Getting Your Business the Right Business to Business Data (B2B Data)

The financial state of the UK economy over the last few years has undoubtedly affected the quality of your prospect data. Businesses have closed, redundancies and restructuring has made it increasing difficult to keep track of the correct contact details of the decision makers you need to get in touch with to promote your products and services.

The quickest way to get up to date business to business data (B2B Data) is to purchase it and there are lots of cheap bulk data deals on the market, but are they really great value?

From my experience as a key account manager with KMB, when dealing with data on behalf of my clients I find that unfortunately, it may not necessarily be always relevant to their business, meaning a lot of the data could be wasted or never contacted due to the sheer volume.

Know Your Customers

5 Top Tips for Purchasing B2B Data

So here are my 5 top tips to think about ahead of purchasing data;

1. Are all of the industries, locations, size of businesses relevant to my business?
   
2. Do I need the head offices, single sites of businesses only or every division, branch?
   
3. It is not quantity you need, it’s quality data that gets positive campaign results
   
4. Do you have personal email addresses or general sales@ or info@?
   
5. Have you measured past results and refined your target criteria?

Keep Ahead of the Competition

To keep ahead of your competitors and to be confident you are not wasting money on mail shots or telemarketing campaigns that are still not hitting the sweet spot, you will need to invest more time to refine your data further. Taking this time and attention to detail may seem tedious but ensures a more targeted way to market the prospects you want as your customer and a greater return on your marketing investment. As the old adage says;

“If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”

Research Your Data

Another way to update your data is to undertake your own research via the telephone, email survey, or even internet searching for company news and updates via newsletters, case studies and social media. This is an excellent way to obtain valuable business intelligence such as

• Contract renewal dates
• Latest projects and clients won
• Competitors used

Keep Your Data Clean!

Whichever approach you choose, the evidence is clear - Ultimately will you not only waste valuable marketing budget on the wrong prospects but you will also generate less sales, so keep your data clean and up to date!

Lindsey Goodger is an Account Manager for KMB Multichannel. Lindsey is passionate about managing her customer accounts and uses her personal experiences at KMB to ensure that her clients receive the best possible customer service and return of investment.

Outside of work, Lindsey likes to spend time with her friends and family, typically eating out, cinema, live music and comedy.

Lindsey is a main influencer in the overall performance and success of multichannel marketing campaigns.

To follow Lindsey please click here uk.linkedin.com/in/lindseygoodger/

5 Steps to Help You Hit Your Sales Targets for 2013!

So you’re back to work after your holidays and wherever you look, Autumn is being pushed upon us. Nights are drawing in, your contacts too busy to talk to you about sales. The main thing you are worrying about now is hitting those end of year sales targets. What ideas can we bring to the table?

See below Linsey's 5 Tips to Ensure Sales Success for 2013.

1.      Empty your drawer of old business cards

Your desk drawer is bursting full of business cards that you never get around to adding to your database. You just don’t have time for it! Well here’s some good news . . . get your iPhone and download Cardmuch This app lets you take a picture of the business card and it will convert it to a contact automatically.
For android use the Google Goggles app, although not as good it is still much quicker than typing it in yourself!

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it”  
Jayne Crook

2.      Motivating Staff

It’s time to liven up the team and give sales incentives to accelerate business results. Competitive spirit in the work place is healthy and productive. Small incentives to invigorate sales can be inspiring for your sales team. It is important to offer competitions in a fair and constructive way. Think about how different members of the team respond to different incentives and optimise their performance by tailoring the promotion to their style.

"Stop selling. Start helping" Zig Ziglar

3. LinkedIn Pages

Did you know you can create an entirely new website to promote your products and services for free? Yes, you are reading this right it won’t cost you a penny! LinkedIn company pages are a great way to generate new business leads, plus you can check out the competition. Have you added in banners? Have you completed all the product or service sections? Change them occasionally to promote offers and events. Do something different to make people take notice!

"LinkedIn 277% more effective at lead generation than any other social network" Hubspot

4.      Emails to shout about

Shout about your latest offers!! Use a free email software such as MailChimp where you can send out emails. Send them to your customers to let them know of your current offers on products and services.

• A free marketing tool to use
• Track your responses
• Email campaigns  are targeted 

5.      What do your customers think of you

Find out what your customers are saying about you. Send out a survey such as SurveyMonkey to your customers. For example feedback on recent projects. You can establish quickly where you need to improve and if there are any issues that need to be addressed.

If you want it can be anonymous to get honest replies. Use this as a benchmarking tool.

‘It's not what you've got, it's what you use that makes a difference.’ Zig Ziglar

Linsey Knight is a Creative Digital Specialist for KMB Multichannel, where she writes blogs, creates infographics and manages content and graphic design for the KMB website. Her passions are her family and great design. To follow Linsey please click here and she’s on Twitter too. Click here to follow her latest and greatest.