Even though lead lists create a more efficient sales process, many sales teams forget that you'll need to know what you're buying and how lists can be incorporated into your company's routines.

The Role of Mailing Lists

Simply put, lead lists give your company a competitive advantage. In many companies, lead generation is a major barrier to greater market share. When sales units are required to compile lead lists solely from phone books, online searches and other sources, lead quality suffers.

Quality lead lists, on the other hand, are current, accurate, and reliable. In most cases, the lists are updated on a regular basis so sales personnel always have the most recent and comprehensive contact information for prospecting and other sales activities.

Measuring Lead List ROI

Multiple methods exist for measuring the effectiveness of foam and sponge rubber retail business lead lists.

For starters, conversion rate (number of sales/number of leads) is essential in measuring lead list success and failure rates. But you may also want to think about integrating a few other metrics into your assessment routine.

A units-per-lead measurement reveals the quality of your vendor's leads and database contents. When compared to your internal lead generation metrics, a may indicate a provider that isn't performing adequate qualification or lead filtering. Similarly, individual metrics for your sales staff indicate how well each of your team members is using the leads they receive from your vendor.

Criteria for Lead List Vendor Selection

In our experience, third-party lead list providers are definitely not created equal and Experian Business services stand out from the crowd. What sets them apart is that Experian has all of the qualities we look for in a good lead list provider, including the following:

• Large database. We think it's important for businesses that sell to foam and sponge rubber retail businesses to rely on leads that have been selected from a large, national database. Why? Because more contacts translates into better leads and more conversions.
• Updated contacts. Contact updating is lead list 101. Long contact lists are worthless unless they are regularly updated for accuracy.
• Delivery speed. When your business needs a new supply of foam and sponge rubber retail business leads, you can't afford to suffer delays from your vendor. Good list providers feature fast turnaround times measured in hours or less.