Are you having a hard time filling seats at marketing events? Are invitations being returned as "undeliverable"? Is your sales and marketing database deteriorating?

Everyone today has the same problem: How to get sales and marketing messages to the right people. Let's face it; the past twelve months have been devastating to many organizations.

Approximately 50 percent of the contacts in your marketing database are no longer there!

Once again, organizations are looking to invest in sales and marketing activities. Most are looking at this time as a chance to gain market share. Before you get excited about your organization's optimistic outlook, get ready for change! No longer will you be able to base objectives on traditional response rates.

                          Past response rates          Today's response rates

Mail                   1%-2%                                    0.5-1%
Email                3%-5%                                    1%-3%

Due to the inaccuracies within your database, you will need to adjust your strategies.

Be proactive! Before conducting sales and marketing activities, conduct a calling campaign against your existing marketing file. Identify the key decision-makers and their direct contact information, including email addresses. This process is something everyone should do. Are you? If not, are your competitors?

Imagine the impact to each project's return-on-investment if you were able to increase the number of contacts in your database by 25 to 50 percent.

Whether you are planning web events, seminars or trade shows, conducting a quick calling campaign to refresh your marketing database will dramatically increase your success rate.

Donald Quattrochio is the vice president of sales for B2B Contact, Inc. For more information about B2B Contact's services call 1-877-443-0002 or visit www.b2bcontact.com.