Lead generation processes

B2B lead generation, done properly, is hugely laborious. ESG locate information for our clients specific to their specifications from sources both online and offline. Our clients are always surprised when we tell them the number of researchers and QA’s which are working dedicatedly on their projects.

There is a wide spectrum of sources spanning each of the countries and continents we work in, all of which are public. Whilst it’s true that this means that our clients could just locate that information themselves there are two issues which prevent that. The first is the sheer time and effort involved in locating the data and it’s QA and verification. Secondly, whilst some of the sources are well known others might be hidden in plain view and lead generation companies keep that kind of information close to their chest.

Along with the manual effort we have optimised our identification, verification and validation processes using robotic process automation, proprietary AI techniques which for instance use proprietary algorithms and machine learning scan for information sources across the entire internet, much like advanced search engines do, and other advanced software and technologies. We also employ third party suppliers who are specialised in the acquisition of specific data types and locations and which are GDPR compliant and employ their own proprietary processes.

We also use online sources such as LinkedIn to verify that the information is accurate and exists, and is therefore publicly available. We can provide a publicly available LinkedIn URL for every record we process to prove that the contact exists and is publicly available. LinkedIn does not even require a free account to be created for this process and there is legal precedent (HIQ Labs vs Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn where a federal judge ruled that LinkedIn cannot prevent an organisation from accessing and harvesting public profile data) that this is an acceptable process and indeed on LinkedIn’s Help pages it reminds users that “the public profile appears when anyone searches for you on Bing, Google etc”.

It is the clients’ responsibility to ensure that their use and processing of the data falls within the data rules of the territories in which they act, for instance in the UK PECR allows for legitimate business interest.