Before your next call, make sure your target list is actually worth calling

If bad-fit companies are cluttering your records, your strategy might be swamped by duplicates and dead ends, none of which will give you qualified leads.

It’s easy enough to let these lists snowball. Over time, accounts get added from old events, campaigns, or any forgotten interactions that were once promising but have since gone cold.

So before you invest in a full outbound campaign, it’s worth asking how many of your accounts are genuinely commercially promising, and how many could easily be culled.

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How bad data hampers your outbound numbers

The biggest constraint in an SDR’s day is time. If hour after hour is wasted chasing bad prospect data or wading through duplicate information, they have less time to spend on quality conversations with prospects that could be ready to convert.

If you treat the data behind your outbound strategy like a box-ticking exercise, you’ll eventually burn out sales and marketing teams with unnecessary, time-consuming tasks that only weaken campaign performance.

It’s a growing problem in the B2B world, and plenty of once-valuable leads are being disqualified solely due to bad data quality.

All B2B sales and marketing teams should clean their data

Data cleaning makes sure every prospect on your list has at least some potential to convert. The process keeps information accurate, up-to-date and genuinely useful, so any entry can be trusted and verified before your campaign launches.

Give your SDRs a list they can trust, and time that was once wasted on non-starters will instead be given to accounts most likely to deliver an actual commercial return.

Why data cleaning should happen before outbound starts

Data cleaning gives you a pre-qualified list to work with from the outset, which means fewer wasted calls and needless conversations, and instead, a clearer view of where the real opportunities are likely to be.

Rather than relying on inherited, outdated or untested lists, sales and marketing can agree what good looks like before the campaign begins. That makes it easier to prioritise the right accounts now, and easier to keep future lists cleaner as new contacts and companies are added.

How Account Grading helps

Bollin Green’s Account Grading service is how we review your data before outbound starts. We check each account against your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and give it a grade, so you know which companies to prioritise, which need more qualification and which should be removed before calling.

Each account gets one of four grades:

• High – A strong fit against your ICP. These are the accounts your time and budget should prioritise most.
• Medium – A viable target. The account looks reasonable, although there may be a few points to confirm, like who the decision maker is, or what their buying timeline looks like.
• Low – A weaker fit. These accounts may have potential, but they should not be prioritised over high or medium opportunities.
• Disqualified – Any account at this level isn’t a match for your ICP and should be removed from the campaign. All it’s doing is taking up calling time without offering a return.

At Bollin Green, our grades come with a clear explanation, so your team can see the reasoning and approach the campaign with a tighter, more focused list.

Start with the list before making calls

Outbound calling works best when the groundwork is done upfront. With a clean list, SDRs gain better context for their conversations, as well as fewer distractions from companies that were never likely to convert.

Before you invest time and budget in the calls, check the data behind them. Cleaning and grading your target accounts before outbound begins could be one of the simplest ways to improve the performance of your next campaign.

If you need help cleaning, or sourcing, B2B contact data, we can help. Talk to the team at Bollin Green.