As you may be aware, an email list is the foundation upon which many sales and marketing campaigns are built. There are a few ways one can acquire a list: there are lists that you can purchase or companies that you can outsource to build your list for you. Here is one way that you can build your own sales prospecting list from scratch.
Determine Buyer Persona
The first thing to consider when building a prospect list from scratch is which buyer persona the list will focus on. It is very likely that your business will have multiple buyer personas. Narrowing your focus is important because it will allow you to have a more targeted list that you can send personalized, effective emails to.
For example, maybe one of your buyer personas is the ‘IT Manager of Hospitals.’ If your CRM has the ability to create tags, then when you upload the list you can create a tag for the contacts as ‘IT Manager Hospitals.’ This will allow you to run a targeted campaign focused on that specific persona.
Leverage LinkedIn with Online Tools
There are a couple of different ways to build your list using LinkedIn in combination with a couple of other online tools. Whichever tool that you decide to use, it will be used in conjunction with LinkedIn Advanced Search.
Step 1: Using LinkedIn Advanced Search to find prospects
Step 2: Using Find That Email to extract prospect emails
Using DuxSoup to extract prospect emails
Upload Your List into CRM or Email Tool
Once you have your list it should be exported to an Excel file so that it can be uploaded to your CRM or email tool of choice. We use HubSpot internally, which is great for uploading lists because it lets you create a tag which will designate the contacts from the rest of your contact list.
Typically, it is good to have the list broken up into sub categories within Excel so that the CRM or email tool can process it. For example, each cell should have its own category, i.e.: first name, last name, title, company, email, etc.
Again, when choosing a tool to reach out to your list, keep in mind that it is helpful to be able to tag them in combination with email automation tools.
Unsure how to leverage the list that you do have? Contact us in order to learn more about lead generation campaigns that we can create to drive more opportunities for your business!