Every business that wants to perform and grow needs to consider adding direct marketing in their marketing plan. Perhaps you’ve already heard other marketers saying that “the money is in the list”. Indeed, the money is in the list, but not in any type of list. If you buy your sales leads lists from unverified places, you risk to have a very low ROI, thus rendering your efforts ineffective.
Here are the main characteristics of good sales leads lists:
1. Verified
All email addresses and phone numbers need to be verified in order to maximize the response rate. People move and change their phone numbers more often than you’d think, therefore using an unverified list is pretty much like throwing mud at a wall, hoping some will stick.
2. Customizable
Good sales leads lists have multiple segmentation criteria. You need to be able to select the core target individuals that are your main customers. Those people make the best leads, but if you have to target an entire list of hundreds of thousands of people only to address two thousand recipients that form your core target, your actions may not be too effective. This is why you need to be able to apply filters to your list so that you can select your recipients for various campaigns based on demographic criteria.
The more a list matches your target market, the better the response rate will be. Think about it this way: your target market are those people who want to hear from you, people who are interested in receiving information about your products, either because they already use them and appreciate them or because they are interested in that specific niche. If you can have only such names on your list, your budgets will be very well invested and your profits will skyrocket.
3. Interactive and easy to use
Since each campaign assumes filtering your list and selecting only names belonging to your specific target, you need to be able to do this selection very fast, in order to be as efficient as possible in your marketing activities. This is why good lists always allow you to build the right list very fast and without errors, so that you can fire up your campaigns quickly and effectively.
Last but not least, whenever you want to try anew list, it might be useful to select a sample and send them some communication in order to see if the list is right for your type of business. This sampling method is very effective and you should use it in all your marketing campaigns. It can help you save a lot of money by allowing you to know where you should direct most of your efforts and your budgets. The main goal of any business is to be profitable, so this is what you should aim for in your business as well. This is what a good list could help you achieve.