2016 buyer’s guide: best practices for purchasing net new ... · 2016 buyer’s guide: best...

2016 Buyer’s Guide:Best Practices for

PurchasinG net new LeadsComprehensive overview of best practices for acquiring B2B contact data

22016 Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Purchasing Net New Leads

executive summary

Whether organizations are trying to secure more of an existing market share, penetrate a new segment, or implement an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy to target

specific companies, B2B contact data providers offer the intelligence needed to identify, connect with, and engage their ideal buyers.

As a result, organizations have the opportunity to quickly realize ROI. By acquiring a list of targeted net new contacts, marketing can eliminate the guesswork involved with

attracting qualified leads to their campaigns. This not only incentivizes sales to be diligent in follow up efforts, but also provides them with a complete picture of prospects. With

access to accurate background and contact information, time spent prospecting can be significantly reduced, causing a corresponding increase in efficiency and productivity.

So, where does your buying committee begin?

From a selection standpoint, the buying process itself is short and boils down to two pivotal questions:

On the surface, these questions seem relatively simple; however, both are layered with best practices to consider and red flags to avoid while engaging data providers.

1 Does the vendor have adequate breadth of relevant coverage?

How comfortable is your team with the ‘preview file’ of contacts?

2


aBout this Buyer’s Guide

ZoomInfo has produced the following eBook to drive

transparency throughout the entire buying process for

purchasing net new B2B contacts and arm your buying

committee with a framework for purchasing net new

contacts:

• How to develop a list of net new contacts who match

your buyer personas

• Ways to ensure your organization purchases high

quality contact data

• Tips & tricks to help with the buying process


how to determine if a vendor has an adequate Breadth of reLevant coveraGe?

Overview

Vendors typically boast about the size of their database, giving you an idea of their

coverage before even talking to a sales representative. However, while sheer volume

within a vendor’s contact and company coverage is pivotal to your selection, volume of

irrelevant contacts is not.

For instance, let’s say you are the Director of Marketing at an organization that sells

Association Management Software (AMS) to various industry and trade associations.

And in the upcoming quarter, the SVP of Business Development wants to push a

vertical-based campaign strategy that specifically targets healthcare associations.

You understand that your primary decision maker at these types of organizations

would be leadership in both IT and marketing. Consequently, when you engage with a

B2B contact data provider, the volume returned should be relevant only to these buyer

personas at the specific industry you requested. Everything else is just noise.

Best Practice: engage a shOrtlist Of vendOrs with a Pre-determined criteria Of targeted cOntacts

With a small amount of legwork, organizations can run their own DIY-style vendor

bake-off. Leading B2B data providers should give potential customers a preview file of

contacts that match their requested criteria. This is when your buying committee can

stage a vendor vs. vendor showdown, in a test to find out which solution offers your

business the most relevant contacts.

With a small amount of legwork, organizations can run their own DIY-style vendor bake-off to determine which provider

can best support their needs.

Relevant Contact Comparison

Vendor A

Vendor B

Vendor C

Revelant Contacts: Total Contacts:


how to determine if a vendor has an adequate Breadth of reLevant coveraGe?

steP-BY-steP gUideline fOr develOPing a ‘Preview file’ Of ideal B2B cOntacts

#1 Your buying committee should explicitly communicate firmographic and demographic details about ideal prospects and accounts your organization is targeting, including:

#2 Contact data decays at an alarming rate. Therefore, “freshness”of data should be a priority.

#3 B2B contact and company data can be used to run a variety of campaigns. Specify your intended use case to a vendor to help return the right contacts with adequate information needed for campaign execution.

#4 Of course, your existing marketing database may overlap with the returned contacts. To avoid purchasing information you already have consider the following options:

Ask vendors to only include contacts that have been validated within the last 12-18 months.

