Do You Want To Generate More B2B Sales Leads? By Mac H McIntosh At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Have you heard the big news in the business-to-business marketing world? Jigsaw, the on-line business directory of company contact info, announced recently that they will be offering free access to close to one million company records in its on-line database. These records include full address information along with firmographic information including geographic location, company size, and the industry category that they fall into. Access to this free company data has only a couple of strings attached; users have to register at the site, and the data cannot be resold.

Database-driven direct marketing for B2B lead generation is a proven successful strategy. So, it seems it would make a lot of sense to reap the advantage of this free access to almost a million company records... doesn't it? As a consultant specializing in business-to-business sales lead generation, you may expect that I'd be very excited about this complimentary offer.... but actually I'm not.

For maximum effectiveness with your direct marketing and lead generation program, you will have to reach out to the people in business who, by job function or title, use, recommend, or make final purchasing decisions about your type of product or service. This is because of the simple fact that companies don't buy, people at companies buy.

Attempting to generate leads by making cold calls to companies on the phone and asking, "Can I please talk to the person who oversees...?" is a waste of expense in terms of both time and money. Too much effort will be spent on determining which person you should be trying to speak with.

Although better than nothing, sending mail addressed to, "To Whom it May Concern..." carries with it a big risk of becoming a waste of limited marketing funds. These messages will often never make it anywhere but the trash cans in the mail room; this is particularly true at larger companies.

So why not just send out a mass of email messages to info@companyaddress.com with a request to pass the message on to the correct person included in the message header? Well, what are the odds of this working at all? There's a slim chance to none that the messages will make it past the spam filters and be relayed successfully thoughout a seris of busy people at the company.

Now, let's get back to Jigsaw. What is the reason for offering free access to its large database of company info? A publishing, consulting, conference and research group InfoCommerce Group reported in the ICG Weekly Perspectives electronic newsletter: "Need contact names to go with that company data? Jigsaw has them, but they're not giving them away... Need ongoing verification of your data, including identification of dead records? Jigsaw can help, for a fee." Now we see their incentive.

Using a loss leader to drive the volume of customer visits and, consequently, sales, is another proven tactic in B2B marketing and sales. A loss leader is selling an item at cost to stimulate other more profitable sales from the same customers. Staples has used this strategy effectively to increase B2B sales for its office supply outlets and e-commerce website, by promoting lower prices on a series of key items. Perhaps Jigsaw should give this loss leader strategy a try?

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