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Many companies are reluctant to outsource their list building out of fear that it may take too much of their time or turn into an organizational nightmare.
So sometimes, without even asking that very agency how the process actually works, they give up and decide to spend hours and hours doing their own list building, or even worse, outsource it to a less qualified third party.
In reality, outsourcing your list building to a qualified, experienced, flexible and capable prospecting agency is your money much better spent.
Learn about the whole process of getting quality list building services – prior, during and after hiring a prospect list building agency.
What Do You Need to Do Before You Hire a List Building Agency?
Before hiring a prospect list building agency, you should define your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona that will serve as a guide through the sales process.
Base them on your existing clients if you’ve already closed some deals, and if you haven’t started your sales yet (here is how), base them on your competition’s clients.
You should be able to give the list building agency information about the industry and the size of the companies you’re targeting as well as the key decision makers that are most likely to make the decision to purchase your product or service.
A good list building agency should be able to work with this information, but also suggest some other industries, verticals, companies and decision makers you should target.
What Kind Of Prospect List Building Agency Should You Hire?
Hire a prospect list building agency that suits your needs. There are those that charge per prospect, those that charge per hour, or you could even hire a list building freelancer, too. Here are the differences between hiring…
Whichever pricing model you pick (if you need thousands of prospects, we recommend those by the hour), make sure the agency is actually going to deliver what you need.
Experience is key
Check out what they’ve done before. An experienced agency will be the easiest to trust. Find one that has been offering their specialized service for a couple of years.
Not only does it mean that they actually know how to do the things that you need, but it also gives you an advantage of tapping into their years of their experience without actually paying a senior full-time employee to do so.
Proven results
Moreover, take a look at what they’ve done before. What were their results? They will give you a good idea of what you can expect from them. Check out their case studies or even reach out to the people from their testimonials.
Willing to provide a sample
Ask them for a free sample of contacts to see whether the delivered list is something that you can actually work with.
This should give you a pretty clear idea of whether they are just scraping the web or actually looking for prospects that fit your ICP/ BP.
Able to deliver scalable account data
The agency should have the capability to easily scale up in case you change your sales and marketing strategy and decide you need way more contacts than before or want to target a new audience fast.
Flexible for new inputs
You need a flexible agency. In addition to scaling, an agency should be able to react quickly to any changes that you might want made to your ICP/ BP.
These should not be a problem for those agencies that have their own research team and don’t outsource their work to third-party freelancers.
How Does An Onboarding Of List Building Agency Work?
In case of Market Republic, we are ready to start working as soon as the contract is signed, which can be done in a matter of hours or less.
It mostly depends on the client i.e. you and procedures inside your company.
It really isn’t more complicated than finding a freelancer, except an agency can be a far better choice when it comes to the quality of prospects, the number of contacts, data points and most importantly, you still get a single point of contact that handles all of your requests and any feedback you might have.
What is more, an agency acts as your partner or even a part of your organization as it tries to assess your strengths and review your current sales process.
In case you don’t already have one, an agency can prepare a unique value proposition that can make your messaging clear and easily accessible to a wider audience.
Some agencies, including Market Republic, are able to build up your outbound sales, compose email threads, organize and schedule email campaigns, and manage your CRM, making sure your sales targets are met, or even exceeded.
What You Need To Provide To The List Building Agency?
All that you need to provide to an agency are your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona, and a list of your past and existing clients (if you already have some).
We will look for similar companies that fit your ICP/ BP and even suggest some new ones that you might not have thought about if we see the potential.
You can either instruct us on the type of decision makers that you would like on your list, or we can take care of defining the right level people for you.
Our extensive experience has taught us to look for specific decision makers for different clients (software startups, news agencies, procurement companies) and we’ve rarely been wrong.
Once we start our research, we’re ready to deliver you fresh prospects – no older than 24 hours, which is very important considering data decay, and weekly, so you can start your sales process and continue with your sales undisturbed.
We pride ourselves on helping you strengthen your sales with our prospect list building services which we have dubbed “an idyllic mix of human quality control and automation”.
Automation technologies make our lives easier, but our unique adjustable process based on human-intellect of our 20+ researchers with 4 points of data verification assures 98% data accuracy.
These handcrafted, tailor-made B2B prospect lists are therefore sure to target the right companies and find the right people, further maximising conversion rates, overall sales productivity and revenue.
Market Republic also offers data appending services for those who already have lists with contacts, but they lack some information.
Companies like Twilio, Ipification and Guidance have already reaped benefits from hiring a list building agency so feel free to contact us if you need any help with building your prospect list.
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