Are you planning to run an email campaign with your purchased list? It stands to reason, then, that you should request contacts with email addresses. If sales is expected to follow up, regardless, then you should request only contacts that have both email addresses and direct dial phone numbers.

Recommended: Email vendors a file of your existing contacts that they can use as a “suppression list.” Through this mechanism, they can return only net new contacts.

Alternate Practice: If your buying committee is uncomfortable handing over customer and prospect data to a data provider, then once you have each vendor’s file of requested contacts, your team can simply run a proxy through your CRM to determine the amount of net new leads you’re purchasing.

· Company Revenue· Company Size

· Industry· Job Function

· Management Level· Job Title

· Location


what to Look for in the Preview fiLe of net new contacts

Overview

After delivering the criteria of requested contacts, the preview file should arrive within

24 hours. Anything longer is disconcerting.

Figure 1: The preview file of contacts should give you an understanding of whether the vendor can provide the right contacts with the right depth of contact information to execute campaigns.

So, what does this Excel file entail? In essence, each preview file you receive from a

respective vendor is the final output of contacts your organization is set to purchase.

Needless to say, it is extremely valuable in your buying committee’s assessment of the

vendor landscape.


what to Look for in the Preview fiLe of net new contacts

Best Practice: analYze and test cOntacts frOm the Preview file

What’s important here, is that your team really takes the time to examine the sample

file. Some information will be masked, but the sample file itself should offer critical

details about the contact data. Here are a few best practices and actions to consider

while assessing the preview file:

mine the results: Your team could be purchasing hundreds of thousands of records.

Consequently, the file should be structured in a way that enables your team to judge

the output. At the very least, fields should include job titles, company names, location,

and industry. Do the results line up with your expectations or are the contacts and

companies not what you asked for?

re-assess comprehensiveness: Based on the aforementioned best practices,

while developing the criteria for your list of net new contacts, you should have

communicated how you intend to use the net new contacts. For example, if you stated

you were planning to run an email or phone campaign, then the preview file should

only return contacts which contain this prerequisite information.

While the vendor will not reveal contact information, the preview file should confirm its

existence within each record.

self-select a test of sample contacts: If you’re satisfied with the preview file, you

should ask to sample a portion of the contacts. This information is the gold that

vendors offer, but because many engagements can involve hundreds of thousands

of contacts, providers should be willing to part ways with a few freebies in order to

establish proof of concept and, more importantly, trust.

In order to stage a fair test, it’s important that your buying committee DOES NOT let a

vendor select the rows of contacts your team is sampling. Self-selecting the group of

sample contacts will allow you to properly gauge quality. Have marketing execute test

email campaigns and let your inside sales team reach out via phone.

Disclaimer for your marketing email test: Whether you’re new to email marketing or

experienced, you should understand how variables impact an email campaign. The subject

line, who the email is from, the call to action, design, and more, all play a role in a campaign’s

success.

Thus, in terms of a cold email campaign test, you should

strictly look at the deliverability rate (did the email reach the

contact’s inbox?). If the deliverability rate is anything below

85%, you should question the quality of the vendor’s database

and the information you are purchasing.

85%


concLusion: Partner with Zoominfo to connect with your next customer

You have the right strategy; we have the right audience. With a database of over 157 million professionals and 10 million companies , ZoomInfo has helped customers identify and

connect with their best buyers for over a decade.

“We used other data providers for the first three months of using ZoomInfo so we could compare the accuracy of the

data, and ZoomInfo was by far the best. ZoomInfo’s data is superior to the competition and is accurate 90% of the time.”

Chris Flores, Inside Sales Manager, Namely

“With ZoomInfo, I have been able to pinpoint a handful of contacts to meet very specific criteria with much success,

and also was able to add 1000s of valuable leads to my organization’s database.”

Jeremy Poore, Director of Business Development, Connect First

Accelerate your growth with ZoomInfo. Visit www.zoominfo.com or call 866-904-9666 to find out how.

http://www.zoominfo.com

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