Getting Corporate Clients. (part 1)

by Steve Slaunwhite

PART ONE: Identifying the Right Person to Contact

If you’re using direct mail letters, email, phone calls, networking or any other kind of direct contact strategy to land a corporate client, then you know you need more than just the name of the company. You also need the name of the contact in that company who manages the marketing communications.

And that can be a challenge.

As one of my readers, Ann-Christin, pointed out to me recently, “a seemingly impenetrable hedge of receptionists and vague websites protect most large firms, making it difficult to get a name — let alone contact information.”

So how do you crack the corporate fortress and find the person who is most likely to hire freelance writers or copywriters?
Directories and memberships lists are an excellent place to start. However, if you can’t find the marketing contact for a particular company from those sources, here are some other strategies that work well.

Join LinkedIn.com and do a search.

LinkedIn is a social networking site for business people — a kind of Facebook for professionals.

You can find many of the contact names you need on this site simply by using the search feature. You can even make contact with prospective clients by making connections, getting introductions, or joining one of the many professional interest groups.

For example, as I was writing this article I typed in “IBM, marketing” into the LinkedIn search field. Five IBM marketing managers appeared on the first page of results alone. (And there were nine more pages.)

Sign up for Jigsaw.com and get active.

Jigsaw.com is a kind of Wikipedia for business information. It’s an online directory of company names and contacts, but with a unique twist. It’s compiled entirely by users of the service.

My friend Ed Gandia raves about Jigsaw and has used it to find important contact names. I signed up a few months ago and found contact information — names, titles, phone numbers, email addresses — I couldn’t find anywhere else.

Use Google’s “search within a site” feature.

There’s a chance that the name of the marketing contact you want to reach is listed somewhere on the company website — in a press release, in the “About Us” section, in a PDF of the corporate annual report.

You can read through all the pages of the website to find out. But here’s a far easier way . . .

Do a site specific search using Google. It’s easy. Simply type in the phrase you’re looking for, then restrict that search to a specific website by adding site:websiteaddress.com. For example:

“marketing manager” site:dell.com

If any marketing manager contact names are listed anywhere on the site, you’ll know in seconds.

Sign up for any free offers from paid business information services.

There are many business information companies that provide company names and contact information, but for a price. Hoovers.com is one of the best, but expensive. InfoUSA.com is a little more affordable. Still, you have to fork out the dough.

There is a way, however, to get some access to these services at no cost. Visit their websites and sign up for any free offers available. This will get you onto their email lists. Then, periodically, you’ll receive invitations to try their services on a free trial basis.

During a free trial, you can conduct a search for companies and contacts — often with just a few limitations.

And, of course, if you find you like the service, sign up for the paid version.

Talk to the sales manager.

If you call and ask the receptionist for the name of the marketing communications manager, you’ll likely hit a brick wall thicker than the Hoover Dam.

But if you call and ask to speak to the sales manager, you’ll almost always get put through.

And that’s a good thing. Because the sales manager will often steer you in the right direction and give you the name of the person to contact in the marketing department. I’ve had cases where the sales manager actually introduced me. “John, I have a terrific copywriter on the line you should talk to . . .” It’s practically a referral!

So those are a few suggestions for getting contact names inside of big companies. It’s takes some work, but it’s worth it. Just one or two corporate clients can fill your schedule with lucrative work.

[ BACK TO ARTICLES ]