While consumer companies most often have to advertise to anonymous personas of their ideal buyers, most B2B companies can figure out a way to make a list of companies who are very likely need your products. Some companies like for example Ericsson or NOKIA, might just have 4-5 telecom companies as potential customers in Taiwan. If you sell fighter airplanes there is thankfully only the government to sell to.

So identifying and sourcing a good name list is crucial.

And once you know the names of the companies, you want to identify the people who are working for that company that needs to hear about you.

And you need to make sure you are gathering this list in accordance to the Taiwan Private Information Act.

So how to do this?

There are a few companies that will sell you lists of companies. If they include any information on people, be careful. According to the Privacy Act, any private person being contacted, can ask you to prove that they have given your company the right to contact them.

Large reputable companies in this area would include Dun & Bradstreet.

You can acquire data from trade groups and chambers of commerce that often have directories on their website or, some still, in printed form.

Some companies see newly formed companies as a ripe group of customers and if so, you are in luck since the MOEA publishes a list of all new companies every month. Unfortunately, this list does not include any phone numbers or emails, so you either have to send out snail mail, or spend them time finding more information via various internet sources.

Then you can pay someone to contact companies for you and invite them. There are media and marketing companies who live by their databases. Hire them to help you invite your target market to events and start building your customer lists from there.

Once you have identified exactly who you need to influence, there are now a multitude of channels you can use to do so.

Most strong B2B marketers would use a combination. Segment your list so you spend more or less effort depending on how likely they are buy. Calling corporate customers is still the most effective way to reach them when comparing costs with the impact. Advertising is cheaper per impression but has much less impact. As long as a right person gives you their contact information because they are genuinely interested in what you are offering, you can follow up with more calls, emails, or personal visits. If you can entice them to visit your website or social media account, you can useremarketing advertising. Whether you have 100 or 10,000 people on your list, you can put relevant advertising on the websites they are visiting.

The bottom line is that building and maintaining a customer list is crucial for any B2B business.