A lead generation engine that keeps its own list current

The problem

Outreach rarely fails because nobody knows who to contact. It fails because keeping the list current is somebody’s least favourite job.

The research that makes a message specific takes an afternoon per batch. The list decays from the day it is built, as people change roles and companies change shape. When the week gets busy the research is the first thing dropped, and the messages that go out are the generic ones that get ignored.

The client had a clear view of who they wanted to reach. What they did not have was a process that produced that list reliably every week without a person spending a day on it.

TODO: Confirm the client’s sector, the target segment, and what the process looked like before this was built. Nothing sector specific has been written here because it has not been confirmed.

What I built

Four stages, each one narrow enough to check on its own.

Source. Companies are found against criteria the client set: sector, size, geography, and the signals that suggest a company is at the point where the offer is relevant. The criteria live in one place and are edited by the client rather than by me.

Enrich. Each company is researched automatically: what it does, recent developments, and the specific detail that makes a first message read as though a person wrote it. This is the step that used to take an afternoon.

Score. Every company is ranked against the criteria and given a reason for its score. The reason matters more than the number. A score with no explanation cannot be argued with, and if it cannot be argued with the criteria never improve.

Draft. A first message is written for the highest scoring companies, using the research from the enrichment step. Nothing is sent automatically. A person reads and edits every message before it goes.

That last decision is deliberate and I would make it again. The system does the reading and the preparation. The human keeps the judgement and the relationship.

What changed

TODO: Add the measured outcome once the client has approved the figures. This section should state what changed and how it was measured. It must not carry an estimate.

Why this is relevant to your business

Almost every business has a version of this problem, and it is almost never a problem of ideas. It is a problem of maintenance. The list goes stale, the research does not get done, and the quality of outreach falls to whatever can be produced in the time available.

Moving the repetitive part into a process that runs whether or not anyone remembers it is usually the highest return project available to a small team.