Equipping The Team

I’ve included this in the book as an extra section, even though it is not part of the core system. I have recently begun to implement this as a part of my strategies, but it isn’t necessary from a marketing perspective all the time. During market sizing research, it’s pretty easy to track down the talented people that you want to target.

The way I accomplish this, with varying levels of success, is to use three different pieces of software:

  • Hoovers
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  • Hunter.io

I go into some detail about these programs on another post (Favorite Tools). Alternatives exist for each of these, although Sales Navigator I think is the most important. The cost of Hoovers can be prohibitive for some people, and their sales teams are aggressive and uncaring about your issues, but the way their data links on a company and market level is helpful.

Hoovers as a sales targeting tool

My teams use Hoovers to compile information on groups of similar companies or companies that sell similar products and groups into SIC or NAICS clusters. In the book, I explain how to use these clusters for market sizing, and we use the same process to find people to target.

Don’t Stop With Companies

Once a group of companies is clustered we search for people that work there with Sales Navigator and select titles based on the type of program we are running. A technical article, case study, or white paper that addresses technical problems and solutions might be targeted at managers and directors within R&D departments. We then append each company listing in the master worksheet to include 3 or 4 people that we would like to target through marketing or direct contact from the sales team.

We then use Hunter.io to figure out email addresses, you won’t always get exact matches for the people that you’re searching for, but you’ll get the structure of that company’s email addresses- the rest is pretty easy.

I would also like to make a note that you should never include people that you find this way in some automated campaigning, they are not asking you to contact them. You might send them a sample box or some literature (I detail how you figure this out in the book), or you might send them an email or LI correspondence. Please for the love of everything though, don’t spam them – it won’t help you.