Cleaning up prospecting lists. Deciding one-by-one which companies out of these 30...300....3,000 we should target for lead generation. Finding out the names and the titles of the specific decision makers that would be the most likely buyers of our services...
"I just don't have time to do things like this!"
Or
"Boring."
Or
"Just buy a list. Someone sells the right list for us, right?"
Or
"This menial work is beneath me. I should do more important things."
There are many excuses for why people don't spend the time and the diligence targeting possible buyers for their services one-by-one.
Let's look at the excuses (and, yes, they are excuses) listed here, starting with the top two:
I just don't have the time for this and boring. I've worked with many services firms over the years. When it comes to marketing, senior people at the firm meet again...and again...and again to talk about the website graphic design, or the new logo, or the new brochure colors. They go through 12 design round edits when they should have gone through three. Edits from the firm leaders come in volumes in terms of their mark-ups and commentary (didn't they have anything better to do all weekend?), and they meet endlessly debating the final renditions. Design processes have a way of spiraling out of control.
I can't remember the last time I heard partners and marketers complaining about the endless meetings talking about honing more closely into their specific targets. Doesn't happen.
In terms of the list part being boring, so it is. I don't know about your job, but not everything in my job compares to an afternoon extravaganza of Playstation III, my old friends, and a bucket of hot wings. Yet, the important tasks seem to get done.
Just buy a list. Someone sells the right list for us, right? Every once in a while a list broker or association has just the right list for you. Typically, they don't. When it comes to list compilers (e.g. D&B and InfoUSA), in my experience, the data isn't clean enough for decent lead generation without a lot of scrubbing of the lists. The mythical "perfect list" is usually just that: a myth.
This menial work is beneath me. I should do more important things. Leaders at services firms spend plenty of time on graphic design processes. Design plays an important role in marketing success, but the time leaders spend on design silliness is disproportionate to the success that good design can bring.
So how much time should you spend on targeting? In our upcoming Future of Lead Generation for Professional Services benchmark research report (to be released in late February, 2007), we asked 726 leaders in professional service businesses a number of questions about their lead generation practices.
Among the questions were these two:
1) Do you consider your company's overall ability to generate leads to be Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor?
2) When it comes to lead generation, does your firm know:
- The general profile of your target companies?
- The titles of decision makers at your target companies?
- The specific names of the organizations that are your best targets?
- The names of specific decision makers for your service areas at your best target companies?
Click on the graphic and compare how much the self-reported excellent-at-lead-generation companies know about their targets versus the self-reported poor-at-lead-generation companies.
How much time does your company spend on targeting? How would you answer these last 4 questions? Is this menial work still beneath you?