Beginner's Guide to Contact Discovery and B2B List Building

Beginner’s Guide to Contact Discovery and B2B List Building

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Sometimes it is hard to understand unfulfilled sales target even though you have best of sales personnel for prospect or b2b list building.

However, as we say – chances are, they are not spending their time doing what they should and you do not realize it. 

You think it is a part of their job. I am talking about contact discovery and b2b list building. Your team spends hell lot of time collecting right details of the target buyer and create a relevant database. Outdated or missing information, bounced emails, unanswered calls or wrongly answered equals to lost moolahand time not spent in making ACTUAL sales.  Creating an accurate B2B contact list is a tedious task! We don’t have to remind you the cost of bad data for your business, do we? So, you have ONLY two options. Either create a step-by-step process for your team to follow or outsource it to an expert B2B company. Lets discuss what a contact discovery or email list building process should look like in both cases.

If you want to DIY contact discovery or b2b list building

1. Create detailed specifications using customer data

The ground rule is to know your customers well. If you have created a detailed buyer persona, this step becomes much easier. If you haven’t, collect information from teams who deal with customers directly – customer support, sales, marketing etc. Make use of feedback or follow up calls to obtain all the information required to understand your customer thoroughly. Now, start organizing these details in an excel sheet into following categories and find a pattern. Read this insightful article about Automated list building tools and techniques.

  • Industry
  • Company Size
  • Who do you close the deal with? The role or designation of the person
  • What is there pain point?
  • What feedback do they have?
  • How does your product help?

2. Make a list of target companies

Now that you know exactly who to target, make a list of companies which fit the specification. You can use Linkedin, Limeleads, Zoominfo, DiscoverOrg, data.com/connect and similar resources.

3. Make a list of the department and the decision makers

Start looking for the department you want to target and get details about the decision maker. Your lead data will show you a pattern of job functions/roles who are in-charge of making the relevant purchase. So, make use of this information. For example, if you are selling a payroll software, you will target the HR Head. Similarly, if it is accounting software, you can target the accounts head or CFO.

Must Read: Maximize your ROI with our Contact Discovery Services

4. Get contact details of the lead

Research and research online. You can get information from their social media profiles, websites, interviews, media releases etc. Make use of online tools like https://connect.data.com/ and Limedeads. If you don’t want to pay for it, you can capture information from the free look-up.

5. Validate email address and phone numbers

Start calling your lead one by one.  Before the call, ensure that you have a call script ready. If you looking to create a B2B mailing list and want to validate emails, there are various tools available on the internet (like, briteverify, strikeiron etc).  

Ensure that you are ONLY verifying the accuracy and relevance of marketing leads. Ensure that you have a time limit on this. For example, finding 10 quality leads in an hour is an achievable target. If you don’t have one, you can lose the track of time and waste resources. There you go. You have successfully created a B2B contact list. Yes, it is a time-consuming process in every way. Hiring a team is an option if you are big. If you are not, it may burn a hole in your pocket. All the recruitment cost, payroll, etc keeps adding up! No wonder, companies have started to outsource it to expert agencies. Readily available expert knowledge and latest tools/technology are a few enticing reasons.

Must Read: MQL to SQL conversion rate

If you want to outsource B2B contact discovery for b2b list building

If you are looking to outsource contact discovery, it is important that you ensure quality. The b2b list building process should include these steps:

1. Sharing data specification:

Any good agency will ask you to share a data specification. If required, they will have a call with you to understand the target audience better.

2. Extraction:

Agencies use advanced tools and software to extract data of potential qualified leads (Marketing qualified or Sales qualified) from their proprietary database. Ensure that they are on top of technology.

3. Verifying data:

A quality team should match the lead information with the specifications and verify it. There is no WAY you should hire an agency without a quality assurance process.

Must Read: 5 Smart Steps To Build Your B2B Contact List Quickly

4. Allocation to telemarketers:

The agency should have a team of experienced telemarketers who call your prospective buyers and verify the gathered information.

5. Quality audit of the call:

This is an additional verification layer we have in our process. Once our marketers have a call with the leads, our quality teams ensure the quality of the call.

6. Sending the required content: 

Sending the required content to the client (you will have the email address to create an accurate B2B mailing list) and sharing the hot lead with you. Your sales team can now close the deal. 

Contact Discovery List Building Process flowContact discovery for email and b2b list building is an important step in sales and contribute directly towards increasing your revenue over time. If you don’t have a process in place, you should think about investing time and money into creating one. Not only that, you should divide the roles and responsibilities in the team so not everyone is spending time in looking for leads. If you decide to outsource B2B list building and contact discovery services, ensure they have the required steps in the process. Outsourcing contact discovery is an effective way to fix wastage of resources. Do you have a b2b list building process for contact discovery? Are we missing out on an important step? What has been your experience with it? Comment below and let us know. 

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