Top 8 Techniques for B2B List Building [Updated for 2024]

Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date prospect list is crucial for acquiring new leads and maximizing opportunities for upselling and reselling to existing customers. 

If you don’t know how to build effective B2B lists, your outreach efforts will fall short. This could put you in situations where you invest significant time and resources reaching out to a lead, only to discover that they aren’t a good fit for your product/services or, worse, they’ve moved on from their previous company. 

Implementing the right B2B list building techniques can save you from these circumstances and ensure a targeted and effective outreach process. In this article, we will explore the top 8 techniques for creating B2B lists that are not only comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date but also thoroughly validated to ensure that you invest time and resources on only qualified leads.

1. Ideal customer profile creation

Before you start building a B2B list, you need to have a clear understanding of who your ideal customers are. Without this clarity, you might end up with a cluttered list.

Researching your target audience is the foundation of effective B2B list building. It narrows down your efforts on reaching out to leads who genuinely need your product or service.

Ask yourself these questions to define your ideal customers:

• What industries do your customers belong to?
• How large are their companies in terms of the number of employees and yearly revenue?
• What are their key performance indicators (KPIs) and responsibilities?

Answers to these questions will get you a clear picture of your ideal customer and will guide you in building a B2B list that aligns perfectly with your business goals.

2. Identification of the key decision-makers

Once you have an ideal customer profile, you can pinpoint the companies and individuals you want to target. This step is crucial for laser-focused B2B list building. Let’s break it down.

• List of target companies: Start by compiling a list of companies that match your ideal customer criteria. Get as much information as you need about those companies. For instance, if you’re targeting well-established companies with substantial resources, consider referring to lists like Fortune 100, 500, or 1000 and add relevant findings to your B2B list.
• Identify decision-makers: Within these target companies, identify the key decision-makers you want to reach out to. Look for roles like CEO, CFO, CMO, or other relevant executives. Use professional platforms like LinkedIn to find more information about these individuals. An effective B2B list usually includes:
• Name
• Job title
• Email address
• Contact number
• Mailing address

3. Continuous B2B lead list enrichment

Regardless of the quality of your B2B contact database, a consistent challenge arises: data decay. Think about how often people change jobs or switch companies. Around 30% of customer data becomes outdated every year. That’s a significant portion of your valuable prospect list!

Here’s why outdated data is problematic:

• Wasted sales efforts: Sales reps end up dialing numbers of individuals who have long moved on to new roles. It’s a frustrating and time-consuming exercise that yields little to no results.
• High email bounce rates: Marketers face the dilemma of their carefully crafted emails bouncing back. This not only wastes their time but also damages their sender’s reputation.
• Lost opportunities: Prospective customers might opt for your competitors instead of you just because they haven’t received any communication from your end.

Enriching your list with updated and relevant information keeps your lead data fresh and your business ahead of the curve.

4. List building process automation using web scraping tools

Manually collecting contact information from websites, LinkedIn, and other sources can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, especially if you need to build a large list. Web scraping tools can automate this process, allowing you to quickly and easily collect the data you need.

There are many web scraping tools available, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Some tools are designed for specific tasks, such as collecting email addresses or company names. Others are more general-purpose and can be used to collect a variety of data.

It’s important to note that the web scraping tools reduce the time and automate the process but the accuracy is questionable. Involving human data experts in the quality check process can ensure accuracy.

5. Opt-in email marketing

Which is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get B2B lists? The answer is ‘buying one’. But the problem with most purchased lists is:

1. They are expensive
2. Contact details are not up-to-date (job changes, shutdowns)
3. They’re not verified (email addresses may be invalid)

Moreover, you risk your brand’s reputation by cold emailing or calling individuals who haven’t opted in to receive communications. 

Imagine you buy a list of 50,000 email addresses of people who live in Minnesota and don’t have children. Seems like a specific audience, right? But here’s the catch: They didn’t ask to hear from you.

Instead of going for the quick fix, focus on sustainable list-building strategies to grow your business. Building a list of engaged subscribers who have opted in to hear from you will yield better results in the long run. Avoid the pitfalls of purchased lists and nurture meaningful connections with your audience.

6. Manual Verification of B2B lists

Even if you have built a list that contains the most relevant and complete details of your target audience, there might still be errors and inaccuracies in the list. Manual checks are required to verify accuracy, update information, and validate lead data relevance.

7. Leveraging professional B2B list building services

Building a B2B list of prospects is time-consuming and can keep you away from core business operations. Moreover, finding trusted sources for data collection, verifying & validating the lead data, and complying with data privacy regulations gets tricky at times. 

Delegating these tasks to professional list building service providers can save you a lot of time, money, and effort and gives you access to an accurate, validated, and complete database of potential clients. 

8. B2B list expansion

B2B list building is an ongoing process and you need to make sure that your list is continuously growing with more data fields and more important info. You can follow the tips below to make sure that your lists are continuously expanding with fresh leads.

Craft compelling content: Offer free resources like blogs and eBooks in return for emails and other contact information.

Enhance your website: Place CTAs and lead-capture forms on your website and encourage visitors to share their contact details.

Harness the power of social media: Promote your exclusive content and lead magnets on social platforms to attract your ideal audience. Showcase the benefits they’ll gain from subscribing to your email list.

Final Thoughts

B2B list building is a crucial aspect of your marketing efforts. By following these updated techniques for 2024, you can create a highly targeted list that increases your chances of converting leads into customers. If you’re pressed for time or lack expertise in B2B list building, you can get help from a professional data support service provider who can build effective prospect lists in a short time span.