Data, Data, Data

Data, data, data. We can’t stress enough how important data is to any outbound campaign, especially if you are doing a hyper-custom campaign. Nico, Larissa, and Justine sat down last week and broke down all things data and why it’s important. When we are mining data, the main questions we try to answer are finding the right company and person and making sure it’s a good time for them and they’re ready for your service. Larissa says, “Basically, it breaks down to the right person, right place, right time.”

We’re going to break this down into three sections. Let’s start with finding the right person.

Finding the right person isn’t just knowing if you're going after a C-level exec or hiring manager. Reaching out to the CEO of a smaller company will be easier than reaching out to the CEO of Apple. So, although you might want to focus on CEOs, Nico tells us, “It’s about finding who at the company has both the decision-making power AND the need to solve the problem.”

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Next, know the right time to reach out. Of course, you want to grow your business all the time, but that’s not the timing we’re talking about. You want to make sure your ideal client is at a time when they need a problem solved. If you help increase sales and traffic to websites, you will get better results from reaching out to businesses that have seen a decline in sales and traffic vs. a company that has a 30% increase in sales each month. How do you know when it’s the right time to reach out? Well, it depends on what you offer. If you are a web designer and you see websites with the latest features and a copyright date of the current year, they obviously don’t need a new website. However, if you find a website with slow load times, outdated graphics, and a copyright date of 10 years ago, that is a great company to talk to about a new and improved website. Let’s also look at hiring agencies. A hiring firm that reaches out to a pool cleaning company in the winter is less likely to get a signed contract than an HR firm that reaches out in the spring. In real estate, it’s “location, location, location,” but in outbound campaigns, it’s “timing, timing, timing.” If the timing isn’t right, take them off your list, or move them to a “contact at a later date “ list. Remember, you want to enrich your data. Getting the data is pretty easy, but enriching it takes a manual step of researching information about the person and company you’re hoping to help.

Finally, are they at the right place? This doesn’t mean where they are in the world, but where they are online. If they’re posting like crazy on Twitter, you should probably DM them on Twitter. If you go to their LinkedIn profile, and they have no profile picture, no posts or likes, and only three connections, LinkedIn probably isn’t the best place to reach them. Finding the right place is “Getting into their circle of influence that’s the most comfortable for them,” says Nico. It’s going where they are. Not everyone will be in the same place, and you need to explore all avenues from Facebook to Discord and everything in between. Knowing where they are can also help you enrich your data. You can also use what they post to let them know you’ve done your research and care about creating a connection with them. Reference a tweet or post that you saw from them. That’s a great way to stay top of mind, enrich your data, and give that personal touch to your outreach.

At the end of the day, the process is different for everyone. Not all companies cater to the same niche or clientele. A software dev company will have a different approach than a PPC agency. You can get a lot of information from things like when they received funding or if they’re hiring. Maybe your solution is cheaper than the company hiring a W-2 employee. Try to look at different viewpoints of the data you find. The signals, patterns, and enrichment of the data that you collect will vary by industry, niche, ICP, and solution. However, regardless of industry, niche, and so on, you’ll always look for the right person, at the right time, in the right place.

At Boundless Media, we are always mining data for ourselves and our clients to help give them a strong foundation for any campaign. Reach out to us today if you’d like help in setting up and running personalized outbound campaigns!