Time to read: 3 Minutes

When talking about lead sources, we had the pleasure of learning from DiscoverOrg.  They’re a sales and marketing account and contact information company.  This blog reports the 3 marketing leads secrets of the fastest-growing companies.

It’s based on DiscoverOrg’s Growth Drivers Report, which is research to understand what sets high growth companies apart from lower growth peers

Just to set the definition of the fastest-growing companies upfront – they aimed for the top 20% of the market, which has a three-year growth rate of 40%. This, by the way, also happens to be the same qualification for the Inc. 5000 list.

Now, back to those 3 secrets of marketing leads…

1. Fastest-growing Firms Care about Data Quality.

Bad data is a silent killer of sales, a slow and quiet killer of companies. It creeps into your CRM and marketing automation through misspellings and incomplete data entry, just as it enters through bad quality list brokers.

So not only do you spend money to buy that bad quality data, you spend money to KEEP that bad quality data. In fact, according to Eloqua, one bad record in your marketing automation costs $11.

…so good lead sources start with high quality data, but teams still need to actively manage data quality.

2. Fastest-growing Firms Use Account-based Marketing Strategies.

According to DiscoverOrg research, nearly half of the fastest-growers implement account based marketing compared to less than 20% of the rest.  This means that fast-growers are 2.5x more likely to use and ABM strategy.

…so making the sale depends on a strategy, so select accounts to target first and plan your marketing campaigns to reach them.

3. Fastest-growing Firms Cold Call.

Back to the DiscoverOrg research, about 30% of fast-growers report cold calling with great results.  This compares to 15% of the slo-mos – yep, that means twice as many fast-growers are believers in cold calling than the rest.

…so we can’t help but conclude that doing and mastering cold calling is important to growth.  Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you cold calling is dead. As hard as it might be to get someone on the phone, it still pays big when you actually do.

Data Quality Drives Long-term Marketing Success

At WaveLength, we agree with all three marketing leads secrets, the first two marketing leads secrets more than the third.

We can’t beat that high data quality horse dead enough around here. Data hygiene is time, money, policy, and corporate capital well-spent.  High quality data more than pays for itself.

Also, if you don’t follow an account-based strategy, you’re a terrible marketer. No, we’re not suggesting you spend loads of money on ABM technology. In fact, we consider ABM to be more of a strategy.  So instead, we strongly suggest with knowing your total addressable market (TAM) and targeted accounts within it.

Finally, cold calling isn’t for every firm all the time. It really depends on where you are in your growth journey.

Hey, share this and help those lost in the marketing wilderness.