Advanced
DATABASE STRATEGIES

As we progress through this business development process, we’ve learned not only how to quantify the number of leads you can capture—but, how to develop unique profiles for targeting and capturing those leads more successfully, too.

Then, we went in-depth on the benefits of finding and targeting your unique Ideal Customer Profile, including the ability to:

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• Identify ideal prospects
• Convert more leads
• Lower your customer acquisition cost (CAC) by targeting the right prospects
• Understand the prospect’s buyer journey
• Serve customers better by knowing their pain points and needs
• Reduce customer turnover
• Build an effective sales enablement tool

Now, we enter the…“we gotta find those ICP’s.”
Here, we’ll focus on how advanced database strategies can streamline the sale process for ultimate success.
When you take the time to work on unique advanced  database strategies for your unique business—you’ll save time (and money) on marketing messages that don’t resonate.
Now, let’s review how to implement advanced database strategies to identify, segment effectively, and profile your ideal target audiences.

Identifying Industry Specificity
Historically, various industries were classified through the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, which assigned four-digit codes to identify individual sectors.
However, there are some severe limitations to SIC codes. Often companies are miss classified, fall under more than one or two sic code descriptions, and are hard to find in general.
Then came the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which has the most significant hierarchy of codes regarding industry identification.

Unfortunately, with any new system, there is a transition phase where not everyone has made the conversion. Many companies still reference SIC codes and have yet to update their classifications to the new and improved, modern NAICS codes.
Last but not least, the Global Industry Classification Standard, or GICS, is a system developed by MSCI and S&P Dow Jones Indices in 1999. The GICS further aids sales teams in identifying industries’ specificity with codes that classify companies into a 4-tiered hierarchical system that includes:
NAICS Codes Defined
The NAICS classification system was created to allow for more flexibility than the four-digit structure of the SIC.
The hierarchical six-digit coding system classifies all economic activity into 20 different industry sectors.

Unfortunately, with any new system, there is a transition phase where not everyone has made the conversion. Many companies still reference SIC codes and have yet to update their classifications to the new and improved, modern NAICS codes. Last but not least, the Global Industry Classification Standard, or GICS, is a system developed by MSCI and S&P Dow Jones Indices in 1999. The GICS further aids sales teams in identifying industries’ specificity with codes that classify companies into a 4-tiered hierarchical system that includes:

11 sectors

69 industries

24 industry groups
158 sub-industries

When you implement these classification systems into your advanced database strategies, you put the power of accurate insights and analytics on your side to better tailor each message to the right audience. However, you will likely run several database queries in each system to find all the possible companies and contacts in your market. By using the email address as the unique identifier, you can merge and de-dupe all of the contacts that match your ICP in one file.

Social Data
Of course, we can’t forget about using Social Networks to our advantage regarding advanced database strategies. Nowadays, most business professionals are on LinkedIn, which serves as a social hub for sales data. Unfortunately, LinkedIn classifies businesses into 146 categories and lacks many vital industries—like manufacturing. Not to mention, it doesn’t offer sub-industries, or further classifications, which makes targeting specific groups on the platform, challenging.
So, while LinkedIn can be sufficient for socially connecting with your audience and those with a broad category to target—it shouldn’t be your only pillar in building a successful advanced database strategy.

Company Keywords
Another advanced database strategy for lead generation is to use company keywords. Let’s say we’re looking to target apartment complex owners. These companies will fall under Real estate inside of Linkedin. However, if we target all executives in the “Real-estate Industry,” you would wind up with real estate brokers, investors, agents, etc. By searching for companies in the real estate industry that have the keyword Apartments, Condos, or Multi-family Dwellings in their company description or meta tags, you will find your ideal contacts:

Hierarchy of Real Estate keyword example?
INDUSTRY | Real Estate
KEYWORDS | Multi-Family, Condos, Apartments

What helps generate successful keywords is the development of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
By doing so, you can create branches of keywords that are relative to your products and services and
target the right contacts at the right companies.

Search Compaies with Job Openings
Last but not least, let’s also consider a different approach to sorting potential leads: that being, the use of job boards and postings. For example, if you’re a marketing agency, you could search companies currently hiring for marketing roles. If you’re an IT consulting firm, you could search for companies currently hiring within their IT department. Adding this unique segment to your advanced database strategies gives you an insightful perspective of the company’s current needs that you can rightfully fill.

Funding Announcements
If a company announces they have received a new round of funding, you could assume that it has an increased budget and potential interest in your product or service. This is especially true if your solutions are focused on improving efficiencies or effectiveness related to business growth.
ideal targets

ADVANCED DATABASE STRATEGIES

Are you looking for more support with developing your advanced database strategies?
Contact Shawn Elledge at Selledge@SalesLeadAutomation.com
and stay tuned for more guides on developing effective lead generation programs.

With this information, and by already knowing the right persona, within the right industry, and the right market size… you can tailor your first message to provide immediate value by sending a cold email that:

Stay tuned for more industry tips and tricks to automate lead generation. In our next edition, we’ll focus on Intent Data and how to identify companies potentially “In-Market” for your products and services.