NetProspex - Blog

NetProspex Closes Record Second Quarter and Achieves Breakeven Growth Driven by Acceleration of User Contributed Data

 

 

 

WALTHAM, Mass. – July 9^th, 2009  

 

NetProspex, which has built the fastest growing user-generated directory of business contacts that allows sales and marketing executives to generate cost-effective leads, recently closed its strongest quarter in the company’s two and a half year history. Driven by a 6-fold increase in website traffic in the past year, NetProspex’ revenues increased 100 percent over the same period. In addition, the company received over 15 million business contacts added by users. 

With the easy to use business contact recycling system, users can trade old business contacts for new targeted prospects that have been scrubbed by NetProspex’ proprietary CleneStep^TM trade processing technologies. As a result, the company achieved its first cash-flow break-even quarter.

NetProspex is designed to enable sales and marketing executives to quickly and easily find highly accurate contact information about business people and organizations. NetProspex’ mission is to create the largest, most accurate directory of business people available, making it easy to find decision-makers across all industries.

Gary Halliwell, founder and CEO of NetProspex, says

“Our growth, despite these economic headwinds is a testament to the solid prospects of a business model that takes a useless by-product of the sales process – old sales leads – and turns them into new opportunities. We’re the only business contact directory with the technology to clean user-contributed data and provide a comprehensive resource of accurate, up-to-date business contact information.  Customers who try NetProspex see immediate ROI in the form of new sales opportunities in the pipeline.”

About NetProspex

NetProspex was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The company's core product line overlays user-contributed contact information with multiple layers of quality control to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 7 million accurate business contacts across almost 600,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of contacts - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

 

 

 

Over 10 Million Business Contacts Contributed to NetProspex Already in 2009

Waltham, MA, May 27, 2009 -- NetProspex announced today that its business contact directory has grown in excess of 2 million records in 2009 making it the fastest growing business contact directory that derives its data primarily from user contribution.

Gross user contribution in 2009 to date is in excess of 10 million records with only 2+ million of the highest quality and most accurate of those records having been selected for publishing in the NetProspex directory.

The rapid growth of its user-contributed business contact directory has put NetProspex into the lead as the fastest growing online directory of business contacts, beating out competitors like fellow newcomer Jigsaw and more established players like Hoovers.

The NetProspex database now exceeds 7.0 million business contacts which represents a doubling in size over the past year. Despite the economy, the company points to a large growth in online traffic as sales and marketing executives find NetProspex a great place to find new leads. A quick and easy user-interface to earn credits coupled with comprehensive job title and industry coverage, a high degree of accuracy and valid a email address and phone numbers make NetProspex an effective new business tool.

Executive Quote:

Gary Halliwell, NetProspex CEO:

"Old sales leads - once a byproduct of the sales process - can now be rejuvenated and recycled for other users thanks to our CleneStepTM technologies which make it quick and easy to upload old contacts, earn credits and download new, targeted business leads. This is a great tool for sales and marketing executives who are under pressure to increase sales while reducing costs."

Customer Quote:

Ken Lyons, Marketing Manager, WordStream, Inc:

"NetProspex offers targeted and accurate prospect contact information accessible via an easy user interface. You'd be crazy not to try it out."

About NetProspex:

NetProspex was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The company's core product line overlays user-contributed contact information with multiple layers of quality control to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 7 million accurate business contacts across almost 1,000,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of contacts - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free account, visit www.netprospex.com.

NetProspex Community Votes a Big "Yes" by Submitting 10 Million Records!

We announced in a press release today that our business contact trading system processed a staggering 10 million contacts already in 2009.  Using our CleneStepTM technologies, we selected in excess of 2 million of these for publishing in the NetProspex Directory which now brings the database to 7 million business contacts.  

Despite the economy, NetProspex is expanding on all fronts with large growth in online traffic as sales and marketing executives find NetProspex a great place to find new leads.  Because users can trade old contacts for new, this recycling of old sales leads provides a great way to find new sales opportunities while lowering costs, which is just what is needed when sales and marketing have to do more with less.

NetProspex and Inside CRM Announce Marketing Partnership

BOSTON and SAN FRANCISCO, May 14, 2009 – Community-generated business directory NetProspex (www.NetProspex.com) and business media website Inside CRM (www.InsideCRM.com) today announced a partnership to collaborate on marketing activities.

This partnership utilizes NetProspex Inc.'s community-generated business lead directory along with content creation and delivery capabilities from Inside CRM to help sales and marketing professionals learn about ways they can capture new revenue, decrease costs and achieve competitive advantage.

