Business cards acquired through events, website marketing activities, or sales activities are important assets for your company. A house list is a list of business cards that are specifically selected as potential customers for your products and services. A house list is an important customer list that is essential for a company’s marketing and sales activities. If you can properly manage and utilize your house listings, you can increase sales more efficiently than acquiring new leads. This time, we will introduce the importance of house lists and how to manage and utilize them.
What is house list?
A house list is a list of information on companies that are potential customers, from business cards obtained at seminars and exhibitions, and company information obtained from downloading materials and inquiries from websites.
Unlike company lists purchased from external company databases, we include specific company information that is not publicly available, such as:
- Department, title, name, email address, and telephone number of the person in charge or the payer
- Downloaded materials and inquiries so far
- Business negotiation history that summarizes the content of previous business negotiations
- Opportunity information such as current order probability and opportunity status
It is called a “house list” because it manages specific information about potential customers that can only be obtained through your own marketing and sales activities.
The importance of house listings
The house list is an important customer list that is essential for marketing and sales activities in order to increase sales. There are four important points in a house list:
① Information on the person in charge and the person making the decision
If you purchase a company list from an external company database, you will not know who is in charge or who will make the decision, so you will need to approach them using the company’s main number or a form on their website.
Also, even if you approach from the front, you will be blocked at the reception desk and you will not know if you will be able to connect to the person in charge.
However, since the house list contains information on the person in charge and the person making the decision, it is possible to approach them reliably, and sales efficiency is very high.
②Approach tailored to prospective customers
The house list not only contains information on the person in charge and the person making the decision, but also past actions such as downloaded materials and inquiries, details of negotiations, and current status, making it possible to make an appropriate approach tailored to the prospective customer. .
③ Cost of acquiring new leads (prospective customers)
Holding seminars, renovating websites, and creating downloadable materials in order to acquire new leads requires costs and resources. Particularly, exhibiting at an exhibition costs a lot of money.
Since the house list is a list of target customers, it costs nothing to acquire new leads (prospective customers) and is very cost-effective.
④Influence of external environment
Houselist allows you to conduct marketing and sales activities without being influenced by the external environment.
Currently, face-to-face marketing and sales activities are restricted due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, event measures such as exhibitions and seminars, which had the strength of face-to-face communication, are no longer as effective as they were before the coronavirus.
You can conduct marketing activities that do not depend on the external environment by sending e-mail newsletters to house lists, holding online seminars, etc.
Utilization points for marketing and sales activities
In order to utilize house listings in marketing and sales activities, it is important to keep them in good condition. A house list in poor condition will actually increase wasteful communication and man-hours, reducing marketing and sales efficiency.
①Improve targeting accuracy
If the target companies for products and services are properly narrowed down to House List, marketing and sales activities to House List will be more successful.
To improve the accuracy of the house list, thoroughly conduct STP analysis using the 6R framework and set target companies by industry, company size, sales, etc.
What is targeting? Strategic targeting methods and success stories | MarkeTRUNK
②Register accurate information
If the same company is registered multiple times in the house list, there is a risk that multiple salespeople will approach you and lose the trust of the company.
We make sure that there are no multiple pieces of data with company names written in different formats, and perform work to integrate them into one company data (name matching).
In addition, companies may complain if incorrect contact information or the name of the person in charge is entered. A system is needed to ensure that correct contact information and name of person in charge are registered.
③ Update to the latest information
Due to personnel changes, the company’s settler and person in charge will change. It will be ineffective to send email newsletters or conduct sales activities without updating this information.
There is a need for a system that regularly updates information such as the company’s location and executives, and a system that allows sales staff to update information on changes to the payer and person in charge.
How to manage and utilize house lists
There are two ways to manage house lists: “using CRM/SFA” and “updating,” and two ways to use them: “segment” and “nurturing.”
① Utilize CRM/SFA
By using CRM (Customer Management Tool) and SFA (Sales Support System), you can manage a huge amount of house lists with one system.
If each department has its own house list, duplication of house lists is likely to occur, resulting in conflicting approaches, making it impossible to take the optimal approach. Consolidate house lists into one system so that they can be managed company-wide.
②Update
By consolidating the house list using CRM/SFA, you can perform update work smoothly. It saves you the trouble of searching for a company to update, and once you update, you can share it with anyone.
External company databases can be used to update personnel information such as company locations and executives. If you can link it with CRM or SFA, you can update company information regularly and save yourself the trouble of updating.
③Segment
Segment potential customers using company information from House List. For example, segment by industry, company size, department, negotiation status, order probability, etc.
By taking an appropriate approach to the segmented house list, you will be able to make an approach that is tailored to each customer, making it easier to achieve results.
④Nurturing
We nurture the segmented house lists by sending appropriate content to each house list by email.
By using marketing automation, you can efficiently create house list segments and email newsletters.
summary
- A house list is a list of information on companies that are potential customers, selected from business cards obtained at seminars and exhibitions, downloaded materials from websites, and company information obtained through inquiries.
- The house list is an important customer list that is essential for marketing and sales activities in order to increase sales.
- In order to utilize house listings in marketing and sales activities, it is important to keep them in good condition. To achieve this, we will do three things: 1) improve targeting accuracy, 2) register accurate information, and 3) update to the latest information.
- There are two ways to manage house lists: “using CRM/SFA” and “updating,” and two ways to use them: “segment” and “nurturing.”