Terms

Contact Discovery

Contact discovery is the process of finding, verifying, and collecting the contact information of potential customers, clients, or decision-makers. The primary goal is to gather accurate details like email addresses, phone numbers, and job titles to build a reliable database for sales and marketing outreach. This process enables businesses to effectively engage with their target audience and connect with the right people.

Importance of Contact Discovery

Effective contact discovery is the bedrock of successful outbound campaigns. It ensures your sales team connects with the right decision-makers, preventing wasted time on dead-end leads. Accurate data minimizes bounced emails and unanswered calls, directly boosting engagement rates and driving revenue growth by focusing efforts where they count.

Best Practices in Contact Discovery

A structured approach is crucial for effective contact discovery. Following established best practices helps maintain high-quality data and improves the efficiency of your outreach, ensuring you connect with the most relevant prospects.

  • Define: Create a detailed buyer persona to clearly identify your ideal customer profile.
  • Source: Use multiple channels like social media, online directories, and industry events to gather information.
  • Verify: Always validate contact details using verification tools or direct outreach to ensure accuracy.
  • Organize: Segment your contact list and use a CRM to manage data effectively for targeted campaigns.

Contact Discovery vs. Contact Tracing

While they sound similar, contact discovery and contact tracing serve fundamentally different purposes and are used in distinct contexts.

  • Contact Discovery: This process focuses on identifying potential business customers to build sales and marketing lists. It is preferred by enterprises and mid-market companies to generate leads and drive revenue through targeted outreach. While highly effective, it can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process requiring careful data validation to avoid inaccuracies.
  • Contact Tracing: This is a public health method used to identify individuals who have been exposed to an infectious disease to control its spread. Its main advantage is mitigating outbreaks, but it raises significant privacy concerns. This practice is not typically used by companies for commercial purposes.

Tools and Technologies for Contact Discovery

A variety of tools and technologies are available to streamline the contact discovery process, ranging from vast databases to specialized verification services. These solutions help sales and marketing teams gather, validate, and manage contact information more efficiently. Leveraging the right tech stack is key to building a high-quality lead list.

  • Databases: Comprehensive platforms that provide access to extensive B2B contact and company information.
  • Verification Tools: Specialized services used to confirm the accuracy and validity of email addresses and phone numbers.
  • Automation Platforms: Systems that integrate data sourcing, enrichment, and outreach into a single, streamlined workflow.

Challenges in Contact Discovery

Effective contact discovery is often hindered by several persistent obstacles.

  • Accuracy: Contact data decays quickly, leading to unreliable information and failed outreach.
  • Resources: The process is often manual, time-consuming, and costly for sales teams.
  • Privacy: Handling contact information involves navigating significant security risks and legal compliance issues.

Frequently Asked Questions about Contact Discovery

How often should contact data be updated?

Contact data decays quickly. To maintain high accuracy and campaign effectiveness, it's best practice to verify and refresh your contact lists at least quarterly. This ensures you're always reaching out to relevant, active prospects and minimizes bounce rates.

Is contact discovery legal?

Yes, when done correctly. Contact discovery is legal, but you must comply with data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This involves being transparent about data collection and providing clear opt-out options to respect individual privacy rights.

Can contact discovery be automated?

Absolutely. Modern automation platforms can find, enrich, and verify contact information from dozens of sources in seconds. This saves significant time and resources, allowing your sales team to focus on building relationships rather than on manual data entry.

Other terms

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Request for Quotation

A Request for Quotation (RFQ) is a document that a company sends to one or more suppliers to get a quote for specific products or services.

Request for Quotation

Feature Flags

Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.

Feature Flags

Tokenization

Tokenization is the process of breaking down text into smaller units called tokens, such as words or characters, for AI to process.

Tokenization

Channel Partner

A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.

Channel Partner

Cold Calling

Cold calling is a sales tactic where reps contact potential customers by phone who haven't previously expressed interest in their product or service.

Cold Calling

Average Revenue per Account

Average Revenue per Account (ARPA) is the average revenue generated from each customer account, usually measured on a monthly or annual basis.

