialization and more which can be extremely valuable to sales and marketing efforts
  • Since users update their profiles and information by themselves most of the data is quite reliable and makes this model one of the stronger sources in terms of data quality
  • With over 25 million users signed up it provides a good range of contacts at both executive as well as more deep rooted levels
• What are the cons of Linkedin as a business contacts source?
  • Since is based on a networking model, the depth of contacts you will have access to is dependent on how many people you know and can connect to in your own network. If you know fewer business associates who use Linkedin, your own network will be smaller and hence the access you have to others within the Linkedin network will also be less
  • It’s a useful source for finding individual contacts or locating decision makers within few accounts but does not have an option to bulk download contacts or export so that they can be uploaded to a CRM. It’s not ideal for lists that are needed for campaigns
  • Linkedin profiles don’t provide complete contact information such as postal addresses, phone numbers and email id’s. So it may not be as well suited as a direct information source to run direct mail, telemarketing or email campaigns

Jigsaw

• What is it?
  • Jigsaw is an online directory of decision makers and business contacts targeted especially at sales and marketing professionals who need to locate specific contact information on decision makers at accounts they are looking to target. Users can sign up free and then use points to buy a business contact they need. It uses a combination of a paid and social model where the user can either buy points for cash or earn points by sharing and uploading business contacts he/she already has in exchange for business contacts he/she needs which someone else may have added.
• How do you locate business contacts?
  • Before you start out locating contacts you need points in your account which works as credit. You can either earn points by contributing data that you already have or simply buy credits for money. Contacts can be searched through company name, industry, title, location and several other criteria. Once you have located the contacts you need you can simply buy them in exchange for points from your account. Alternatively Jigsaw also sells lists of contacts from within the database which allows you to select a list based on industry or types of contacts etc and purchase an export of the data to use in campaigns
• What are the pros of Jigsaw as a business contacts source?
  • The Jigsaw database has accumulated over 9 million contacts with a large range of contacts at almost all levels of an organization from executives to those at a deeper level which makes it one of the larger databases of its kind and provides a great source for contact information
  • The point system allows users to pay for only what they need virtually like buying contacts off a shelf and not having to pay for a subscription they may not make as much use of so its a pay-as-you-go model
  • The ability to earn points by contributing data allows you to barter your existing contact data and can enable you to access the contacts without having to use cash if you already have data that you can share
  • Jigsaw provides complete contact information from names, job titles, email addresses, postal addresses and direct phone numbers which makes it ideal as a source for email, tele and direct mail  campaigns
  • The option of buying a list is useful especially when you intend to upload the data into a CRM or other application for running campaigns
• What are the cons of Jigsaw as a business contacts source?
  • Although having a database of 9 million contacts is a benefit, it can also be a drawback since there is a fairly high percentage of contacts which has expired and although there is a system in place for users to mark bad contacts, the sheer volume of data makes it difficult to maintain the quality of it so its not uncommon to find contacts that no longer exist in their roles
  • Since the data is not added by the contact themselves, updates don’t reflect in the data when people have moved from their positions or companies
  • The lists are defined on a certain criteria and while you can specify the type of contacts or accounts you need, the contacts are identified by the type and level of contacts you need and not role based contacts which are more customized as against ready lists

Whats the verdict? It depends on what suits your requirements and is best for your marketing and sales efforts. So choose wisely!

Just when you think that marketers have tried every trick in the book, you come across another innovative idea which gives you that push to think outside the box. This is just one of those cases of sheer genius that we just have to share with our readers. Dubbed the ‘most expensive direct mail campaign‘ back in 1999, Business Wire published an article on how Frankenfeld.com frustrated with the difficulty of getting the attention of their personal injury lawyer prospects had to come up with a campaign that could make their target audience stop in their tracks to hear them out.

• What did they come up with?
  • They decided that since lawyers charge per hour, Frankfeld would pay for their time they would take to read their direct mail letter.
• How did they do this?
  • Simple. They decided to go to the bank and withdraw a few thousand dollars in crisp $50 bills each month and enclose them with the letter which contained the main message offering their marketing services to personal injury lawyers.
• What was the effect on the lawyers?
  • Well, to quote the company president Don Frankfeld himself “”Lawyers charge by the hour. I compensate them for the time they take to read my letter. Instead of being an unwanted intruder I become a welcome guest.”
• What was the result of the campaign?
  • They had a response rate of almost 50%. In short, stunning!

I feel the punchline to this campaign was not really the $50 plus cost of each letter which makes it an expensive direct mail campaign but rather the effect it had in turning them from the annoying salesperson who is knocking on your door trying to sell you something to someone who has compensated you for your time and you now owe him the same attention you would give a customer. A customer who you might just end up buying from. It’s the effect a salesperson would want from taking a prospect out to dinner, only in this case the prospects are on a mailing lists and the expenses come out of the marketing budget. In any case, with the results Frankfeld got, it seems like money well spent. Any thoughts?

