Demand Generation Machine

Well going by by the image, thats one corporate hierarchy that you don’t want to be going through to reach the top Selling into large organizations that have a deeper hierarchy can be a navigational nightmare for sales teams but lets face the facts. CIO’s, CTO’s and other C-Level or Vice President level are not the easiest guys to connect with especially in larger companies. There are the voice mailboxes, the spam filters and and the Knights-in-Armor also known as assistant to the VP to shield them from sales pitches and they do a good job at it. A C-Level decision maker maybe the only one who can give you the final nod for your product or service but may not always be the best person to talk to at length when you need to do your groundwork, understand the company’s requirements and discuss the base level aspects of how you can help them which can really take up time he or she doesn’t have much to spare in the first place. The route through influencers and working your sales through the hierarchy is sometimes the best way through depending on what you are selling. If you know even a part of the decision making hierarchy it makes navigating and striking conversations with the right people so much easier. Then why doesn’t everyone pull out an mini organization chart with 2 or 3 levels of contacts and then approach the company?

Well its not as easy as that. Its not very difficult to locate C-Level decision makers at larger companies but when it comes to deeper contacts at a more functional level it becomes harder to locate them. Determining who they report to or the roles within the department can be even more tedious and time consuming so for a sales person its simpler to locate a high level contact and then take your chances hoping you will connect. We have helped companies dig into key accounts they are focusing on to help locate and structure such mini charts around a specific role and although it is tedious, having a choice of contacts to connect within an organization can be a great asset. It’s worth the effort. The next time you have a key account you want to sell into, see if you can work out who are the contacts involved in the buying process, build out your chart and grow your options of how you are going to work your way to that final decision maker. Sell smart!

Marketers and salespeople are not always the easiest people in the world to sell to. You know that when you are pitching a product or a service to someone in your own space its more likely they know what you are thinking and they know what you are doing. You would think that they would always be extra cautious, not get sweet talked and end up buying only what they need and yet…thats not always true. How many times have you spent some part of your demand generation budget on something that you don’t really need or something that wasn’t nearly as useful as you thought it would be?

Last week we evaluated a number of products which were lead sources for a company and each of the 3 products they had narrowed down on was outstanding in their own right. Technically they were all strong, they promised great value, great support and in the end it came down to the volumes of leads and contact data they could provide. One had a thousands, the next had over a million and the last had several million companies and several million contacts. A clear winner. Just one small problem. The company evaluating this lead source has a niche product. Very few of those million companies may be good potential targets when it comes to selling. The product is so specific that the decision makers and contacts who would be able to discuss such a product are people deep inside the organizations so the high level contacts provided by the lead sources may not be very helpful. If it were up to us, we would save that part of the budget and direct it towards actually locating leads within the more focussed set of companies where we know there is potential to sell. The point is when you allocate budget towards lead generation read through all the impressive features and numbers and ask yourself ‘what can I get from this?’ Does it fit in with my plan and requirements? Will it help me generate the kind of leads I’m looking for? If you can find good answers to these, you’re spending your budget wisely. Live up to the “Marketer” and “Salesperson” title! If we end up being sold something we didn’t need… then heaven help those other poor souls in other departments!

We have just updated and gone live with a new version of Activecontacts.net F500 which is good news for sales and marketing folks who target IT business contacts within the Fortune 500 companies. The database currently has a little over 8000 technology contacts within the fortune 500 companies and includes contacts ranging from higher VP level contacts to deep rooted contacts which provides reach across levels and this database will continue to grow and be updated. Having used subscription databases before one of the biggest drawbacks we have seen is that although the number of contacts grow the quality of the data has a shelf life and deteriorates to the point where your campaigns run ineffective because the data was no longer valid. Instead of having a very large database which is virtually impossible to keep updated we have a more focussed database which provides all the important contact data for decision makers within these companies and a good range of roles while keeping it small enough so that our internal team can update the database regularly and keep the quality of the data fresh. ActiveContacts has been built keeping in mind the data that is required to run email, direct mail and telephone based campaigns and includes email addresses and direct or one-hop phone numbers with each contact. So if you are in the IT space and the Fortune 500 is your next target get in touch with us and we’ll help you get started with ActiveConatcts.