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Okay, jail’s a stretch, but buying sales lead lists is still risky business.
However, 68% of businesses are struggling with lead generation, so it makes sense that purchasing lists is still a common B2B practice.
So, if you’re going to do it, this guide will help you do it well.
A lead list is a collection of contact information for potential customers and clients. You can create this list yourself or purchase it from a vendor. The purpose of having a lead list is to simplify cold outreach by outsourcing the prospecting step, which can take a lot of time.
If you’ve ever tried gathering lead information yourself, you’ll understand the demand for purchased lead lists. It’s a massive time-saver, plus buying a lead list can provide your business with numerous benefits, such as the ones below.
Any online research will tell you not to buy a lead list and for good reason: They’re risky and costly, and the accuracy of their data is dubious at best. That being said, lead generation still needs to happen, and companies like DiscoverOrg and LeadFuze are thriving in the current market. Comprehensive organic lead generation strategies aren’t always an option, and companies still need to close deals.
So, if you’re planning to purchase a lead list, we’re not going to shame you. It happens. It is important, however, that you understand exactly what you’re getting yourself into. You’ll need a clear and concise plan for the data you obtain to get the most value from your lead list.
Are you considering buying leads to boost your business? Here’s an overview of the main types of sales lead list available for purchase:
These individuals or companies, partially fitting your ideal customer profile (ICP), have expressed interest in your product or service. Sales leads are chosen based on various criteria to ensure they are relevant and of high quality.
Potential clients express interest in SEO services. Due to the competitive nature of the SEO industry, agencies often buy leads to enhance their lead generation efforts.
Individuals or businesses seeking web design services make up web design leads. With stiff competition in the web design industry, agencies frequently purchase leads to attract new clients and sustain business growth.
Prospects looking to leverage social media platforms for marketing purposes are considered social media marketing leads. In the ever-changing social media landscape, businesses often buy leads to seize opportunities and expand their reach.
Email marketing leads are individuals or businesses interested in utilizing email campaigns to reach their target audience. Given the effectiveness of email marketing, businesses often purchase a leads list to build their subscriber lists and drive conversions.
Paid advertising leads are prospects interested in running paid campaigns to promote their products or services. Agencies specializing in paid advertising may purchase leads to identify businesses seeking assistance with their advertising strategies.
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Before you purchase business lead lists online, taking some important preparatory steps is crucial.
The first (and most important) step in buying a lead list is understanding who you want to target. If you purchase a lead list composed of generic contact information, there is no guarantee that any contacts will be interested in your offer.
By performing targeting before purchasing a list, you’ll preemptively eliminate (and not pay for) uninterested leads, thus getting the most “bang for your buck.” If you don’t already have your target market figured out, now is the time to do so.
A good way to tackle this is to rank your existing customers in terms of favorability, including profitability, acquisition cost, and the amount of time it took to move them through the pipeline. From this list, you can extrapolate more nuanced psychographic and demographic data, giving you a much clearer idea of which types of companies you’d like to target. A good list vendor will work with you to help you get the specific data you need.
If you’re going to pay for a list of leads, the cost will vary based on several factors:
Many companies opt to buy a list of 10,000 or so leads, divvy them out to reps, and keep contacting the names until they know the data isn’t accurate or they’ve closed-won or lost.
That said, more and more lead list companies are moving to a monthly/annual payment model. These revolving plans (in many cases) allow lead data to be constantly refreshed and more accurate than a stale list of leads sold to anyone who asks.
So, for a few hundred bucks, you could get a one-time list of 10,000 contacts (where up to 50% are no longer good). Or, you could get a month at a lead data company, like LeadFuze, for around the same cost. (That plan is for a month of unlimited leads.) A reputable company will regularly update their sales lead lists to ensure their contacts are as accurate as possible. You can tailor specific searches to find the most targeted leads to pitch (things like industry, company size, ad spend, and even the technologies companies use).
Many lead list providers you encounter online may not meet your expectations. Choosing reputable and experienced lead generation platforms or data brokers is crucial to avoid potential pitfalls, such as data regulation issues or low-quality leads.