Average Revenue per Account

Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures the percentage of people who click on a specific link, ad, or call-to-action.

Click-Through Rate

Sales Director

A Sales Director leads a sales team, develops strategies, and is responsible for meeting a company's revenue targets.

Sales Director

Sales Presentation

A sales presentation is a formal pitch by a salesperson to a prospective customer, showcasing a product or service to secure a sale.

Sales Presentation

Subject Matter Expert

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) is an individual with profound knowledge and authority in a particular area, topic, or industry.

Subject Matter Expert

B2B Intent Data

Learn about B2B intent data, including how B2B intent data enhances sales strategies, sources of B2B intent data, leveraging B2B intent data for competitiveness.

B2B Intent Data

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the total revenue a business expects from a customer throughout their entire relationship with the company.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Centricity

Customer centricity is a business approach that puts the customer at the heart of every decision, aiming to build loyalty and long-term value.

Customer Centricity

Challenger Sales

The Challenger Sales model is a methodology where reps teach prospects, tailor their pitch, and take control of the sales conversation.

Challenger Sales

Smarketing

Smarketing is the process of aligning your sales and marketing teams. This integration focuses on shared goals to improve lead quality and drive revenue.

Smarketing

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation uses rule-based logic to run a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual human effort to complete.

Workflow Automation

Version Control Systems

A version control system (VCS) tracks changes to files over time, allowing you to recall specific versions and collaborate without conflicts.

Version Control Systems

B2B Sales

Learn about B2B sales, including key strategies for B2B success, types of B2B sales models, & B2B vs. B2C sales: understanding the differences.

B2B Sales

Segmentation Analysis

Segmentation analysis is the process of dividing a broad market into smaller, distinct groups of consumers with similar needs or characteristics.

Segmentation Analysis

Bulk Application Programming Interface

Learn about bulk API, including how it works, the advantages of using it, common use cases, and tips for optimizing it.

Bulk Application Programming Interface

Account-Based Selling

Account-Based Selling is a B2B strategy where sales and marketing treat high-value accounts as markets of one, using personalized outreach.

Account-Based Selling

BAB Formula

Learn about BAB formula, including implementing BAB in sales strategies, crafting an effective BAB pitch, & comparing BAB with other sales frameworks.

BAB Formula

Virtual Private Cloud

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a secure, isolated section of a public cloud. It lets you provision your own logically isolated resources.

Virtual Private Cloud

Business Continuity

Learn about business continuity, including understanding key components, steps to ensure continuity, common challenges, & best practices.

Business Continuity

CI/CD

CI/CD, or Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery, automates software builds, tests, and deployments for faster, more reliable releases.

CI/CD

Consultative Selling

Consultative selling is an approach where salespeople act as expert advisors, diagnosing customer needs to provide the most suitable solutions.

Consultative Selling

LPI

LPI, or Lead Per Inquiry, is a key metric that measures how many leads are generated from each inquiry in a marketing campaign.

LPI

Horizontal Market

A horizontal market is one where a product or service is designed to meet a common need for a wide array of customers, regardless of their industry.

Horizontal Market

Multi-touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution is a marketing analytics method that credits multiple touchpoints on the customer journey for a conversion.

Multi-touch Attribution

Cloud-based CRM

A cloud-based CRM is a customer relationship management tool hosted online, letting teams access and manage customer data from anywhere.

Cloud-based CRM

Firmographic Data

Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.

Firmographic Data

Mobile App Analytics

Mobile app analytics involves collecting and analyzing data from mobile apps to understand user behavior and optimize the app's performance.

Mobile App Analytics

Lead Generation Tactics

Lead generation tactics are the strategies and methods used to attract potential customers and convert them into leads for your sales team.

Lead Generation Tactics

Sales Pipeline Reporting

Sales pipeline reporting is the process of analyzing sales data to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and forecast future revenue.

Sales Pipeline Reporting

Kanban

Kanban is a visual project management method that uses a board to visualize workflow, limit work-in-progress, and maximize team efficiency.