Decision makers and buyers are a busy bunch. Everyone of your peers is trying to sell to them and how much ever they may have liked you, they WILL forget about you over time unless you do something about it. This problem is a huge one for trade publications who rely on their subscribers to not ignore the renewal notices and pay on time. However, very often, subscribers are too busy to pay attention to this and even thought they have the intention to renew, they just don’t get to it. This is an ideal scenario to innovate on how to get subscribers to renew. MarketingSherpa has a very insightful case study about how the VP of Membership at Society of Marketing Professional Services solves this challenge and created a winning formula. Here’s an excerpt, and here’s the link to the full article: 

Two and a half years ago, Tina Myers, VP, Membership & Chapter Development, Society for Marketing Professional Services, grew weary of members who ignored invoices and let their memberships expire. The SMPS was losing between 100 and 120 members a month. 

The organization needed a more sophisticated messaging approach, Myers says. They sorted through and tested new ideas before implementing an email-anchored strategy to entice marketing executives, directors and staff to renew and rejoin after they quit. 

Tinkering and tweaking led to a campaign that combined an email and postcard with occasional backup from phone reps. The multi-touch approach has paid off in lifting their retention rate from 71% to 82% – a 15.4% increase. 

Recent email data suggests that they’re zeroing in even more on their targets. Their June email saw a 62% conversion rate, a 34% open rate and a 13% rate for clickthroughs. 

“These percentages are beginning to become more typical,” Myers explains. “Our results over the last year have been getting better and better.”

This example is actually applicable to generic B2B lead nurturing and you can take a lot from this example and come up with your own recipe to keep relationships with your prospects fresh and active, and most importantly figure our ways to make it easy for your prospects to buy from you. It is important to understand that you are not the only thing on their minds and if you make it easier for your prospects to reach you, place an order and pay you, then you have it all good to go. Easier said than done, I know, but very few companies have truly explored how they can do this. Its time to do it now. 

Even though I’ve read that surveys conducted this year have shown more than 70% of marketers will shift a large part of their spend to online marketing other surveys have shown that there is no drop in the use of direct mail marketing as a b2b lead generation tactic. Direct mail still has its advantages and can still deliver the desired response rates to b2b marketers. When it succeeds its normally attributed to the content, the layout, the message or a crafty response mechanism. When it fails the fingers tend to point towards the same areas. There is however one other factor which can directly influence the success or failure of a direct mail marketing campaign. The direct marketing list.

Even the most ingenious copy or content for a direct marketing list can yield no results if its directed towards a poor list of recipients. Role based contact lists offer a better foundation for direct mail campaigns. For starters, you know your mailer is directed towards someone within the right role or capacity to act on it. Contact details like names and job titles can be verified again ensuring that you address the prospect right. Most importantly locations and postal addresses can be confirmed so that your mail gets to the right place and the right person. We have seen role based contact lists churn out much better results on campaigns like this and it makes a lot of sense especially if your printed material is expensive and you don’t want it to end up at the wrong location or sitting among unclaimed mail.

If you already have an internal list or purchased list of contacts and you’re still unsure about the quality of the list run it through a list verification process especially to confirm location and address of your prospect which is one of the most critical factors to more opens and reads. In the end you need to know that you have done everything within your capacity to make sure the mail reaches the right person. The rest may not be within direct control but rest assured, you’ve done your bit!

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.

Finding very specific role based contacts at deeper levels within an organization structure can be critical to connecting with the right people for your sales. While you can start building a list of higher level contacts like CIO’s, CTO’s and some of the top VP level contacts using ready lead databases like Hoovers, Onesource and ActiveContacts, purchasing ready lists from vendors or using search engines to dig them up building a list of help desk contacts who are responsible for issues regarding email security is a lot more specific in nature and needs a completely different approach.

Research using search engines and most databases wont turn out great results for such specific contacts at this level. Calling into the target account and navigating via phone till you find the right person by role will ensure you have a much stronger list. To find these help desk contacts who look after email security:

• Call into the company and connect to the CIO’s office and ask to be connected to the IT help desk or the person in charge of the IT help desk
• Using reference contacts which you get from the Admin to the CIO or the CIO’s assistant who generally know the IT organization structure very well find your way to the IT help desk or a more general contact within the IT department
• Once you’re connected to someone at the IT help desk ask for the person within the help desk who is generally responsible for handling issues related specifically to email security. If you can’t connect to anyone at the help desk but can manage to speak to someone within IT who may know the right person to contact for any issues related to email security, possibly at the It help desk.
• Once you have the persons name and role confirmed you can check back with the CIO’s office for any specific details like an email address which you can use to get in touch with the contact

In depth contacts like this can provide you with great leverage in the sales and make a good starting point for any sales person but there are no easy short cuts to building a great b2b lead list of operational level business contacts. If you need to get to the root of this, you have to dig deep!