Building Contact Data

Busines Issue: Poor data, uncertain sales potential

Marketing departments need quality data in order to consistently contribute to the company’s revenue stream. Yet most organizations struggle finding the time and expertise to develop and maintain their data. While time consuming, the pay-off is well worth the investment. Recently, a leading telephony solutions provider contracted TeleNet Marketing to assist in determining the accuracy of their customer data and to understand the volume and value of potential upgrade opportunities among their installed base. The customer database included 27,000 accounts. While the data did include some contact information, the data was outdated and in most cases incomplete. In fact, it was not known if the accounts were still valid customers. Due to heightened competition in the marketplace, the goal of this initiative was not only to obtain valid decision-maker data, but also to confirm the account’s current installed environment in order to ultimately determine which accounts represented potential sales opportunities.

Solution: Targeted Telemarketing with Web Research

Utilizing an approach of telemarketing, combined with web research, TeleNet Marketing developed a program focused on three primary objectives:

• Verify existing contact information
• Uncover new key decision makers
• Collect key environmental information

In order to “attack” the data in the most efficient manner possible, the data was analyzed and segmented based on the age of the data, size of account, etc. in order to allow accounts with the highest “propensity for upgrade” to be prioritized throughout the effort. The program evolved to include asking customers, that met specific criteria, if they were interested in being contacted with information about upgrade opportunities, thus allowing leads to also be developed through the activity.

RESULTS

Using a combination of telemarketing and Internet research, TeleNet launched the data verification & supplementation program targeting 27,000 accounts. Key metrics for this program included:

• Completed Accounts, those accounts with confirmed decision-maker(s) and full installed base information
• Verified Accounts, those accounts with confirmed decision-makers only.

Thirty-percent of the account data was deemed invalid through the research efforts (i.e. out of business). Removing this data from the database will greatly improve the focus of all subsequent marketing efforts. More importantly, of the valid accounts, just over 60% have been successfully completed. Although the campaign is not yet completed, nearly 90% of the accounts in the priority segments have been successfully completed. Furthermore, with the addition of the upgrade “lead” probe that was added, well over 1,000 opportunities have been uncovered and pushed to Sales.