Kanban

Video Messaging

Video messaging involves sending short, personalized video clips to prospects or customers, replacing traditional text-based communication.

Video Messaging

BANT Framework

Learn about BANT framework, including implementing BANT in sales strategy, advantages of the BANT methodology, & BANT vs. other qualification models.

BANT Framework

Value-Added Reseller

A Value-Added Reseller (VAR) is a company that adds features or services to an existing product, then resells it as an integrated solution.

Value-Added Reseller

B2B2C

Learn about B2B2C, including benefits of B2B2C model, key strategies for B2B2C success, & B2B2C vs. B2C vs. B2B: understanding the differences.

B2B2C

Outbound Sales

Outbound sales is when reps proactively contact potential customers through cold calls or emails to generate leads and build a sales pipeline.

Outbound Sales

User-generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.

User-generated Content

Trade Shows

Trade shows are events where companies in a specific industry showcase their latest products and services to find new customers and partners.

Trade Shows

Mid-Market

Mid-market companies are businesses larger than small businesses but smaller than large enterprises, often defined by revenue or employee size.

Mid-Market

Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is the process of optimizing your content, SEO, and online listings to appear in and rank for voice-based searches.

Voice Search Optimization

Account Management

Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.

Account Management

Enrichment

Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.

Enrichment

Nurture Campaign

A nurture campaign is a series of automated messages designed to build relationships with potential customers and guide them toward a purchase.

Nurture Campaign

Load Testing

Load testing is a type of performance testing that determines how a system behaves under both normal and anticipated peak load conditions.

Load Testing

Average Customer Life

Average Customer Life is the average time someone remains a customer. It's a key metric for predicting revenue and measuring customer loyalty.

Average Customer Life

Average Revenue per User

Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is a key performance indicator that calculates the average revenue generated from each user or subscriber.

Average Revenue per User

Remote Sales

Remote sales is selling from a distance. Reps use digital tools to connect with prospects and close deals without meeting them in person.

Remote Sales

Brand Awareness

Learn about brand awareness, including understanding its importance, building an effective strategy, key metrics to track, & examples in the real world.

Brand Awareness

Price Optimization

Price optimization is the process of finding the ideal price for a product or service to maximize profitability or other business objectives.

Price Optimization

Nurture

Nurture is the process of building relationships with potential customers, guiding them through the sales funnel with personalized communication.

Nurture

Low-Hanging Fruit

Low-hanging fruit are the most obvious and easy-to-tackle tasks or goals that provide a quick, valuable return for minimal effort.

Low-Hanging Fruit

ETL

ETL, short for Extract, Transform, Load, is a data integration process for moving raw data from various sources to a central data warehouse.

ETL

Sales Metrics

Sales metrics are quantifiable data points that track and measure a sales team's performance against specific goals and objectives.

Sales Metrics

End of Day

End of Day (EOD) refers to the close of business hours. It's a common deadline for tasks and reports to be completed before the workday ends.

End of Day

Complex Sale

A complex sale features a long sales cycle, multiple stakeholders, and a high-value transaction, demanding a strategic, consultative approach.

Complex Sale

Sales Acceleration

Sales acceleration refers to strategies and technologies designed to speed up the sales cycle, enabling reps to close more deals, faster.

Sales Acceleration

Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the ethical gathering and analysis of market data to inform strategic business decisions and gain an advantage.

Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Payment Gateways

A payment gateway is a service that authorizes and processes payments for businesses, acting as a secure link between the customer and the merchant.

Payment Gateways

Sales Dialer

A sales dialer is software that automates outbound calling for sales teams, allowing reps to connect with more prospects in less time.

Sales Dialer

Internal signals

Internal signals are data points from your own systems, like website visits or product usage, that indicate a customer's buying intent.

Internal signals

Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences are groups of potential customers who share similar characteristics and behaviors with your existing, high-value customers.

Lookalike Audiences

Mobile Compatibility

Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.

Mobile Compatibility

Buyer Journey

The buyer journey maps the path a potential customer takes, from first learning about a product to the final decision to buy.

