Tag Archives: B2B marketing list

How our New Platform for Record Purchase Can Energize Your B2B Marketing

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We’re extremely excited to announce the release of our newest product, the Marketfish Platform for Record Purchase. Built on the same cutting-edge technology as our list rental product, our new platform is the easiest and most efficient way to purchase complete B2B records for lead generation campaigns.

The Marketfish Platform for Record Purchase isn’t your standard record purchasing tool. We marry fully automated access to over 50 million B2B records from the industry’s top publishers with a level of functionality unseen in the list marketing space.

  • You can purchase email, postal, and telephone data, or purchase all three. We also let you segment our marketplace based on data type, so you’re never paying for contact details you don’t need.
  • We offer a simple pricing model: just $1 per record, or “name your own price” for even greater budget control.
  • We provide the capability to suppress against both email address and domain. No other record purchase platform offers this functionality.
  • We’re the only tool that allows you to buy records from multiple publishers, all from within the same platform.
  • We allow you to preview records before purchasing, so you can evaluate what you’re buying before you make a transaction.
  • All purchased records are available for unlimited use, perfect for marketers that have to make the most of their marketing budget.
  • We offer the Marketfish Guarantee: If you find any inaccurate information in any of your purchased records, just upload the records back into the platform, and we’ll give you a credit towards your next campaign. No other platform offers this guarantee.

The Marketfish Platform for Record Purchase is an exciting new tool for B2B lead generation marketers everywhere. By marrying highly accurate data and respected publishers with our cutting-edge platform features, we’re making it easier than ever for marketers to purchase the B2B records they need to drive their prospecting forward.

To see our new product in action, just log into the Marketfish Platform for Record Purchase, and start targeting your audience. As always, it’s free to try!

How to Craft Compelling Collateral

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Lead qualification is an extension of lead generation. Most of your new leads aren’t going to become customers. That’s the unfortunate reality of sales and marketing. So, if you want a lean and mean sales process, you need to quickly qualify leads and pass them along to your sales staff, without prematurely trashing anything.

In addition to your qualifying questions and conversations, marketing collateral can work to expedite the qualification process. Beyond its initial impact, collateral can also work like a mini nurturing campaign. It’ll hang around for a while and eventually your lead might take a look and give you a call back.

Unfortunately, most collateral is unremarkable. It’s usually a PDF sell sheet, case study, or a PowerPoint presentation. Those are time tested collateral mediums – and they work – but they don’t do anything to set you apart from the competition. The answer is refreshing your current collateral, and diversifying your collateral library.

Videos. Reading is work and it takes time. Video is the answer. The medium is inherently easy to digest. It’s also very shareable. A well-produced video is going leave your leads with a solid understanding of the benefits of working with your company. Plus, video isn’t as prevalent as it should be – especially in the B2B world. Have some fun with your videos, but stay informative, and you’ll outstrip the competition in no time.

Infographics. These guys have been around long enough for us to know what they are and how they work. They’re a slick and effective tool for sharing information quickly and clearly. In the world of brand-centric collateral, infographics are a great way to explain your product or service, especially if it’s complex. For example, you could us an infographic to explain your product’s workflow or to illustrate how your product fits into your larger industry.

Printed Collateral. Remember those glossy brochures you used to produce? Maybe it’s time to bring those back. We live in a digital world, so physical objects stand out. Try sending printed collateral to your valued prospects. You’ll have to write new, streamlined copy, and redesign to emphasize photos, charts, and other informational graphics. These things stand out, and physical collateral could make the difference between a lead choosing your company or your competitor.

These are just some initial ideas. Collateral is cool. Have some fun producing it, and make something you think your prospects will enjoy. Just be sure to keep message clear. Don’t let overzealous creativity muddle your message.

 

P.S. If you have ideas for new and improve marketing collateral, leave them in the comments. And if you found this post helpful, please share. Thanks for reading!  

How to Deliver a One-Two Lead-Gen Punch

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This week, a client reminded me of a very important lesson, direct mail still works! While digital marketing has certainly taken off, direct mail is still a fantastic marketing tool – when well-targeted.

In fact, the stats are startling. The 2010 USPS Household Diary Study found that 81% of consumers will either read or scan advertising mail sent to their household. Compare that with findings from the Email Experience Council’s 2012: Email in Action study that report the 2011 average open rate for a B2C sales email at 18%, and you can see why direct mail is still swimming swiftly along.

Direct mail’s performance is even further augmented when used in tandem with email. To get you started, here are a couple of ways the two can work together in harmony, merging the cost-effectiveness of email with the tangible impact of direct mail:

  • Send out an email campaign promoting your new product or service, then re-target the opens and clicks with a postal campaign. This lets you engage prospects through multiple channels.
  • Send out a postal and email campaign simultaneously.  Experiencing the brand and offer through multiple channels can increase brand recognition and encourage action on the recipients’ end.

Creativity is vital to a successful direct mail campaign. It has to catch eyes, lift spirits, engage, and inspire. We all know we toss (or recycle!) the standard coupons, offers, etc. that don’t interest us. Just like in email, it’s important to stand out!

Recently, a fellow marketer shared an interesting tactic with me: consider putting some sort of object inside the envelope with your offer. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just something that’ll be enough to peak a person’s interest. Physical objects that people can touch and feel are interesting, and people will often open an envelope out of curiosity alone. Additionally, bright, bold mailing pieces stand out from the crowd, and will further encourage engagement.

Hopefully you’ve found some direct marketing inspiration, now go out and engage with those prospects.

 

P.S. Be sure to check out all the multi-channel possibilities Marketfish offers here.

Data 101

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At Marketfish, we take data very seriously.  Hosting quality data in our platform is critical to our ability to deliver our service offerings.  With such a focus on data, you might imagine that we have a few thoughts on the subject.  So, here’s the process that Marketfish goes through when selecting a data partner. This process is a tool that you can use to assess the quality of your own data partner.

The best lists are always permission-based and authorized to receive third-party marketing offers.  These lists should be permissioned on either a single or double opt-in basis.  Double opt-in is preferred.  There are also “forced” opt-in lists.  This category includes lists permissioned around pre-checked boxes.  We don’t consider “forced” opt-ins a best practice, and therefore, try to avoid lists permissioned in this manner.

Once a list owner meets these basic criteria, we then further qualify the data source.  We always check a potential list owner’s privacy policy.  It’s essential for Marketfish to ensure that the customers on the list are aware that they have opted to receive third party offers.  Additionally, we always ask for a sampling of records from the potential list provider, this allows us to evaluate their quality.  On a similar note, we ask for a data dictionary so that we can see what kind of information is captured in the list provider’s records.  We also require a screenshot of the opt-in page so that we can verify that the records are obtained in an ethical manner.

Finally, when we ingest data into our platform, we require that every record contain three pieces of data: time & date stamp, IP address, and opt-in URL.  This allows Marketfish to mitigate potential customer complaints.  We can go back and show customers exactly when they opted-in to a particular list.  Of course, we are fully CAN-SPAM compliant, and therefore require that any advertiser or marketer that uses our platform to include an opt-out URL within their email creative.  This ensures that any customer, who wants off a list, gets off that list.

There you have it, the Marketfish data partner vetting process.  We try to make this as comprehensive as possible so that we can hand our customers the quality data they need.  If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts on our process, please let us know.