Comments on: Book of Lists Still Valuable in the Age of Jigsaw, Zoominfo and InsideView? http://www.fillthefunnel.com/2010/03/03/book-of-lists-still-valuable-in-the-age-of-jigsaw-zoominfo-and-insideview/ Web Tools & Strategies to Increase Sales Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:48:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: The Value of Your Data Begins With Your Customer « DataJoe LLC http://www.fillthefunnel.com/2010/03/03/book-of-lists-still-valuable-in-the-age-of-jigsaw-zoominfo-and-insideview/comment-page-1/#comment-1071 The Value of Your Data Begins With Your Customer « DataJoe LLC Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:33:25 +0000 http://www.fillthefunnel.com/?p=1844#comment-1071 [...] Book of Lists Still Valuable in the Age of Jigsaw, Zoominfo and InsideView? [...] [...] Book of Lists Still Valuable in the Age of Jigsaw, Zoominfo and InsideView? [...]

]]> By: Johnny Levy http://www.fillthefunnel.com/2010/03/03/book-of-lists-still-valuable-in-the-age-of-jigsaw-zoominfo-and-insideview/comment-page-1/#comment-944 Johnny Levy Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:35:18 +0000 http://www.fillthefunnel.com/?p=1844#comment-944 Tjhis is a great, thought-provoking post. And really, I suspect you could answer some burning questions that I have on this subject. I am the sales manager for a company that is VERY close to the topic of Book of Lists. My company is DataJoe LLC, (www.datajoe.com) and my clients are business journals who create a Book of Lists product. DataJoe works with about 60-odd business journals across the Unites States. All of these journals sell a book of lists product, similar to the one you have pictured above, in print and digital format. They sell to an audience of sales professionals, job seekers, and marketers, like yourself. But sometimes I deeply suspect that neither they nor I really have a handle on what, if anything, could be done to provide the maximum value to their consumers. Hearing you say that book of lists has become irrelevant energizes me to ask the question: are there any saving graces, or is this product headed into prehistory? I have book of lists on the brain, so I like to think that I understand the strengths and weaknesses of this product, when held against products like Jigsaw, Zoominfo, etc. Book of Lists will NEVER have the coverage that a database like Zooominfo has, by its very nature and definition -- BOL is always a snapshot of the "best of the best" in a region; a yearbook of the movers and shakers only. Not a comprehensive catalog. I'd like to think that a great strength of this product is that it is a unique, intensely local view of business from the street level - these business journals are on the phone with participating businesses, drawing out the information through primary research, right up until the final deadline before the list publishers. You really can't get a fresher, more steaming pile of data than that, can you? And in addition, they are asking for (and getting) primary data form private companies that the companies are not incentivized to give to anyone else. They only give it to the business journals because they don't want to be left off of a list that will add prestige the their brand. What I have always liked about book of lists data is that it is sourced organically. Is it all about contact info, or have you ever found the deeper data in BOL to be useful? Now on to my deeper question: I see the book of lists evolving in some markets. You have people like Crain's Chicago Business creating digital-only "job seekers" editions, customized with all the data you'd need to be more efficient in the job search. You've got American Cities Business Journals teaming up with NetProspex (somewhat similar to Jigsaw), in order to bring the best of both worlds -- the coverage of a national database with the hyper-locality and currency of the book of lists. So is there still a place for book of lists? What distinguishes book of lists from a database like Jigsaw -- and are any of these characteristics worth capitalizing on? What do business publishers need to do to resurrect this product from "irrelevance" in the modern day? If you take a look at www.datajoe.com, you'll see we are actually aggregating Book of Lists from across the country in a one-stop-shop. The idea is to enable publishers to collaborate and pool their data in creative ways, in order to become relevant to a wider audience. Please let me know what you think. Tjhis is a great, thought-provoking post. And really, I suspect you could answer some burning questions that I have on this subject. I am the sales manager for a company that is VERY close to the topic of Book of Lists. My company is DataJoe LLC, (www.datajoe.com) and my clients are business journals who create a Book of Lists product. DataJoe works with about 60-odd business journals across the Unites States. All of these journals sell a book of lists product, similar to the one you have pictured above, in print and digital format. They sell to an audience of sales professionals, job seekers, and marketers, like yourself. But sometimes I deeply suspect that neither they nor I really have a handle on what, if anything, could be done to provide the maximum value to their consumers. Hearing you say that book of lists has become irrelevant energizes me to ask the question: are there any saving graces, or is this product headed into prehistory?

I have book of lists on the brain, so I like to think that I understand the strengths and weaknesses of this product, when held against products like Jigsaw, Zoominfo, etc. Book of Lists will NEVER have the coverage that a database like Zooominfo has, by its very nature and definition — BOL is always a snapshot of the “best of the best” in a region; a yearbook of the movers and shakers only. Not a comprehensive catalog.

I’d like to think that a great strength of this product is that it is a unique, intensely local view of business from the street level – these business journals are on the phone with participating businesses, drawing out the information through primary research, right up until the final deadline before the list publishers. You really can’t get a fresher, more steaming pile of data than that, can you? And in addition, they are asking for (and getting) primary data form private companies that the companies are not incentivized to give to anyone else. They only give it to the business journals because they don’t want to be left off of a list that will add prestige the their brand. What I have always liked about book of lists data is that it is sourced organically. Is it all about contact info, or have you ever found the deeper data in BOL to be useful?

Now on to my deeper question: I see the book of lists evolving in some markets. You have people like Crain’s Chicago Business creating digital-only “job seekers” editions, customized with all the data you’d need to be more efficient in the job search. You’ve got American Cities Business Journals teaming up with NetProspex (somewhat similar to Jigsaw), in order to bring the best of both worlds — the coverage of a national database with the hyper-locality and currency of the book of lists.

So is there still a place for book of lists? What distinguishes book of lists from a database like Jigsaw — and are any of these characteristics worth capitalizing on? What do business publishers need to do to resurrect this product from “irrelevance” in the modern day?

If you take a look at http://www.datajoe.com, you’ll see we are actually aggregating Book of Lists from across the country in a one-stop-shop. The idea is to enable publishers to collaborate and pool their data in creative ways, in order to become relevant to a wider audience. Please let me know what you think.

]]>