Are Jigsaw and Netprospex Good Sales Tools?
Sales people are always looking for ways to acquire contact information of key prospects they are after. Networking events, referrals, and list brokers have always been the resource they could turn to for help. As the web community has evolved, so have the tools now available.
There's LinkedIn, FaceBook, and other social networking sites of course, but there are also contact acquisition tools such as Jigsaw and NetProspex. These tools are user built—making them the most unique source available. But are they truly good sales tools?
Like so many things, the answer is both yes and no. Each of these tools has its pros and cons. We've tested them both, so let's explore our findings:
Jigsaw: Jigsaw boasts over 450,000 members who have uploaded business contact information from their own prospect pool. Every contact in Jigsaw is complete with full name, title, postal address, email address (only corporate email addresses are allowed), and telephone number. The way it works is that Jigsaw awards members points for every contact it contributes. Users then can use their points to download contact information they would like to add to their own database. If you don't want to upload contact information for points, you can also simply purchase contacts from the Jigsaw system at $1-$5 per contact, depending on whether you are a free subscriber or pay for the next level of membership. The accuracy of the data is self-managed by the community itself. If members add bad data, they lose points. And if you ever buy a bad contact, you can challenge that contact and get those points back. The biggest downside to Jigsaw is that the interface for adding contacts to their system is quite laborious.
NetProspex: This tool is similar to Jigsaw, in that it also allows the B2B community to exchange or purchase business contact data. However, it is much easier to upload and download information...and their search tool is stronger. Unlike Jigsaw, which relies on the community to update contact information for accuracy, NetProspex validates the contact quality through a range of technology tools and displays an accuracy rating for each contact. Another great thing going for NetProspex is their customer support...it's amazing! While you can purchase contacts with NetProspex, it doesn't seem as though you can buy individual contacts. You must by a monthly/annual subscription and each subscription then limits the number of contacts you can download (which is not many in the grand scheme of things). Monthly subscriptions are as low as $25 per month and the annual subscriptions is $1,499 (which buys you 2,500 download credits). With this tool, to get much of a list size, you would need to contribute a high volume to the system itself.
Our choice? If you're willing to contribute to the system, we would suggest NetProspex They are MUCH easier to use. If you are looking to purchase the contacts, Jigsaw seems to offer a more flexible pricing option.
The biggest benefit for both of these tools is the ability to pinpoint exact contacts you're looking for and acquire their business information...all at a higher accuracy rate than most traditional list broker companies. That alone makes them good sales tools. The downside, however, is the reality that sales people who are working Jigsaw and NetProspex heavily are often NOT working their own databases. They spend time (often A LOT of time) updating these systems (to earn points) and not keeping their own corporate database clean.
We've found though that it is best not to fight it. Both of these systems can be great ways to build prospect lists, while also validating the data in your own database. So, find a way to use the power of these tools AND keep your database updated! It really can be a win-win.
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