Contact Identification

1. CHAPTER THREE Contact Identification The Importance of Accurate Contact Information

2. It’s not really a secret. Everyone hates cold calling, no matter which side of the phone you are on. An, according to our data, once you get to the sales presentation, no one likes those very much either. Let’s look at the numbers (from the 2013 Crux Research/Bridgemark Solutions Marketing Research Industry Study). Only 28% of the market research firms surveyed have a dedicated sales staff. When you look at all market research firms, they are making 3.3 sales presentations per month on average. Only 40% of market research firms rate these presentations as “very” or “somewhat” effective. And, not surprisingly, the Crux/Bridgemark study showed that 72% of market research suppliers do not enjoy sales presentations, and 60% consider them “not very effective” or only “somewhat effective”. On the client side, the average market research prospect takes 2.8 calls per month (and on average one of those is from a supplier they already use, usually about expanding their existing relationship). Market research buyers don’t seem to think that these sales calls are very effective - only 4% rate them “very” or “somewhat” effective! In an open-end question asking how sales cold calls could be better, here are some typical client responses: “Don’t call.” “Don’t cold call.” “Don’t call so often.”

3. 60% of market research suppliers polled describe their sales efforts as “inconsistent”. So is it any wonder no one likes cold calling to generate sales presentations? In my experience, especially in market research shops with a “seller-doer” model, market researchers will do just about anything to avoid cold calling. For staff responsible for both sales and client work, client work trumps sales every time. So it’s no wonder 60% of market research suppliers polled describe their sales efforts as “inconsistent”. Nonetheless, every market research firm needs sales prospects – real people in target companies – in order to reach out and introduce their services. But when you consider the costs of getting an accurate prospect’s name, title, email, phone number, location, etc. – including the professional time spent looking for the prospect, employee frustration, and time wasted due to a lack of accuracy – it’s natural to question whether it makes financial sense to have your staff look for their own sales prospects. So here are some tips to help you get more out of your time spent reaching out to new potential clients: Email Verification services – which can quickly check the emails in your list to make sure they are still valid – are a fast, effective, inexpensive way to weed out prospects in your database whose information is no longer valid.

4. There are a seemingly endless number of list brokers who say they can deliver a good list (as defined in the last chapter.) But, to-date, we have not found a broker able to deliver even reasonably good sales contacts in the market research industry. When considering a contact broker, here are a few critical questions to ask… • Have you worked in and understand the research industry? • Do you offer a guarantee on the “bad” contacts that will inevitably be included in the list provided? • Will you provide only net-new contacts, avoiding the ones I already have? You probably have at least some contacts already, so the ones you are buying should be incremental to your existing contacts…right? Why should you pay for contacts you already have? Most list brokers are not interested in developing customized lists, based on your specific needs. They make their money on volume, selling a given list over many times to generate revenue. So, they want to sell you the contacts they already have…not necessarily the contacts you need. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how many other companies (including your direct competitors) those same contacts have already been sold to?

5. One of Bridgemark Solutions’ most popular services is providing highly-targeted sales contacts to sales and research staff in market research firms looking to develop new business. You determine which companies you are interested in selling to, and Bridgemark can deliver accurate and timely information on those companies and contacts, including names, titles, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of your target prospects within those companies. By providing a list of the contacts you already have (and that Bridgemark Solutions will avoid), a fresh list of new names is ensured. Using a variety of sources like Hoovers, LinkedIn, Zoom Info, Data.com, TheList.com, etc., Bridgemark can take a lot of the drudgery out of the contact identification process by delivering hand-developed prospects for you or your sales team. Now, having contact identification done for you certainly isn’t going to make any one like cold calling, but at least when they do get around to making those calls, they will be calling the right people. Reducing the time wasted with calling contacts no longer employed in your target companies can save you real money and significantly increase the likelihood of success.