NetProspex - Blog

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NetProspex Closes Record Fourth Quarter in 2009

WALTHAM, Mass. – January 26th, 2010 -


Crowd-sourced business publishing start-up NetProspex today announced another record sales quarter in Q4 of 2009. NetPospex is a dynamic business contact directory built by and for the B2B sales and marketing community. The company's sales results are attributed to rapid growth in its database of over 9 million user-contributed business contacts, and continued verification and cleansing from proprietary CleneStepTM technology.


The company combines crowd-sourcing with verification technology to create a turbo-charged rolodex for opportunity creation that integrates into sales and marketing automation for thousands of customers, including many Fortune 1000 companies.


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' CleneStepTM trade processing technologies.


NetProspex' mission is to create the largest, most accurate directory of business people available, making it easy to find decision-makers across all demographics, including electronic and social media.


Gary Halliwell, founder and CEO of NetProspex, said "NetProspex takes a useless by-product of the sales process - gathered sales leads - and turns them into an accurate business contact directory open to all. The key to success in business information is data accuracy. Our customers need quality data in their automated marketing systems and sales processes."

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 crowd-sourced, 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 9 million accurate business contacts across over 800,000 companies, NetProspex is a major new source of B2B prospects - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

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NetProspex presenting at SIIA's Information Industry Summit in New York

NetProspex will present this week as part of the 2010 SIIA Information Industry Summit's Previews program as the company's progress continues to attract attention (see Outsell's Top 30 to Watch).

SIIA's Previews program showcases innovative new companies -- B2B publishers, content aggregators, and technology plays -- to an audience of information industry partners, customers, investors, acquirers and other deal-makers.

Past presenting companies include:

• Associated Content, closed $6 Million in Series C Funding
• FeeDisclosure, purchased by Bankrate
• Generate, Inc, purchased by Dow Jones
• Keibi Technologies, purchased by Lithium Technologies

In addition to SIIA Previews presentations, the Information Industry Summit will feature sessions that will help hundreds of executives from digital content providers, aggregators and syndicators overcome post-recession hurdles and identify growth opportunities. Many leading information industry innovators are confirmed to speak at the Summit.

Judges for the Previews program included:

• Larry Schwartz, President, Newstex
• Ed Keating, VP Content Division, SIIA
• Teri Mendelsohn, President, Mendelsohn Consulting
• Somak Chattopadhyay, VP, Greenhill SAVP
• Ed Reitler, Partner, Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt
• Randy Marcinko, CEO, MEI
• Claudia Flowers, VP, Business Development, Outsell, Inc.

"We're honored by this recognition and opportunity from SIIA, and look forward to sharing our story with attendees of the summit. This event is meant to showcase the future of the industry, and we're excited to be a part of that. NetProspex is looking to raise the bar across our industry with new standards of data quality."

See the rest of the presenting organizations: http://www.siia.net/IIS/2010/previews.asp

Zombie attack!?

What's with the zombie in our booth at MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Summit??

Meet our contact zombie: (we've named him Harold.) Harold's mailbox is active, but he's left the company. Your email is deliverable, and some data companies think that's enough to qualify him as accurate. 

Well.. Harold's not reading your email.. and he's definitely not buying your product.

NetProspex phone verifies contacts traded in to protect your list from containing zombies- active mailboxes with no live recipient.  That way, you can reach a real, live, person, and see your response rates soar.

Accuracy is everything for us, and email marketers love our data, because it lowers their bounce rates and makes them look great- to their customers and ESPs.

After all, you can't sell to a zombie...

...unless you're selling brraaaaiinnnnsss.

Check out the rest of our photos from MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Summit 2010, and let us know if we can give you a sample list to try the accuracy of our data for yourself.

7 Predictions for Business Communications in 2010

As we look to this new year and new decade, it's clear the business community is on the edge of a major transformation in the way we communicate. 

1. Social media will provide new channels for outreach.

Social media is already providing new ways and opportunities for business people to communicate in addition to direct mail, phone and e-mail. Our millennials are showing us the way. Every parent is aware how our kids communicate online and see how email has taken a back seat to social media tools.

As a marker, today we see 30% of business users in the NetProspex database have LinkedIn accounts and about 5% use Twitter. We believe its a good bet those numbers will continue to rise.