Here are a few ways to check the quality and legitimacy of the lead provider:
Upon receiving your purchased lead list, it’s essential to conduct thorough validation to ensure you’re getting value for your investment. Utilize email verification tools to identify duplicates and confirm the uniqueness of business leads.
Additionally, assess the overall quality of the leads by cross-referencing them with your ideal customer profile and conducting further research if necessary. If the list requires extensive data enrichment to become actionable, consider exploring alternative lead data providers for future purchases.
After discovering how to buy leads, let’s explore effective ways to utilize them.
Your list is cold. Essentially, you’ve got names and contact info within your target market, and that’s it. If your goal is to end up on the email fail list (or the email blacklist), just mash out a template and send it to everyone. If selling to win is your thing (it should be), start the prospect research process before you even consider contacting your list. Each bit of info you gather during your prospect research will bring you closer to your prospect and to winning the deal.
Related: How to write cold emails that get replies
In terms of sales tactics, popping up cold in someone’s inbox or answering machine is already a stretch. Do everything you can to make your offer “soft” and easy to handle. That means sending someone a link to a four-page web form is a no-no.
Otherwise this is what your prospects will say.
A better strategy is to position yourself as an advisor to your lead by simply sharing information or opening a conversation about a topic related to both of you.
Consider your lead list a starting point: not every contact on the list will be a viable prospect. To maximize your outcomes, you will need to disqualify the leads manually. (Unless you have a CRM that automatically scours 99 different channels for you).
Check out LinkedIn and company websites to determine if the data on your sales lead list is accurate. Is the lead still in the same position with the same employer? Did the company move? Is the email address valid? Even with a purchased list, your outreach aims to form an authentic 1:1 relationship, which starts with getting the details right.
Lead generation is among the millions of challenges startups and small businesses face. Most startups’ marketing and lead generation efforts are minimal, as they haven’t yet had a long stretch to develop an effective marketing strategy.
The “official” lead generation strategy is to organically create a warm lead list through gated content and forms on your company’s website. Unfortunately, this isn’t always feasible.
When a content strategy is impossible, and the bills must be paid, many startups will purchase a lead list to keep the pipeline full. If this is your course of action, remember that purchased lists are a temporary measure to get your startup to the next level.
The best practice is to leverage the new customers that your lead list generates—the revenue, the customer stories, and the social proof—to create new marketing content. When placed strategically behind forms to capture user data, this content will drive your list generation going forward.
If you plan to reach out to a purchased lead list, you’ll need to be careful. There are numerous ways to get yourself (and your company) in trouble. Too many strikes and you’ll be facing hefty fines, and potentially even jeopardize your entire domain.
Brush up on your CAN-SPAM knowledge because the CAN-SPAM Act is the end all be all of digital commercial communication. The CAN-SPAM Act covers a multitude of topics, but its rules on email marketing and communication are crystal clear. Its fundamentals boil down to:
We are begging you to read the rules yourself before sending cold emails to your lead list because you might find yourself on the hook to pay a $42,530 penalty per email if you are caught breaking the rules.
A spam trap is an email address solely for catching spammers. They look like real email addresses, but have never actually been used to send emails, and have also never been published anywhere on the web. If someone scrapes the target domain for all its email addresses, the spam trap email address gets scraped with them.
Fortunately, a savvy salesperson will never be duped by a spam trap because savvy salespeople are prospect research experts and know exactly who they’re emailing. If you can’t find the human being associated with the email address in question, don’t email them. Better safe than spammy.
Related: 5 messaging differences between a savvy salesperson and a serial spammer
Is buying a lead list the right move for your company? The answer is usually no, but in some cases, there may not be any other reasonable options. To put it simply, sales lead lists are extremely risky and can very easily hurt your business. If you don’t take care to follow all the laws and all the best practices, you won’t get anything out of your investment.
This guide is meant to be a resource for startups and other small businesses with minimal marketing budget, who need lead lists to stay afloat. Business lead lists typically range from 15 to 40 cents per name on a list of 100 names, which is hardly comparable to the cost of implementing and staffing a marketing strategy. Please do your homework, follow the best practices, and handle your data responsibly.
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