Executive Quote:    

Gary Halliwell, NetProspex CEO:

• "Partnering with Inside CRM will help drive brand exposure to more sales and marketing desktops."

About NetProspex

NetProspex was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The company's core product line overlays user-contributed contact information with multiple layers of quality control to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 5 million accurate business contacts across almost 600,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of contacts - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

About Inside CRM (www.InsideCRM.com)

Inside CRM is an industry leader in research and education for marketing and sales professionals. The site provides in-depth resource tools that CRM decision makers have come to rely on to get the right information on CRM products and services for their business. As an independent third-party analyst community, Inside CRM is a trusted source for SMB and enterprise companies, buyers, and influencers alike.

The Inside CRM content team has been recognized with more than 25 industry and editorial awards. Inside CRM also routinely taps industry experts for their insight and contributions. In addition, Inside CRM has community features and tools that sales professionals return to again and again, such as product reviews, community-rated top stories, message boards and more.

Chris Bucholtz

Senior Editorial Analyst

editor@insidecrm.com

General information:

feedback@insidecrm.com

An Interesting Read for B2B Sales & Marketing Executives

Adam Needles’ post on the value and evolution of lead sourcing providers makes an interesting read for B2B sales and marketing executives.  As Adam says, “it’s an exciting time for this segment” due to the “increasing granularity of insight and customer information”.  New entrants like NetProspex are breathing new life into an old idea, turning old static directories from niche publishers and industries into deeper universal web-based directory contributed by users.

 

The benefit for sales and marketing executives is vastly reduced time to find contact information on potential buyers, and more importantly, increased visibility and insight into more decision-makers at target companies and sales territories.  If you’re trying to find a way into a new business opportunity, knowing who to contact is critical, and if your discussions with existing contacts are stalled or not moving along finding alternatives is a  great way to drive sales forward, especially as sales cycles are increased in the current economy.

5 Million Accurate Business Contacts Now Available to Manta Users From The NetProspex Directory

BOSTON, April 15, 2009 – Manta.com, the fastest growing business information site on the Internet, announced today that its 12 million monthly users now have access to accurate executive and mid-management business contacts from community-generated business directory provider NetProspex.

NetProspex business contacts are featured in the Manta Report Finder and on 550,000 company profile pages. Users are brought to the NetProspex site where they can either download a company’s entire contact list or select individual records to download based on job title. While on the NetProspex site, users also may search for contacts by geography, job title and industry.

Manta helps professionals compete smarter and prospect better and encourages partnering of small and midsize companies by providing them access to business decision makers, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Executive Quotes:                                                 

Gary Halliwell, NetProspex CEO:

“Partnering with Manta will help make the NetProspex database available to more business people who are looking for quality intelligence.”

Pamela Springer, Manta, CEO:

“Partnering with NetProspex helps Manta extend efficiencies in content delivery while providing our users with high-quality business contacts from small- and medium-size companies, which our members are always looking for.” 

About NetProspex:

NetProspex was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The company's core product line overlays user-contributed contact information with multiple layers of quality control to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 3.5 million accurate business contacts across almost 600,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of contacts - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

About Manta:

Manta.com is the trusted authority for finding hard-to-find information on more than 60 million small and midsize companies worldwide--and their related industries and products. Manta's community of business members interact to contribute and connect with other members in researching and engaging with the most up-to-date database of company profiles around the world.

Targeted Opt-Out is the New "Opt-in"

A survey of the email habits of business people shows that if the email message is irrelevant, a majority will click the SPAM button -- even if the email comes from a known source.

That’s a lesson we all need to understand.  When we communicate via email, we have to send relevant targeted information. Simply put, we have to make the email transaction have value for the recipient.  This whole area is still evolving but we are definitely seeing a shift from simplistic offers rewarding the buyer personally with trinkets like an iPod, through rewarding the buyer with discounts that benefit the corporation, but are still unsophisticated and about as creative as the limp graphics usually adorning them.  

The next category of communication is the most exciting and that’s educating the recipient about how they can do their job more effectively, reduce costs or make more money for their companies with the latest research and benchmarking available. Webinars are a great example and so are a whole range of new ideas like virtual conferences, even newsletters if they’re of the tips and tricks kind.  In all cases, you need fresh meat in the form of content based on real world results with insights layered over the top.  Everyone turns up for an hour and goes home happy. They took away something new or gained a new perspective.  You made an impact because they learned that you are knowledgeable on the subject and therefore they are more likely to trust your firm when they are ready to make a purchase.

The email survey also shows that a majority of business people don’t consider an email to be SPAM if it is from an unrecognized source -- if the message is relevant and well targeted.  Now that is really interesting.  So relevance trumps permission.

