The dilemma of many companies these days is whether to invest more on developing new customers or in building stronger relationships with existing clients. Both are critical to the success of any business but what should be your emphasis? The answer is not that simple as the question is nearly impossible to answer but let’s quickly explore the topic on a top-line basis.

Retention is obviously critical to the success of any business. Historically, businesses that have a “churn and burn” mentality will not last long, but it does beg the question: what should be your focus? If your focus is on stronger profits and you have a large customer base than it would make sense to invest in building better customer relationships. And if targeting customers or businesses where there is an established relationship, direct marketing tools are well positioned to be utilized and successful in this endeavor. Results tend to be significantly greater, and profits higher, when customers are better targeted. Even former purchasers or users will respond better than individuals who have no experience with your organization.

However, even if your company’s focus is on creating better profits and retaining customers, developing new customers is also critical to the viability and growth for any company. Attrition is inevitable and even the most established businesses need new prospects to replenish their customer base. The most successful customer retention programs don’t keep 100% of their customer base. Maintaining a balance between customer retention and prospect marketing efforts is one of the keys to becoming a successful business.

So whether it is to promote a new venture, product, service, and/or to simply thrive in the growth stage of a business, an organization still needs to prospect for new customers. A business mailing list is the most effective means to reach this goal. It allows companies to broaden their reach and help with the prospecting/acquisition of new customers, patients, members, etc. Business mailing lists allows companies to broaden their reach but also to target their audience better, sell a product or service, generate a lead, drive traffic sell subscriptions or memberships, etc. Direct marketing being a proven medium, many organizations rely upon direct mail for their main marketing tool or as a support mechanism for their prospecting efforts. In short, simply talking to your current or in-active customers will not suffice. Businesses need to continue to broaden their reach for new prospects. Therefore a key to success will likely hinge on the use a mailing list to supplement your own in-house list. Now how to go about purchasing a business list is whole other topic entirely. A quick consultation with the folks here at Instant Business List may be the beginning to the continued success of your business.

An acquaintance of mine, who actually purchased data from Instant Business List, asked me the other day “who actually uses or buys business lists; people who don’t know who their target audience is?” After a good laugh, I first pointed out that not only is he a member, but also based upon his access records he uses both databases quite a bit so I’m not sure how to take his remark/question. Perhaps he is just insecure. In any event, I decided to engage him in a more serious manner discussing not only the benefits of purchasing a business mailing list or business email list, but more specifically what types of businesses might use it and why. In short, the potential benefactors of buying a business list and using it to market their product/service is too large to simply list off in this forum but suffice to say it is vast and wide in terms of industries. Think about it quickly and I’m sure you can begin to formulate some ideas very easily as it doesn’t take a rocket scientist.…Almost any B-to-B company can benefit from supplementing their own customer list with a larger business mailing list or business email list…some industries off the top of my head are as follows: business brokers; billing service companies or bookkeepers, advertising agencies, web developers, sign manufactures, financial planners, cleaning companies, business or membership associations, promotional marketing companies, underwriters and on and on and on. In the end, perhaps it’s better to ask not who should use or buy a business list, but more importantly how should they use it and who should they buy it from. For help with answering these questions and more, please contact one of the knowledgeable account executives at Instant Business List at 888-474-6021.

People always are wondering how a business list can help their company. Well, whether you are a fortune 500 or a start-up, 1000 employees or a sole proprietor, there are so many ways a company can utilize a business list to help their organization, and in ways perhaps not readily top of mind. Business lists are widely used to increase revenue by finding new sales and marketing leads or more succinctly to acquire new customers, patients or members. It allows an organization to market its product or service rather than to simply advertise it. However, although a business list most common use is to increase revenues and open up new sales opportunities, it can also be used to create sales territories, find local or affiliate partners, recruit new employees, test different markets and ad campaigns…and so much more. For questions regarding a business list and how it can be used for your organization, give us a call at  88….  

Ever hear the saying “penny wise, pound foolish” and “time is money”?  I know. They’ve become tired clichés, albeit, at times very appropriate ones. Too often organizations spend more time and energy developing business lists than working the leads themselves. Buying a Business List can save the time you once spent building business lists on actually getting business done and generating more revenue.

I for one used to spend countless hours searching the internet for new sources of information, leads, etc. At times when I found some great nuggets of information I thought the time spent was productive and justified, however, often time I spent hours with little to show for it. The end simply didn’t justify the means so I decided to analyze it a little more closely. I came up with simple metric system to perform a cost benefit analysis which included my time, what it’s worth, target revenue numbers, conversion rates, price points, etc. In summary I found that it was costing way too much to reach and convert a customer. Although I had a good product/service and an average conversion rate, I didn’t have the pure number of sales leads or businesses it took with my conversion percentage to hit my revenue goals, which lead me to the conclusion that not only I alone couldn’t “find” the number of businesses or sales leads required to hit my revenue goals, but that it was a waste of money searching for this information myself. There’s just not enough time in the day and I didn’t have the infrastructure to support it. I finally came to grips with the reality that I was wasting my time as it was better focused on selling rather than researching. So I began to seek out alternative solutions to reaching more businesses: buying business lists. The story has many twists and turns as it isn’t as easy as simply buying a business list and you will start to generate instant business. First, buying a business list can be tricky as there are numerous variables to consider and many companies out there to choose.  Plus, you will still need to get the attention of you target audience and give them a compelling offer/reason to take action. However, in the end buying a business list was a smart investment.  The time I saved searching for businesses/leads was transformed into talking too and converting more customers. In the ending generating my company more revenue. I understand in this tough economy businesses are trying to save money and cut back on expenses. However, it makes sense to look at the numbers more closely and perform a simple cost benefit analysis as buying a business list can save lots of time and be money well spent.