Prospect data scraping is the process of using technology to do the laborious task of extracting the contact information of potential prospects from websites on the internet. This can be a good form of lead generation when done properly and ethically. As long as you only gather information on people who you suspect will be interested in your product or service, who have willingly and publicly submitted their details to a website, then you don’t have to worry about the legal or ethical implications of data scraping. It is also worth reading the terms of service of a website before scraping it for data, just to be extra considerate. You don’t need to be an expert programmer to scrape web data, but it certainly helps. Although there are great bits of software available to use nowadays, these can sometimes produce inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete or otherwise bad data that anyone other than an expert programmer wouldn’t be able to make sense of.
Data scraping software will only take you so far because if any additional processing is required, someone who understands coding would need to piece the information together; otherwise, the risk to the business could be great. The benefits of data scraping are wide-ranging, from monitoring your competitors and responding to their moves to generating new leads. For small to medium-sized businesses, data scraping can be a relatively cheap and effective way to generate leads because it gathers tonnes of information from various sources quickly and automatically. Data scraping can also reveal important information that can be used to design more effective lead generation strategies, such as competitor pricing structures or consumer behavioural responses. These can be used to enhance your own marketing and generate more leads. Relevant data can be gathered to create promising leads by targeting websites devoted to the same industry as you. By scraping the comments on their blog section or social media pages, it is possible to gather high-quality leads that are already showing interest in your offering.
Otelli can perform highly targeted, cost-effective data scraping to gather information about your potential prospects, all in an ethical fashion. We have expert coders on our team who can piece together the most relevant and valuable information about both your potential customers and your competitors. This means that you not only receive leads as a direct result of the data scraping, but you will also receive information that can enhance your existing marketing and lead generation strategies, as well as valuable insights about your competition.
If you would like us to help you get started with prospect data scraping, you can reach out by filling in our ‘Say Hello’ form or calling us directly. One of our skilled and cheerful team members will have a provisional call to understand your industry, budget, and goals. We’ll then work out a roadmap that includes a free trial and then start gaining your business some lovely new customers.