Buyer Journey

Website Visitor Tracking

Website visitor tracking collects and analyzes data on user behavior to understand their journey and improve the overall user experience.

Website Visitor Tracking

Sales Prospecting Techniques

Sales prospecting techniques are methods used by sales teams to identify, contact, and qualify potential customers, also known as prospects.

Sales Prospecting Techniques

Salesforce Administrator

A Salesforce Administrator is a certified professional who manages and customizes the Salesforce platform to meet a company's specific business needs.

Salesforce Administrator

Sales Playbook

A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your sales process, best practices, and tools to help reps sell more efficiently and consistently.

Sales Playbook

Closed Lost

Closed Lost is a sales term for a deal that didn't go through. The prospect decided not to buy, or the sales team disqualified them.

Closed Lost

Weighted Pipeline

A weighted pipeline forecasts sales revenue by assigning a closing probability to each deal based on its stage in the sales funnel.

Weighted Pipeline

Sales Lead

A sales lead is a potential customer—an individual or organization that has shown interest in your company's products or services.

Sales Lead

Call Disposition

Call disposition is the process of labeling the outcome of a call. It helps sales teams track interactions and plan their next steps effectively.

Call Disposition

Brand Loyalty

Learn about brand loyalty, including how to build brand loyalty, benefits of brand loyalty, measuring brand loyalty, & strategies for increasing loyalty.

Brand Loyalty

Sales Team Management

Sales team management is the process of leading, coaching, and motivating a sales team to achieve its sales goals and drive revenue growth.

Sales Team Management

Enterprise Resource Planning

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.

Enterprise Resource Planning

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Sales and marketing alignment means both teams work in sync, sharing goals and data to boost lead quality, conversions, and company revenue.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Customer Data Analysis

Customer data analysis is the process of examining customer information to uncover insights that drive business decisions and improve experiences.

Customer Data Analysis

Sales Territory

A sales territory is a specific group of customers or a geographic area that a salesperson or sales team is responsible for managing.

Sales Territory

Buyer

Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.

Buyer

No Spam

“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.

No Spam

Unique Selling Point

A Unique Selling Point (USP) is the distinct feature or benefit that sets your product, service, or brand apart from the competition.

Unique Selling Point

Channel Partners

Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.

Channel Partners

Simple Object Access Protocol Application Programming Interface

A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) API is a web service that uses XML to exchange structured information between different applications.

Simple Object Access Protocol Application Programming Interface

Single Page Applications

A Single Page Application (SPA) is a web app that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current page rather than loading new pages.

Single Page Applications

Sales Pitch

A sales pitch is a persuasive presentation of a product or service, aimed at convincing a potential customer to make a purchase.

Sales Pitch

Video Selling

Video selling uses personalized video messages to engage prospects, build rapport, and guide them through the sales funnel to close more deals.

Video Selling

Intent leads

Intent leads are prospects who show buying signals through their online actions, indicating they're actively looking to make a purchase.

Intent leads

Customer Retention Cost

Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the total amount a company spends to keep an existing customer over a certain period of time.

Customer Retention Cost

Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric measuring customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend your company or product to others.

Net Promoter Score

AI Data Enrichment

AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.

AI Data Enrichment

Lead Routing

Lead routing is the automated process of distributing incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined criteria.

Lead Routing

Product Qualified Lead

A Product Qualified Lead (PQL) is a user who has experienced a product's value, signaling a strong potential to convert to a paid customer.

Product Qualified Lead

Sales Operations Key Performance Indicators

Sales Operations KPIs are measurable metrics that track the efficiency and effectiveness of a sales team's operational processes.

Sales Operations Key Performance Indicators

Order Management

Order management is the end-to-end process of tracking customer orders from placement to fulfillment, ensuring a seamless customer experience.

Order Management

Outside Sales

Outside sales reps sell products/services in person, traveling to meet clients and close deals face-to-face, outside of a traditional office.

Outside Sales

Content Delivery Network

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers that deliver web content to users based on their geographic location.

Content Delivery Network

SQL

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard language for managing and querying data within relational databases.

SQL