Most successful eMarketing or voice prospecting campaigns rely heavily on the strengths of a top flight list of sales contacts. Often your campaign is only as good as the quality of your list of contacts.

So, how does one improve the quality of their data base? Here are a few of the best practices that I employ for lead-gen data base enhancement:

• Google is an excellent tool. Simply locate your target customer’s domain name, enter it on Google in email format (“@domainname.com”) with quotation marks around it, then type the word email, as it is usually positioned right before most addresses found on the web. This technique has surprisingly good results.
• Social Media sites such as LinkedIn.com are a good place to find out who’s who at companies who participate. Most times, company employees will be listed, as well as a list of people who also viewed the page. Many of these other viewers are co-workers of various levels and positions. Just do the round robin clicking on the links in the various threads that you will follow.
• Contact sales companies, such as JigSaw.com, 1-800-Contacts.com, ZoomInfo.com, and Hoovers.com have massive data bases of contact information for hundred’s of thousands of companies, both domestic and international. This is a better option than purchasing marketing lists, since you retain the contacts forever, where as list sales companies only allow one use. My favorite is JigSaw.com, as the data quality is fairly high, the sheer number of available contacts is excellent, and they also have a contact swap program that allows you to obtain fresh new contacts at no cost monetarily.
• Your target customer’s website often will often post a list of Executive and Management personnel. You would be surprised at how many firms make this information readily available.
• Financial reporting statements. The 10K quarterly reports and the annual report both are good sources for names and titles. The 10K is also a good source of information on where a company is headed and what thier plans for the future are.
• Professional trade associations often post their membership rosters online. If you are unsure on which ones to look for, ask current customers which ones they belong to.