If you’re very targeted and relevant with your email, you have about the same odds even if you’re not using an opt-in list.  Why is this?  Well, beyond the issue of relevance, I contend we all sign up for so many services, registrations and trials that none of us can remember whose opt-in list we’re on, especially, if that organization then sells access to its opt-in lists, like most online and print publishers do.  The tenuous relationships with the trail of websites I leave in my wake as I operate my business is far less important than the value of finding something important to help me continue to navigate the business towards success.

Buying lists is fine.  Buying opt-in lists has become meaningless.  Remember the CAN SPAM act never mentions the words “opt-in” at all.  That’s because CAN SPAM deals specifically with how to conduct opt-out campaigns that are in compliance with the law.  There has often been confusion in this area, confising “opt-in” with CAN SPAM.  I wonder who pulled off that positioning triumph? Maybe the folks who own the opt-in lists?

Suddenly the world is changing, and there’s a lot more creativity happening. Complacency has just left the building with the last round of lay-offs.  Sales and marketing managers and senior management are turning over all the rocks and looking for low cost/high impact ideas to put at the top of their action list.  Over the past 3 months, we have noticed a significant swing to outbound email marketing in the Fortune 1000 and specifically in the are of email, several large companies have switched their opt-in email policies in favor of opt-out.   Times are too hard for etiquette, especially if we make that communication itself valuable to the recipient. 

Does this mean we are going to be seeing more communications sent from vendors?  Is your own company talking to more potential customers, trying to counter the negative effects of this economy?  Of course the answer is yes to both.  The key issue, is that SPAM filters are going to continue to improve to knock out emails that no-one is interested in.  Recipients of email -- particularly users of consumer services like yahoo, gmail and hotmail -- are pretty brutal in marking those vendors who bore them as SPAM, thus lowering sender reputations (which can harm your email deliverability rate in the future).  Senders will gain good or bad reputations as a result and all the facets of SPAM technology will continue to force email communication in the right direction, into being more and more relevant and useful.  The good will survive, the bad will be cast aside.  

In the broadest sense, electronic communication in the business to business world is not going away.  It will very likely increase over the next 10 years. But the dinosaurs large and small will increasingly find it difficult to survive unless they also adapt into more agile creatures capable of dealing with new business conditions.

NetProspex Storms to Record Sales and Trading in Q1

BOSTON April 1, 2009 – NetProspex today announced record sales and contact trading volumes in first quarter of 2009.

NetProspex, which provides a user-generated directory of 3.5 million business people across North American - including phone and email addresses – has seen a dramatic upsurge in its revenues as sales and marketing departments adopt more efficient ways to reach new buyers.

NetProspex also forecasts a bright outlook for sales through 2009 as more corporations increase their outbound marketing activities to stave off the impact of the recession.

User contribution of business contacts, which is core to the company’s strategy of data acquisition, also saw a major uptick in Q1. NetProspex’s growing user base traded over 1,500,000 new business contacts in the quarter. New business contacts are validated before publishing, providing NetProspex users with accurate business information and sales leads.

Executive Quote:                                                   

Gary Halliwell, NetProspex CEO:

§  “NetProspex has reached a threshold in its business as evidenced by two consecutive strong quarters during particularly challenging economic conditions. Our emphasis on quality and usability will continue to attract new customers and drive rapid growth.”

About NetProspex

NetProspex was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The company's core product line overlays user-contributed contact information with multiple layers of quality control to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 3.5 million accurate business contacts across almost 600,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of contacts - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

NetProspex Makes Direct Magazine's Top 10

NetProspex was selected by Direct Magazine as one of the top 10 providers and was reviewed in their 2009 lead sources survey.  NetProspex fares best in provision of full records across executives tested including email coverage.  Coverage numbers for several of the vendors include incomplete records and "graveyard" contacts for past employees which we didn't include (why would we?).

Not too shabby for the newbie and a great testament to our community of users who continue to add great content in the form of business contacts from across every sector in the US economy.  In the 5 months since we submitted the data for the survey, our database has grown by 30% and we continue to drive accuracy in the industry upwards with 100% validated data.

Here's a link - http://directmag.com/b2b/0301-venders-data-practices/index.html

Case studies in optimizing email content - webinar recording

Informative & interactive webinar from NetProspex and Pinpointe demonstrates how variations in email content drastically change email response rates. Real Case Studies: Testing Subject Lines, HTML vs. Multi-Part, Personalization and more.  Here's the link - http://www.pinpointe.com/resources/webinar-split-testing-02-18-09