Does your company have a strategy for contact acquisition? Is it something you ponder? Could you track it? We all focus on demand generation targeting our current customers & prospects, but how much emphasis is put on adding new contacts and accounts to your database?
In order to continue to grow business, adding new contacts and accounts to your database is an important part of the process. Each marketing campaign can contribute a portion of the overall desired additions. There are several ways that they can contribute. First is the obvious method of referrals to build contacts and at times even add accounts. Another technique to build data is responder mechanisms. However, acquisition of new lists from outside sources must also be included in the plan. All of these activities should be centered on demand generation efforts as it would be ill advised to load a purchased list or responders directly into your master database without first running a telemarketing campaign to segment the good targets from the not so good targets.
Even with all of this activity, you still have to identify which data is new vs what was a duplication/update of a record already housed in your database. If you are not taking the extra step to identify the new data, you won’t know if you are reaching your goals for contact acquisition.
Regarding goals, decisions should be made up front about the percentages of new data desired in each activity. Goals should be set based on current coverage of the marketplace vs desired coverage. You may also want to consider starting with a particular industry or segment of the market and work your way into other areas from there.
Regardless of the specific goals you set, telemarketing is a vital part of making sure the data you add is current and accurate.