7 signs you should be investing in marketing data

1. Decline in incoming leads

You may have experienced a recent decline in leads from your usual channels, such as your website or advertising, which could simply be linked to your product lifecycle.

As a consequence, a period of proactive lead generation may be required. To achieve this you will want an up-to-date mailing list of contacts to mail, email or call, as part of your sales and marketing efforts.

2. Launch to a wider audience

But even if you have not seen a decline and are actually seeing a consistent or increasing level of leads and sales, who doesn’t want more?

If you have a business plan that involves sales growth, you will want to identify additional audiences that may have an interest in your products or services.

Once you have identified those audiences, possibly using Insight & Analysis services, you can target this group through a data list, defined by your specific criteria selection.

3. Increased competition

For the majority of industries, the level of competition can increase with little or no warning.

You can’t control what your competitors do and – despite your best efforts – they may for a period find a way to outrank you in search engine ratings, or land a prime online advertising spot ahead of you.

Using marketing data can help you target prospects more effectively – prospects that a more generic campaign approach may miss. This way you can capture leads and sales that your competitors may well be missing.

4. Reduced lead quality

One way to improve lead quality is to improve targeting.

When investing in a mailing list from a reputable data supplier, you can select the most appropriate contacts for your campaigns using detailed criteria of your choosing.

This way, the leads you gain will have already been qualified by the criteria selection for the campaign data. And will offer your team leads which are appropriate and therefore better quality.

5. Stand out from the crowd

Add extra channels to create a multi-channel marketing campaign. If you appear in front of your customers in more ways (email, mailer, phone call, social media), it is more likely that you will be in the forefront of their minds when they have a need for the services you can provide.

As an agency, most of your clients’ goals will be based around lead generation or brand awareness. Using marketing lists effectively in addition to their existing databases can put you ahead of the competition.

6. Sales team in need of invigoration

Your sales team may well lose momentum if they feel as though they are going around in circles, trying to upsell and cross sell to the existing customer and prospect database on your CRM.

An injection of fresh, relevant data will help them to identify new sales opportunities and build their pipeline. They will also be motivated by feeling invested in, as you have given them fresh contacts to pitch.

7. Remaining budget

So this sign is a bit different to the others... but when faced with a ‘use it or lose it’ kind of situation, there are few marketing resources that you can invest in at any time, yet know they will without question be of value to you in the future.

Well-respected data companies will also allow you to purchase an ‘access agreement’ at the point you have remaining budget.

You can then redeem this when you next have a requirement for data. This way you can ensure that the data you take is as up-to-date as possible when you need to use it.