Prospect with your PC - low-cost ways to find qualified leads - Technology Information - Cover Story

Home Office Computing, Sept, 1997 by David Haskin

Bob Van Abel hates junk mail. "I throw most of it out," he says. But without missing a beat, the president of Prairie Nursery in Westfield, Wisconsin, adds that he frequently buys such personal items as clothing via direct mail. He insists that's no contradiction -- after all, junk mail is only junk mail if you're not interested in what it's selling.

So how can you find the names of people who are interested in what you're selling? To be sure, qualified sales leads are the lifeblood of any growing business. Fortunately, it doesn't need to cost much to find them. And it doesn't have to take much time. Thanks to CD-ROMs, online databases, and other Internet resources, your best prospecting tool is right there on your desk.

To show you how, we tried six computing techniques and found new leads for two entrepreneurs -- Van Abel of Prairie Nursery, and Julie Condy of Condy & Reid LLC, a New York City firm that creates print advertising, Web sites, and CD-ROMs.

Van Abel's outfit, which specializes in native wildflowers and prairie grasses, depends on catalog sales. Because his catalogs cost about a dollar each to produce and mail, Van Abel needs to weed out people who are unlikely to buy. Prairie Nursery's current mailing list includes about 45,000 customers who bought something from the company in the previous year. Van Abel requires 25,000 more names to meet his target of 70,000 catalogs. Condy's company, in contrast, relies on word of mouth and its Web site to find new customers. In the last year, she estimates, Condy & Reid talked with only about 25 new prospects -- two of whom became customers. Any number of new leads would be an improvement for the firm.

1 Spin a CD-ROM If you sell to businesses, your first stop on any search for large numbers of clients should be a CD-ROM database. These include such products as D&B MarketPlace CD-ROM (iMarket, 800-590-0065, www.imarketinc.com; Win; $599) and Business USA (American Business Information, 800-624-0076, www.lookupusa.com; Win; $795). These programs include lists of companies from all over the country and their owners' names, addresses, and phone numbers.

The upside. CD-ROMs work best if you sell to businesses, rather than to consumers. They're a natural for Condy, who wanted a list of sales promotion agencies in the New York area with billings between $2 million and $10 million, as well as financial service institutions focusing on mergers and acquisitions and venture capital. D&B MarketPlace found 67 leads for Condy; Business USA found 56.

Because they're just like any other application, CD-ROMs are easy to use. They provide list management by allowing you to remove duplicate names, or "dedupe," a list. And they print labels or export selected names for use in other programs, such as your database.

The downside. Databases on CD-ROM don't help you sell directly to consumers, which means they won't work for Van Abel. To help him, we tried Consumer Sales Leads on CD-ROM American Business Information, 800-284-8353, www.salesleads.com; Win, Mac; $79.95), a nationwide white pages that lets you search on name, address, or phone number. But we couldn't narrow the search to expert gardeners in certain states who have expressed an interest in topics like prairie restoration -- the kind of lead Van Abel needs.

The base price of a CD-ROM makes it cost-effective only if you need several hundred names. Condy's 67 leads cost more than $8.94 per name (based on D&B MarketPlace's cost of $599). The leads from the Business USA disc cost even more.

These products also limit the number of names you can use before you must pay more. For instance, D&B MarketPlace comes with 1,000 credits. Depending on how much information you download, each name costs one, one and a half, or three credits. Full business reports cost more than a simple name and address. What's more, you may not always get the name of the contact you want. For example, Condy sought the names of art directors but got only CEOs. Timeliness is a CD-ROM's final problem. D&B MarketPlace releases new discs only quarterly and Business USA comes out just twice a year.

2 Tap an Online Database Several online databases provide the names of consumer and business leads, but the best online sources are the Web versions of the CD-ROMs mentioned above. You may also be able to use free online services for gathering names. For example, if you need to find specific types of business geographically rather than by revenue or company size, try WorldPages (www.worldpages.com). This free service enables you to search by keyword, such as "sales promotions," and location, such as "New York."

The upside. Online databases are among the most cost-effective means of gathering a small number of business leads. Although they become more expensive than CD-ROMs if you require several hundred business names, they remain a bargain for narrower searches. For Condy, we used iMarket's Business Leads Online and ABI's Lookup USA. (You can also access these online databases via this magazine's Web site, www.smalloffice.com.) Because Condy's 55-name list was small, the cost at the ABI site totaled only $28, or 51 cents per lead. iMarket coughed up its 57 leads for $13.40. Both sites include step-by-step instructions to ease you through the process of selecting a list. These sites are also more likely to be up-to-date than the CD-ROM version.