I had an opportunity a short time back to get re-acquainted with an old friend. I am sorry to admit that I had not kept up the relationship and learned that my friend had gone through quite a few changes over the last few years. Lesson learned: Stay in touch with past friends. My old friend is ZoomInfo.
Back in the “day”, ZoomInfo was a primary source of information. Just getting the name and title of someone that I was interested in was considered a win. Making that dreaded cold call was a bit easier with Zoom.
Quite a bit has changed since I last used Zoom. They still are a quality source for names and phone numbers. There is a whole lot more available now that you should be aware of. ZoomInfo provides an impressive library of information.
Here is what is available from ZoomInfo:
- Breadth, depth and freshness are the key components and the foundation of ZoomInfo. They gather data from across the web via company websites, news feeds and tens of thousands of additional online sources. As of September of 2009, they now have over 45 million people within their system and over 5 million companies. They update over 70,000 profiles every night! In addition, millions of people visit their site every week and thousands register to create or claim their profile.
- From there, Zoom applies their patented semantic search technology, and then compiles the data into profiles for either a company or an individual contact. That is the data that is available to you for researching your prospects, learning about your customers and ensuring that your online profile is accurate.
- The ease of access and the intuitive user interface is what has gotten me excited to be using ZoomInfo once again. You can zoom in on your target companies or those individuals that are important to you and your efforts.
Here is what you have visible from the Company Screen:
- You are able to search by either Company or by Individual within the company. You have an extremely flexible set of search criteria.
- From this screen you can add the company or individual to your Prospect List, forward the information to a colleague, find competitors and more.
- Key summary information including Employee count, Revenue, Fortune ranking, Industry and top competitors, along with the standard contact information.
- You can also add your own notes to the file as you develop your plan.
Here is an example of the Company View screen
From an individual Contact screen, only ZoomInfo provides deep information to discover leads, identify and evaluate potential prospects and that hard to find information that will help you establish rapport and add relevant value to the conversation when that time arrives. A key advantage of using ZoomInfo is that all of the information is available within this WebTool. No need to be moving from site to site, copying and pasting useful information from each site into your sales platform tool of choice. For me that means Salesforce.com and another benefit that is now available from ZoomInfo is Salesforce.com integration.
Here is an Example of the Contact View Screen
For me that platform is Salesforce.com. ZoomInfo now provides seamless integration into Salesforce.com via the App Exchange from Salesforce.com. For those of you enjoying a Salesforce.com platform, ZoomInfo is now capable of being viewed in a mashup from within Salesforce. Your activity, communication and information are available to view and act upon directly within Salesforce.com.
Here is an example of the Salesforce.com Mashup screen
For me that platform is Salesforce.com. ZoomInfo now provides seamless integration into Salesforce.com via the App Exchange from Salesforce.com. For those of you enjoying a Salesforce.com platform, ZoomInfo is now capable of being viewed in a mashup from within Salesforce. Your activity, communication and information are available to view and act upon directly within Salesforce.com.
The following is a creative example of the power, flexibility and value of ZoomInfo in use:
I am a Harley rider when I get the chance. When planning a trip to Denver, Colorado, I went to Zoom and entered search criteria that included:
- Industry type
- Employee size
- Location
- Title that I prefer to meet with
- Next, I entered the word “Harley” as one of the criteria.
What comes back from the search is a list of 53 executives in the Denver area that have an executive title in the industries that I have an interest in talking with. In addition, they also have “Harley” mentioned at least once in their profile. As an aside, the first individual record that I clicked on was that of a CEO who mentions that “when not mountain climbing, I can be found riding my Harley FLHX…” Just so happens that I ride the same model. Do you think I will be able to carry an early conversation further if I happen to mention that I ride an FLHX Harley?
ZoomInfo is gaining customers and new friends in great numbers. Here is a quote from a customer that really sums up the impact Zoom Info can deliver:
“ZoomInfo is brilliant for us. For the first time, we can go to one single location to get everything we were accustomed to getting from multiple sources, PLUS quite a bit more. And, with Salesforce, it really is a one-two punch.” Tom Flynn, VP Marketing at Lavante.
I have become re-acquainted with my old friend ZoomInfo. With the breadth, depth and freshness of the information they are able to provide, I will not be losing contact any time soon.
The team at ZoomInfo wants to show off their amazing webtools to you. They are graciously offering to provide a special offer exclusively for readers of Fill the Funnel. Click here and start receiving the benefits of your ZoomInfo subscription today.