Thinking of Purchasing Contact Data for the Pharma, Biotech and Diagnostic Industry?
Companies have been buying data for lead generation for eons. Businesses need contacts to get their product and service information out and into the hands of those who are most likely to purchase their offerings, so they rely on collected data in CRM systems for prospecting.
Unfortunately, data has a short lifespan. Gone are the days when workers stayed at jobs for 35+ years and retired with a gold watch. Early into the last decade, the tide shifted, and the trend became to switch jobs every two to three years. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure among jobs held by workers ages 25 to 34 is now 2.8 years.)
As workers leave their jobs, their contact information leaves with them, and sales departments are left frustrated and puzzled, wondering why the data they purchased is not paying off for them. The answer is quite simply that the data is not current.
Often as much as fifty percent of contact data is old and therefore quite worthless to a sales team. Sales is a numbers game, and clean data is a salesperson’s best tool for hitting high marks. Susan Walsh, Founder and President of Sales-Link Inc. has been offering support to CROs and service providers in the pharma/biotech industry and matching them with sponsors for potential business opportunities for over 20 years. She developed Pharma BDI (Pharmaceutical Business Development Information), a unique CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for pharma, biotech, and diagnostics sales in order to remedy the frustrating reality of perpetually outdated data.
“I don’t like to call Pharma BDI a CRM system, because what we have is contact data that has been verified for our users. It’s not just a system to track and annotate your leads and sales. Pharma BDI has all the leads and their verified contact information primed and waiting for you,” says Walsh, who has now decided to sell her database to companies that already have a CRM in place, but need current data to upload into it.
“Our system includes the names, titles, places of employment, contact information, and other important, pertinent information,” says Marie Carino Jimenez, Data and Systems Specialist, Sales-Link Inc. “When our clients purchase licensing to our system, so they can search for potential targets to connect with, or purchase our list, they rightfully expect a current list with correct information.”
The large database of over 500,000 contacts Walsh’s team has amassed for the life science industry and the system she developed assures that the contacts are verified and current. As one can imagine, this is no easy task. It takes a large, dedicated team of researchers working round-the-clock, verifying and updating the information and adding new prospects non-stop.
“Bigger is not always better when it comes to databases”, says Emma Richardson, Operations Manager, Sales-Link Inc. “You need clean, verified, precise data; data that can be standardized, and visualized. Most importantly, the prospects in your database should be people who actually have the power to make decisions about purchasing your product, or service to get the best results,” she adds.
And therein lies the rub. Not only is it important that the data be clean, but it also needs to be precise, presenting sales teams with the individuals that are the decision-makers. Sales-Link uses a data mining tool to constantly grow their database, and it also screens for input, reserving less-desirable titles for manual inspection. Macros and filters assist in preventing irrelevant prospects from entering the database.
“Overall, maintaining the quality of your database, as you keep growing it, is essential, and will pay-off in the end by winning you more viable prospects, which lead to more sales,” reports Richardson. And right she is. Sales is a numbers game, and it is also a time investment. The more receptive calls you can make and the more email campaigns you can successfully generate, the better the chances of landing those sales!
