Marketing Manager
Improve your prospects When making sales calls, like the Boy
Scouts, it pays to be prepared. It demonstrates your
professionalism, saves time and enables you to anticipate
questions and overcome resistance. Today, with so many research
sources available you should be able to find information on
every prospect. Good places to look for information about your
prospects include the Internet, newspapers, magazines, trade
journals, friends, family and your colleagues. However, even
experienced researchers and consultants sometimes find it
difficult and time consuming locating the right information
needed to build a solid prospect list. As most dedicated
researchers know, rather than trawl through pages and pages of
search results on the Internet it's easier and faster to use
industry specific directories, portals and jumpstations.
Compound searches Search engines build databases of keywords and
phrases to help you locate websites. However, the way each
search engine performs this task and the criteria it uses to
rank and list results is different. It's worth reading the tips
offered by each search engine on how to conduct searches. To
perform a compound search for "recruitment software" on
Google.com, for example, requires you type it within quotation
marks. Otherwise the search engine will return all web pages
about recruitment and software, which will run into hundreds of
thousands. Concept search Some search engines will locate
related web pages using concept searches, even if the exact
keyword or phrase you enter doesn't appear on a web page. Some
offer related topic options or allow for weighted terms that
allow you to define which keywords are most important to your
search. Alter Vista offers Related Topics, for example and
Google allows you to search for synonyms. Metasearch Because no
one search engine lists all the websites on the Internet, you've
probably spent some time repeating searches on different
engines. A Metasearch looks through several search engine
databases at once, returning a merged list of results. Having
performed a metasearch you might discover web sites listed in
databases you don't regularly use or didn't even know existed.
SearchAllInOne, Search.com and Mamma.com are just three
metasearch engines you might find useful. What's New on the Web?
New websites are being added to the Internet by the thousands
everyday, but it usually takes a number of weeks for a new site
to appear on the big name search engines like Google, yahoo and
MSN. The reason for this is the big search engines review and
filter new website submissions before adding them to their
databases. A way to round this is to use a search engine like
Starting Point, which lists new submissions instantly. You can
find a whole series of search engines and portals that offer a
"What's New" feature. Search Engine Directories Most search
engines have directories that allow you to narrow down your
search criteria to specific categories, such as travel,
business, sport, companies, education, health, entertainment,
and jobs. One of the largest and most popular directories,
Yahoo, allows you to see how relevant a website is to your
keyword search by ranking the quality of the match. The most
likely match is listed first, and so on. Check out the
directories on Excite, Lycos, Infoseek and Yahoo. Newsgroups
Internet newsgroups are another valuable source of research
information. The term newsgroup encompasses the whole spectrum
of online forums, bulletin boards and discussion groups. You
will find a newsgroup somewhere on the Web for just about any
topic you can possibly imagine. Take a look at Deja.com (Google
groups) and Usenet.org.uk for more in-depth information of
newsgroups. What's in a name? The suffix that appears at the end
of a domain name or URL, such as www.swiftpro.com provides you
with top-line information about that website: .gov for
government .edu for education .org for non-profit .com for
commercial .net for commercial/technology related Online & Local
Libraries There is a whole raft of digital and print information
available to help you research prospects and possible new market
sectors. Many of company reports, guides and trade periodicals
are available to buy and download over the Internet. You will
also find many business publications are available free of
charged in the reference section of your local library. Useful
sources of business intelligence include * Company annual
reports * Business guides and directories (checkout Key British
Enterprises) * Trade & business journals * Trade association
directories * Government publications * Local & national
newspapers * Specialty magazines * Market research reports
(usually charge a fee) Confirming client prospects information
After searching the Web you might have a list of potential
prospects but don't have all the contact information you need to
add them to your company database, make a sales call, send an
email or post some direct mail. Before you start using fee
charging business directories try using some tried and trusted
information services that have successfully migrated from print
and telephony to the Internet. A paid service by telephone, BT
Directory Enquiries online offers you 50 free searches a day.
You can search for an individual or company by name, town,
street and post code. The service provides basic information
such as address, telephone and fax numbers. You can find BT
Directory Enquiries at www.BT.com. The Thomson Local Directory
also offers a free search facility. The major difference between
this and BT's directory service is that you can send emails
directly from the page listing, and connect to the company's
website. Yell.com, Kellysearch, Askalix also offer comprehensive
online business listings free of charge. If you want European or
global company information then Europages European Business
Directory and Kompass, which list 1.9million companies in 75
countries, are good places to start. They offer basic contact
information free of charge. Prospecting for candidates Just as
important as building your client base is attracting high
quality candidates, especially in areas such as medical, legal,
finance, education, public service and government recruitment.
As many of you will already know, numerous company and
organisational website freely list the names, titles, direct
contact details and even biographies of their people. Many
universities, libraries, government departments, charities, law
firms, NHS hospitals, healthcare trusts and multi-nationals have
dedicated People Finder sections as part of their website
architectures. It might take you a little time to locate these
sites but the reward for placing a top public or private sector
professional will make your efforts worthwhile.
You can visit the swiftpro website at http://www.swiftpro.com