2. Authentic conversation will continue to improve email marketing.

The key issue is that business communication is turning into a more authentic conversation and that is already being evidenced in what is happening in the oldest electronic communication tool, email. If you have noticed that business email is morphing into a much more useful communication medium, you will not be alone.  The recession was the driving force as large reputable companies added opt-out email campaigns to their communication mix as an effective action against falling sales.

The CAN SPAM act has turned out to be a forward thinking piece of legislation in that it allows vendors to email business people regarding their services as long as an opt-out or "remove me" link is provided in the email.  The result is that by the end of the naughties, sloppy email providing "free offers" and useless newsletters have been replaced by more effective email marketing that is much smarter, useful and well targeted.  Marketers have discovered that content such as webinars, blogs and YouTube videos to name a few can educate on a topic that really is really useful to the recipient, and people want to hear about this stuff. 

3. Targeted, relevant messaging will deliver, as always.

People are in business to do business. As a business professional, I have no problem receiving email about tools and services that can make my organization more sales or reduce costs. In fact its become an essential way to help me ensure I achieve my fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for my business and ensures I am up-to-date on these tools and know when they could help.

I find it nostalgic to think that in another few years there will be a generation that doesn't know what Viagra is. SPAM software has dome a great job in keeping the trash out and the unsolicited emails I now get are at a manageable level and the vendor messages are usually well targeted, and the content is useful.  Research has shown that users will mark an email as spam if it is from a vendor who they have a relationship if the message is not useful, but not do so if the message is relevant and targeted, even if it is unsolicited. In fact most of us visit so many websites and sign up for so many things each year, that we can't remember who we have a relationships with anyway.

4. Caller ID for email means marketers must hit the nail on the head.

In addition, the preview line in email software in the in-box makes the decision easy whether to spend time opening an email.  If the marketer hasn't hit the nail on the head in that tiny space - forget it. So my inconvenience with this stuff has been much reduced...now I find it the opposite...very useful.  So email has become a little bit like answering the phone, it has its own caller ID built-in, in that one line preview that I can ignore if I want to.

The proof is when you hear marketers talk in these uncertain economic times and reduced budgets we hear again and again that email marketing, if done well, is the most effective way form many businesses to reach out to potential customers. With the advent of social media, no doubt it is going to take us a while to figure out how to use this medium too. The B2C marketers seem to be well on the way to figuring this out and the business community will no doubt follow.

5. We're growing.

NetProspex will continue its rapid growth as the community continues to pool more content to the database.  We are looking to grow our database to more than 20M accurate business contacts in 2010.

6. The traditional list industry is not.

The list industry (an information business that still hasn't made the transition to electronic media) will continue to collapse, as friction in the buying process through inconvenient rental models and poor quality will force its replacement by higher quality sources that collate this information into one place and make integration to sales and marketing automation easy.

7. Sales and marketing automation works, the ecosystem is the future.

There is a logjam of demand for sales and marketing automation. Salesforce.com is the only CRM platform to allow app development. Most large CRM providers servicing the large corporations are stuck on inflexible platforms that deny them value available to smaller, more nimble competitors.

We hope you'll join us in 2010 as we continue to raise the standards of B2B lead generation, and embark on new frontiers bringing social media into the B2B world.

What's next in 2010? Leave your comments below.

Cheers,

Gary Halliwell
CEO - NetProspex

NetProspex named a "company to watch", alongside Google, Apple, Blackboard, TechCrunch, and more.

Our friends at Outsell Inc. have named NetProspex as one of 30 organizations to watch in their new report: “Information Industry Outlook 2010: A New Dawn, New Day, New Decade.” The report includes "30 to Watch", a compendium of companies who they believe will have an important impact on the publishing and information provider community.

Outsell's “30 to Watch” features "companies that are innovative, disrupt the status quo, or are creating unique experiences. They include Apple, Blackboard, Bloomberg, E Ink, Giunti Labs, Kaplan, National Public Radio and TechCrunch."

"NetProspex is working hard to differentiate ourselves in 2010 and beyond with our directory of crowd-sourced, verified B2B prospects," said NetProspex CEO, Gary Halliwell.

