Finding sales leads on the Internet

You can identify leads by ‘pulling’ information off the Web or ‘pushing’ it on.

Databases containing millions of names can be searched and sorted to narrow the names down to your potential customers.

By Bonnie Kreitler

The Internet’s World Wide Web offers a wealth of sales possibilities for those who know how to use it properly. Techies talk about "pulling" information off the electronic highway and "pushing" information on. You may be able to find sales leads either way.

Pulling leads

You can pull sales leads off the Internet in several ways. Databases containing millions of names can be searched and sorted using multiple parameters to narrow the names down to your potential customers. Your sorts are available in various formats, including mailing labels, telephone lists and electronic media. Better yet, you can download the names directly into contact-management software, which will keep track of your approaches and results.

SalesLeads USA (www.abii.com) is a Web site that contains American Business Information Inc.’s (ABI’s) database of over 11 million American businesses. You can sort the names by Yellow Pages headings, major industry groups, Standard Industry Classification codes, sales volume and number of employees, or by using various geographic filters to pinpoint potential customers.

At the Dun & Bradstreet site (www.dnb.com), when you click on "Marketing Connection," you will find several business-information and database options.

Sites like Data Merchant (www.datamerchant.com) and List Merchant (www.listmerchant.com/) use the ABI list, Dun & Bradstreet lists, and other sources to provide a broader range of potential leads.

Each database site has its own pricing structure. Figure a price per name ranging from 18 cents to 50 cents, depending on the number of names you select and the media/format you request them in. Some sites are closely allied with particular contact-management software programs. However, all can download names in a wide variety of formats suitable for use with most database, personal-information manager or contact-management programs. (You need to buy one of these programs; they can’t be downloaded free from the Internet.)

Contact-management programs are sophisticated database programs that allow users to enter and sort information by a wide variety of criteria. You can check out sample entries and download trial versions of several major contact-management programs right on the Internet. One such program, Maximizer (www.multiactive.com), is closely allied with List Merchant. Another program, Act! (www.symantec.com), when paired with a companion program called Web Prospector, claims to be ideal for real estate salespeople. Tracker for Windows (www.tsinstitute.com), TeleMagic (www.telemagic.com) and Goldmine (www.goldminesw.com) all offer slightly different configurations suitable for different kinds of businesses.

Jean Lefevre, marketing director at Environmental Risk Ltd. in Bloomfield, notes that using a contact-management program was his company’s first step in organizing how it tracked progress in making new sales contacts.

More and more businesses are using their own Web sites to build custom mailing lists. By including a "guest book" form that site visitors fill out, businesses can collect the names of potential customers and qualify them at the same time, says Rick George, Web-site designer and owner of Color and Design Exchange (www.colordesign.com) in Newington. The names can be used for direct mailings, telephone sales contacts or "pushing" information electronically via e-mail.

"A Web site is an interactive, cost-effective advertising medium," George says, with the big advantages of flexibility and feedback. Web-site guest-book forms can ask for anything from basic name and address information to questions that help your sales personnel qualify each prospect. George says a guest-book form can be designed so that it cannot be "sent" or delivered back to you until the visitor has filled out all the boxes. This ensures that all visitors registering in your guest book will give you the information you want. There is a potential downside to this feature, though: It may lead some guests to decide not to register.

Jerry Sofocli, director of technology for Innovative Internet Marketing Solutions (www.iimsnet.com) in Wallingford, advises keeping a guest-book form fairly short; otherwise, visitors might feel it’s too time consuming or intrusive. He suggests 20 fields of information as a maximum.

Eric Mudry, account manager for Internet Marketing Solutions, points out that typically the Web-site server gathers the completed forms and holds them until your business is ready to download them. Once again, the right contact-management program can help you make the most of the leads you download.

Pushing information

On the "pushing" side of the equation, the Internet offers sales personnel an inexpensive, fast way to stay in touch with a large number of existing or potential clients on a regular basis. By building an electronic mailing list, sales staff can quickly distribute news of products, services or industry trends. They can even publish a newsletter or send birthday greetings via e-mail. Staying in touch with a large number of people has never been so easy or so economical.

Media-relations expert Jim Cameron, of Cameron Communications (www.camcomm.com) in Darien, advises public-relations professionals to ask before e-mailing to avoid irritating recipients of pushed information. That’s good advice for salespeople too.

You can build an electronic mailing list by asking existing clients and buyers for their e-mail addresses as you contact them in the normal course of business. At the same time, ask their permission for you to forward pertinent information. And if you have a Web-site guest-book form, be sure it requests not only e-mail addresses but also permission to send e-mail information.

One way to make sure your e-mail messages don’t become bothersome is to include information in each message describing how clients can remove themselves from your list. The usual approach is to let them reply with their name and the word "unsubscribe."

Subscribing to online newsletters and news lists relevant to your product or service can bring potentially useful lists of e-mail addresses directly to your mailbox. When senders forget to blind carbon copy a message to their recipient list, the list of carbon-copy recipients may be a bonanza of potential sales prospects. Forward information about your product or service to those on the list, and ask if they would like to receive regular news or mailings from your company.

Although electronic contacts may seem more anonymous than face-to-face meetings, courtesy still counts. The idea is to push information electronically without being considered pushy by the recipient.

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