There are a limited number of heat transfer materials businesses you can sell to. You can't sell to all of them, but good business mailing lists will put most of them on your radar so you can concentrate on prospects that are most likely to convert.

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), you'll need to qualify the contacts through telemarketing calls or sales calls. Since the heat transfer materials business contacts have been culled from a larger group of updated prospects, you'll have better higher conversion rates -- but you'll still need to expend energy to achieve maximum return on your investment.

Using Lead Lists for Direct Marketing

With direct mail, you have one shot to impress prospective customers. When a heat transfer materials business decisionmaker reads your piece, he has to be knocked over by what he sees.

Most businesses invest large sums of money in the creation of each direct mail piece. But the effort and resources you put into your direct mail marketing channel will be wasted unless your pieces are seen by the right people. As a result, lead generation isn't just about adding heat transfer materials business names to a list -- it's about producing a high quality list of heat transfer materials business sales prospects.

Lead Selection: Which Leads to Buy

Sort and filter features are an important consideration when buying lead lists. The goal isn't to accumulate as many heat transfer materials business leads as possible. Instead, direct your focus toward provider lists that deliver pre-qualified leads. For example, Experian, the forerunner in B2B lead lists, makes it easy for their clients to sort and filter leads by geography as well as a variety of demographic criteria including company size, years in business, number of employees, etc.

Non-Industry-Specific Lead Databases

If you sell to a broader market than this one, most mailing list brokers will be happy to help you with those markets as well. You can even target things like Businesses That Own a Building, Businesses Owned by Hispanic Executives, and other niche segments. The key is to think through who your best prospects are. Explain that profile to your mailing list vendor and the good ones will figure out a solution that meets your needs.