10 7th, 2009| 
Yesterday, Demandbase announced the new release of Demandbase Professional solution. Essentially, the release has two major upgrades including advanced web analytics and advanced lead scoring. These are explained in detail below:
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From the sales guy perspective, the sales cycle can often be an exhausting and excruciating road to success. It requires vigilant customer contact, balance between being assertive yet flexible and an exercise of patience. Read more… »
In a recent conversation with Ville Kuusela about sales processes he mentioned that because we work in a B2B environment, we often forget B2C sales tactics still apply. His point was simple: we overlook the fact that we’re selling to people and not just to businesses. Not only do we need to convince buyers on the business merits but also make a human connection – very much as we do with consumers.
I’m always on the lookout to improve my lead generation process and add to the arsenal of tools for my sales team. So today, I was very keen to get a call from Chris Scarfo from Zoominfo (ironically he has a Linkedin profile but not a Zoominfo profile *grin*.) Chris is pretty much a straight shooter. He got me to try Zoominfo on a trial basis, with the following goals:
- Use Zoominfo as part of my lead generation program. Use it to generate vertical specific leads filtered by various criteria.
- Use Zoominfo to get additional lead data. Learn more about the lead’s company/boss/co-workers/etc and develop multiple points of contact.
What is Zoominfo?
Zoominfo is a business contacts database. The database is generated programmatically through web crawling of press releases, company websites and interviews. The Zoominfo Engine intelligently parses this content and creates profiles about individuals and companies. To see how good it is, I tried a search string of Steve Jobs. This is what I found:
Zoominfo Powersell :
Since Zoominfo has been able to create over 45 million profiles, its a good source of leads. That’s what Zoominfo Powersell offers. I started on a demo account with it today. I’m amazed to find how easy it’s to extract leads from the web interface based on simple metrics, including:
- Industry/Vertical
- Company size (both based on revenue and employees)
- Contact management level (low, mid or high-level manager)
- Geographic location (regions, states, zip code, etc)
For example, I searched for contacts in small law-firms in the UK. I filtered it further to only show IT related contacts who have updated profiles. The screenshot below shows the filtered leads. These leads can be downloaded in a CSV format or exported into SalesForce.
Unfortunately, my demo account doesn’t grant me access to the SalesForce API. But earlier today, I saw a live demo of how it works. It seems very slick. It offered most of the common Zoominfo capabilities through the SalesForce interface. The advantage was that Zoominfo data could be ported without data entry. A feature most sales guys would love.
Since I started using the service today, I’m unsure about Zoominfo’s lead’s quality or resourcefulness as a sales tool. Over the next few weeks, I’ll keep a closer eye on lead performance and conversions. I’ll let my pipeline funnel speak for itself – I’m interested to see how my little experiment with Zoominfo pans out.