"Our verification model, which provides higher quality business contact data than previously offered in the online contact space, is setting new standards of accuracy. We're thrilled to be included in Outsell's report, among such impressive company, and will deliver on their prediction of shaking things up in 2010."

Outsell release here: http://www.outsellinc.com/press/press_releases/outlook_2010

View the report here: http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/897

NetProspex Hires Michael Bird as Chief Revenue Officer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Waltham, MA (January 6, 2010) – NetProspex Inc., provider of verified, crowd-sourced business contact information, has hired Michael C. Bird as Chief Revenue Officer.

Michael has over twenty years experience igniting revenue growth and managing business expansion for leading online and social media companies.

 For the last three years, Michael has been the Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development, for BzzAgent, a leading word-of-mouth marketing and social media network. Under his leadership, the company more than doubled its annual bookings, implemented over 250 campaigns for clients such as P&G, SC Johnson, Unilever and Pepsi Co and expanded into the UK and Canada.



Prior to BzzAgent, Michael spent nearly six years with CNET Networks where he lead international network sales as the Vice President of Global Solutions. He also served as the Vice President of Sales and Research for CNET’s Business Media Network, which included brands such as ZDNet, TechRepublic and BNET. 

Michael was also a partner in the early stage technology venture capital firm, Stonepath Group.

Previously, Michael spent 13 years in various management and sales roles at Ziff-Davis Publishing, including 2 years as the Associate Publisher, Integrated Media for Smart Business and 4 years of service as the Director of Corporate Sales.

“Mike’s global revenue and business development experience, a proven track record of success, and his enthusiasm for innovation will be key to NetProspex’s growth,” said Gary Halliwell, CEO and co-founder of NetProspex. Michael's specialties also include building high performance field sales organizations, strategic planning, training and entrepreneurial leadership.

About NetProspex

NetProspex's mission is to build the fastest growing and most accurate resource for business contact information. The company was founded in 2006 by Gary Halliwell and Jeff Clewley, two veterans of the electronic financial information market. NetProspex understands that effective sales and marketing efforts require the most in-depth and accurate prospect data. The core product line overlays crowd-sourced, user-contributed contact information with proprietary verification technology to produce an entirely unique and highly effective sales and marketing contact database. With over 9 million accurate business contacts, NetProspex is a fast-growing and extremely accurate new source of B2B prospects - including difficult-to-find mid-management decision makers across North American businesses. For more information or a free membership, visit www.netprospex.com.

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Search by Job Function: The Weirdest Titles in the NetProspex Database

One of our current projects here at NetProspex is to get our customers into the zone quicker by rounding up related job titles into common job functions.  In essence, you could search our database for only the job functions of your target audience.

Our aim is to make it easier to find what you want- even if it’s ‘Buyer - Ladies Bottoms'

We’re a little bug eyed from scrolling through thousands of job titles in the NetProspex database.  With over 9 million business contacts contributed by our user community, the range of job titles in the database is huge.  There are some funny ones, some confusing ones, some incredibly long ones, but they're all available in the NetProspex database. (Did you know searching is totally free?)

And now, for the weirdest job titles in the NetProspex database:

 

- Buyer - Ladies Bottoms, Variety Wholesalers Inc., Henderson, NC

- Joke Teller, Fly Fishing Outfitters, Avon, CO

- Head of Noodle Technology, Canadian International Grains Institute, Winnipeg, MB

- Vice President Candles, The Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs Inc, New York, NY

- Owner and Style Driver, Vain, Seattle, WA

- Vice-Chair of the Taste and Odor Committee, American Water Works Association, Denver, CO

- Small Animal Receptionist, Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital, Snohomish, WA

- Computer Monkey, City of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB

Search for YOUR perfect audience by job function. Searching is free.

To steal from the King, we need a little less conversation a little more action, baby, All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me. 

That’s a great mantra (sorry to go all eastern mystic on you, Elvis) for a business information company.

Among business information companies, there should be less friction in finding information- the benefit is increased time using that information. (Selling!)

Time in the zone for sales and marketing is not going through a database looking for relevant contacts, but using that time to communicate with potential buyers.  The more you are in the zone, the better the results. After all, people are in business to do business, and we believe it’s good practice to be found.. even if you’re a Head of Noodle Technology. Now get in the zone!