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3 challenges to conquer when buying a list

Anika Temperante
Anika Temperante
Director of Sales and Marketing

In order to grow a business, it is important to follow a consistent schedule of obtaining and nurturing leads. There are several ways this can be done, but the most effective that we have found for B2B and medtech companies is to make targeted calls that connect your business to decision-makers. Often this starts with a purchased list. Although this can be very effective, there are some challenges that go with this method.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges that can arise, as well as some advice as to how to conquer them:

List quality

The quality of the list can make or break the success of any campaign. There are many factors that can impact list quality such as age of the list, the industry being targeted, and how the information was obtained in the first place. According to Hubspot, a database of email addresses can degrade as much as 22.5% per year—or one-fifth of the information.

This means that if your list is a year old, over 20% of the contacts could be irrelevant. Preventing this attrition requires regular list maintenance to ensure your information remains accurate, or the regular expense of purchasing new names to keep your counts up.

Multiple users

Another challenge to overcome when buying a list is the potential that multiple companies might use the same list—including your competitors. When purchasing a list, it’s smart to verify who else has used it in the last 12-18 months.

It is possible to purchase exclusive lists that limit the number of uses or may even sell to only one company. This may increase your chances of ending up with a higher number of viable leads. The goal is to find a list that not only makes sense for your market, but that has as few competitive users as possible.

Missing information

Often, purchased lists contain some—but not all—of the information your marketing and sales teams need to do their jobs. For example, many compiled lists provide only contact information for the company headquarters, such as the main phone number and address. Others show contact information for a single individual in each department, who may or may not be responsible for making purchasing decisions. Quality, opt-in email lists are even harder to source.

Outbound calling is a tremendous resource to beef up a purchased list and identify names, titles, roles, and contact information for the decision-makers you want to reach. In this way, the purchased list is a starting point to build a robust and accurate prospecting database. A quality list is a good start, but the effectiveness of the calling campaign is where the real value lies.

Are you looking for an effective strategy to create active leads? Nurturing a purchased list of contacts can be an excellent strategy to help you do this, as long as you know what type of list to buy and understand the best approach for getting in touch with these contacts. This way, your sales department can focus on what they do best – converting those active leads to sales! For more information on how to best utilize this strategy, contact Volkart May.

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