Data, Data Driven Marketing

The Solution to Lead Generation

The difference between successful businesses and failures is often linked lead generation efforts. If a company is able to generate quality leads, then sales function well and the company is successful. However, if the company cannot generate quality leads, sales efforts struggle and often fail. Lead generation is a common problem many organizations face, but what is the solution? Customer Data.

In her article, “Customer Data: The Solution to Lead Generation,” Shayla Price dives into this issue of generating quality leads. She quotes a CSO Insight study that reports that 42 percent of sales representatives do not feel like they have enough information about their leads before making initial contact. The idea is that having ample customer data about your leads prior to contact will produce better leads and, in turn, better sales. Shayla provides four steps to utilize customer data to solve the lead generation problem:

  1. Gathering Reliable Data
  2. Enhancing Buyer Personas
  3. Segmenting your Audience
  4. Building the Relationship

Gathering Reliable Data

In order to use customer data, you have to have customer data. This data can include things like gender, income levels, hobbies and interests, and much more. At American Name Services, we can provide a lot of insights on your customers as well as highly-targeted leads that match your ideal customer profile. Our list experts can also help determine what your ideal customer profile looks like to aid in your selections. Data exists and is readily available, each organization just has to know where to find it.

Enhancing Buyer Personas

What is a buyer persona? Shayla writes that you need to get inside the mind of your prospects to understand how they think, what their motivations are, and why they might buy your product. Creating a persona helps you to identify better marketing solutions and sales presentations that will speak to your potential buyer. With accurate customer data, leads can be matched to ideal buyer personas to rank leads in terms of how qualified they really are. This practice will aid in spending valuable time and resources on targeting the best potential buyers. American Name Services has a team of consultants ready and able to help you enhance your buyer personas and match real leads to them to help maximize your sales efforts.

Segmenting your Audience

Segmenting your audience is a great way to organize your leads and group similarities together. Segments may be based on geographical locations, demographics, psychographics, or behavioral aspects. Doing this can help organize sales efforts for maximum efficiency. It can also help tailor marketing messages specifically to the customers you are targeting. Shayla uses the example of Sally in her article:

“If sally specifically likes apples, why send her emails about oranges and grapefruits? Instead educate her about the difference between gala apples and pink lady apples.”

American Name Services can aid you in all of your segmenting needs. Our data can be segmented in any way you need, we can also segment and help manage your internal data for you.

Building the Relationship

Don’t forget that people are at the center of the sales process. When dealing with data, it is often easy to reduce your leads into numbers and data points. Instead, use the customer data your acquire to aid you in building real relationships with your potential customers. Shayla shares in her article that:

“Customer data is intended to facilitate the relationship between the sales rep and the buyer. However, research shows that companies without sophisticated data management tool derive erroneous results that annoy customers, resulting in 25 percent reduction in potential revenue gains.”

Use customer data to generate high-quality leads, then sell to the people, not the data. Build lasting and profitable relationships with your customers to maximize your return on investment.

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