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Agency Marketing Technology Prospect management Variety of types of sources makes it easier to locate qualified prospects By Steve Anderson In the “Agency Marketing Technology” column that appeared in the October 2005 issue, we provided an overview of the four major components that are necessary in order to have a comprehensive and successful marketing system: prospect management, opportunity management, campaign management, and results management. This article will provide additional details on how to set up a good prospect management process. Prospect management encompasses two important parts. First you need to devise a way to find prospects. And then you need to be able to manage information about those prospects and your interactions with them. Finding qualified prospects There are a number of different ways to find specific information about the type of prospect you want to target. Any number of lists and databases are available in almost numbing variety and detail—and most at a reasonable cost. For business databases, there are a number of sources of prospect names. There are list compilers, such as Dun & Bradstreet and R.H. Donnelly, which fundamentally count every business in the country from various sources including telephone directories and yellow pages and then try to verify and expand that data from at least one other source. List managers will sell you names gathered from magazines, newsletters, and other sources where someone has a list of customers. Lists like these are known as responsive lists because each person on the list has responded in some way to an offer. They are usually targeted lists and cost more than a simple compiled list. They could be worth the extra money because you know the people on the list fit the profile of the type of prospect you want. The Internet has made it easier to search and has dramatically lowered the cost of finding good qualified prospects so that you can achieve your sales goals. Following are a few examples of the types of databases that are now available on the Internet. InfoUSA.com—The database on this site contains both consumer and business name and address information. You can search for businesses by standard methods like name, ZIP code, SIC code, etc. The list you create can be downloaded into virtually any type of marketing database. Pricing is based on the specific list you select. After you complete the selection process, you will be given the price, based on the number of prospects and the amount of data you want to purchase. CorporateInformation.com—Even though this site looks very busy, it is actually a very simple search tool you can use to research an individual business or an entire industry. The site is free and you don’t have to register or set up an account to use it. Research a company and you’ll be provided with numerous links to corporate profiles, news archives, financial information, and message boards dedicated to that particular company. Research an industry and you’ll be led to industry profiles, news, and more. Research reports are available and you can limit your research by state or by country. Dun & Bradstreet Small Business Solutions—Dun & Bradstreet (www.sbs.dnb.com) offers a suite of tools and services to small business owners. Tracking folders allow you to follow existing customers, suppliers, competition, and prospects. Basic services, which are free, include up to 15 “tracked” companies. Additional services such as credit evaluations or demand letters are fee-based. D&B will also compile a list of new, credit-screened prospects for you, by location or by industry, for less than $1 per record. Hoovers Online—HooversTM (www.hoovers.com) provides coverage of more than 12 million companies, both public and private, and more than 300 industries, lists of key decision makers, and searching and targeting tools. The information is compiled from thousands of sources, including various proprietary databases, magazines, newspapers, and industry journals. The last source is from federal, state, and local governments. Because these lists are public information, there is typically little or no cost associated with accessing the information. If a business requires a license to operate, then it is likely you can find a list of all license holders with their contact information. Another source of information is from county property assessments. Many counties now provide a list of property addresses along with detailed information about the property, including square footage, number of rooms, construction, and assessed value. This type of information can be very helpful to have prior to contacting a prospect. To find the correct Web site go to your city, county, or state Web site and search for property tax, or property assessment. You can find the correct Web site by doing a simple Google search. Another source for prospect information is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (www.sec.gov) EDGAR database. Every public corporation is required to file a report, known as a 10-K, with the SEC at least once a year. The EDGAR database contains every report filed since 1996. A 10-K provides detailed information about a company including detailed financial information, descriptions of products and services provided, listings of executives and key staff, and a discussion of problems and issues the company faces. If your prospect is a public company, there is no better source of information about that company than a 10-K. And you can get it all free. Learning about prospects Once you identify the particular prospect you want to target, the next step is to gather as much information about that prospect as you can. The first type of information you want to make sure you gather is demographic information. The specific type of information that you should gather will depend on your agency and the type of prospect you are dealing with. Some examples of this information include current insurer, current agency, current agent, expiration date, current premium (for any lines of business), as well as the date the business started, annual sales, payroll, number of employees, and SIC code. You also should gather lifestyle information. Examples of this type of information include what organizations the owner belongs to, what type of buying style they have, what country clubs they belong to, or political affiliation they may have, and what sport teams they like (or don’t like). All of this information can help you better understand the person you’ll be dealing with and will help you understand the best approach to use with them as you work on their account. Gathering this type of information is not always easy or quick. While some of the information identified above is included in prospect lists (number of employees, SIC code, annual sales, etc.), much of the information will be gathered as you talk with prospects and clients. In some cases you will be able to gather information from local newspapers and business journals. The trick will be making sure that the information you learn about a prospect is captured in a prospect tracking system so you can use it in the future. Everyone in the agency should be involved in this process. Tracking prospect information All of the information you’ve gathered in the process described above needs to be stored in an organized manner so that it can be quickly and easily retrieved. There are several options available. Agency management systems—Most vendors provide some mechanism for tracking prospect information within their program. While these programs allow some information about the prospect to be gathered, the amount of information that can be captured within these programs is limited. Because of this, we find many agencies using separate marketing programs to manage their prospect and marketing process. Agency management system vendors are responding to requests from users, though, and are improving their system’s capabilities to handle prospects and marketing. So before you decide to use a separate marketing program, find out what is available in the most current version of your agency management system. Third-party systems—A number of third-party software packages are specifically designed to track prospect information. Examples include ACT (www.act.com) and Goldmine (www.frontrange.com), as well as a host of other specific packages. One of the advantages of using one of these programs is a greater flexibility to track specific information. The disadvantage is that the prospect information is maintained outside of your agency management system. That disadvantage, though, can be readily overcome. In agencies that use a third-party marketing system, all marketing activities are tracked in that system until insurance application information is captured. At the point where you began filling out applications for submission to the carrier, the carrier submission activities are transferred to and then tracked by the agency management system. This process requires very little duplicate entry of information between the two systems. Web systems—Increasing numbers of Web-based prospecting systems are available. These systems allow you to “rent” the software based on a per-user, per-month cost. An advantage of this type of system is that producers can access prospect information from anywhere they have an Internet connection. Examples of these types of systems include ASP SaleSource (www.aspsalesource.com) and NOVA SalesPro (www.novasalespro.com). Any sales-focused organization needs to have a pipeline of well-qualified prospects that will bring in new business. Effectively managing prospect information is the first step to having an effective marketing system. * The author |
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