Good, third-party lead lists can introduce a degree of consistency into your long-term sales strategy. But that isn't the only advantage they offer. Here are a few other ways lead lists can help companies that routinely sell to building materials and supplies dealers businesses.

Mailing List Return on Investment

Think lead lists are cost-prohibitive? Think again! Although there is an added expense associated with lead lists, the overhead cost of maintaining an in-house lead generation program exceeds the amount of cash you'll spend to acquire a reliable list. Combined with the amount of organizational energy it takes to maintain constantly updated building materials and supplies dealers business contacts, it's not difficult to see why lead lists are an attractive alternative to internal processes.

Leads vs. Prospects

A first-rate lead list provider, your provider will deliver an updated lead list that has been sorted according to company size, years in business, zip code and other criteria. But your work isn't done yet. Unless you are using the lists for mass marketing campaigns (e.g. direct mail), list contacts need to be further qualified by your sales team. Since the building materials and supplies dealers business contacts have been culled from a larger group of updated prospects, you can expect to benefit from higher conversion rates -- but you'll still need to expend energy to achieve maximum return on your investment.

Always Start with a Big Lead Database

When it comes to finding reliable list providers, database size definitely matters.

The idea is to narrow your search to providers that can offer a large database of building materials and supplies dealers businesses. Experian Business Services, for example, has a comprehensive database of 14 million U.S. businesses that can be filtered and sorted according to your exact specifications.

The business reality is that the amount of sales you generate will be directly tied to the number of contacts contained in your lead lists. As the size of the provider's database increases, so does your ability to to create a highly targeted pool of prospects.