Buying B2B Marketing Lists: Yes, or No?

Where B2B business development is concerned, a key tool for generating and cultivating leads is the marketing list --contact lists that contain prospective targets' identifying details, contact details, and any other pertinent information that can inform a salesperson's efforts to communicate to them and reach their pain points.

These marketing lists are often organically built up over months or years of market research and interaction with prospects, but can also be bought from providers around the world.

Buying marketing lists is a bit of a divisive topic, as it has its fair share of naysayers, who point out its propensity for inaccurate or outdated data, fake information, irrelevant entries, or even the risk of the fake contacts being spam traps--not to mention the potential concern over how the marketing information in these lists was obtained in the first place.

Should companies buy marketing lists? In short, the answer is yes. Read on to find out why.

The Benefits of Marketing Lists in Singapore

Convenience and Quantity

First off, marketing lists offer a convenient bulk source of contacts and company information for sales outreach--especially valuable for smaller companies who do not have the resources and manpower to devote to building a customer database organically by themselves from the get-go.

Better Insights

In Singapore, the presence of specialised business data providers like CRIF BizInsights, drawing from credible, authoritative sources, provides businesses the opportunity to customise their marketing lists with much more than just name, emails and phone numbers. You can purchase marketing lists that contain richer data such as age of business, industry, paid-up capital, location, or revenue size, to name a few parameters, which can be used to further understand and segment your target audience.

More Effective, Targeted Messaging

Through having better data about your target audience, your sales team will be able to create more targeted communications that speak better to companies' pain points, and generate better results and returns for your efforts.

More Efficient Allocation of Sales Resources

With a marketing list, your sales team will also find it easier to identify and keep track of better prospects as a campaign develops, allowing more efficient allocation of scarce sales team resources to cultivating the leads most likely to pay off.

Increased Conversion

The wise use of marketing lists can ultimately result in increased conversion and ROI for your business due to better understanding of prospects, better communication, and better cultivation.

So, Should Your Company Buy Marketing Lists?

Despite the numerous undeniable benefits of marketing lists, many say no to buying marketing lists as a waste of time and money, for the reasons we listed in our introduction. However, the problem is not one of concept, but of methodology.

In other words: Buying marketing lists isn't the problem. It's where you buy them from, that is.

Third-Party Marketing List Sellers

Most marketing lists from third-party providers are not fresh, being aggregated from other sources rather than being first-hand, real-time information. Many of them are incomplete and/or inaccurate.

Beyond the veracity of information, these marketing lists are also inconvenient and not transparent for businesses, as the sellers of these marketing lists keep the actual lists to themselves by ensuring buyers do not actually get to own, see or download the contact information even after payment.

Indeed, this extends to purchasing companies having to hand over their marketing campaigns and funnels to these sellers for them to do the targeting behind closed doors themselves. This scenario, which is all too common, is clearly not ideal or beneficial to companies who need to reach and grow their audiences organically.

Official Data Sources and Licensed Business Data Providers

On the other hand, buying marketing lists from trusted sources, such as ACRA in Singapore, and licensed business data providers like CRIF BizInsights that refine the official data with innovative customised searches and reports, is not only risk-free, but also likely to be far more accurate, up-to-date, and informative than these dodgy bulk lists.

What Makes a Good Marketing List?

Accuracy and Currency

What sets a marketing list obtained from a reputable source apart from one obtained from a non-official source is the accuracy and currency of the information reflected in the marketing list. While most bought marketing lists are pre-assembled and were collected at a specific point in time, those purchased from ACRA via CRIF BizInsights are assembled only upon request, ensuring the information is not only up to date, but also accurate as required by law.

Organic Growth and Updates

While a company can start B2B marketing with any marketing list, what makes that list a good and useful one in the long-term is whether it grows dynamically through constant updating, reorganisation to reflect new marketing segmentation, and organic addition of new prospects over time.

A Robust Database

For a good, dynamic marketing list to achieve its fullest potential, a robust and capable database solution is needed to manage updates and new inputs, automate the list and any actions associated with changes in the list (such as sending a pre-scripted email when a prospect moves further down the sales funnel, or an alert to the assigned salesperson when a lead responds), and permit easy reference and sharing of insights among the sales team as a whole.

Purchasing Marketing Lists and More with CRIF BizInsights

With business information so crucial to opening doors and closing sales, businesses need to partner with the right information providers to ensure quality data on demand, and empower efficient and effective use of that data.

As a leader in business data search, database technology, and API solutions, CRIF Bizinsights has the resources, technology and knowhow to hone your B2B lead generation efforts and help you get the maximum return on your sales efforts. It all starts with the marketing list you buy--but with the right mindset and approach, it can become so much more.