B2B databases are the starting pillar for most companies’ outbound efforts. But in the absence of a better alternative, users have been accepting of some glaring faults (especially during the “Predictable Revenue Era”)
Most notably - B2B database don’t actually give you a list of companies who are truly relevant for you
How databases work today
B2B databases have generic filters that their customers use to slice their datasets of companies and leads. These filters are standardised types of data and often include data points like:
Headcount
Revenue
Industry
Location
The simple workflow today
Employee at BluePeak (a HR software) goes to a B2B database and applies filters that their team has decided identifies ideal customers:
Headcount between 50-1000 to pull out midmarket companies
Revenue above $1m so they can afford BluePeak’s services
BluePeak have found success with SaaS companies, so they look for industry filters in technology or information technology
The problem here
BluePeak now has a list of accounts that match their ideal customer in profile, but not in practice.
There is no indication that these accounts need a HR solution.
Without this knowledge, the team at BluePeak have handed this list over to their sales and marketing teams to execute on for the quarter.
Which means that the sales and marketing teams end up wasting time, energy and money chasing a large list of accounts that is nowhere near their ICP.
We worked with 3 customers who found that on average 60% of the companies in their pipeline were not a good fit for them.
For example at BluePeak, what I really want to do is filter my list of companies to show me:
They’re currently aggressively growing (meaning early solutions are probably breaking)
They have employees across multiple geographies
They are currently using a competitive solution
Their HR and People team have indicated that they are actively looking for a new solution to implement.
By doing this, I have a list of companies who are supremely qualified. But I have to do this manually at the moment.
The new workflow
The missing piece of the puzzle for B2B databases is custom filtering.
Since every company has a completely unique ICP, that criteria should be reflected in the databases they’re using to source their accounts.
Give me an interface that:
Allows me to create my own custom filters
Identify a list of accounts that directly match my ICP in profile and in practice
What this means?
Generate a complete custom account list in minutes
Sales funnel only contains best fit accounts
Time and resource previously spent on poor fit accounts is recycled into best fit accounts
Shrunken CAC, cut in sales cycle length
More meetings, more opportunities, more deals
When is it coming?
Noki is already working with the leading B2B Databases to bring this capability to them.