Data.com

The online research tool of Data.com is a wonderful tool for people in the online marketing domain. Backed by the authentic data of nearly million companies, this wonder-tool lets the user to look for contact information of a specific domain of companies, which helps a lot in identifying prospective customers. Apart from searching, it also helps in storing the contact details in a concise and easy-to-understand manner, relieving from the pain of maintaining those lengthy spreadsheets. The tool is extremely easy to configure & use. The ‘Clean Data’ that it makes available on every day is another cool feature as it provides the refined and authentic information about companies. The users are allowed to update their contact information, which is definitely a plus point.

Although the software looks extremely beneficial for the upcoming businesses in looking for new customers, it comes at a hefty price tag! With such a high price tag, people may prefer to look for cheaper alternative options like Linked In! Apart from that, sometimes, the tool shows inconsistent data, which I think, a major problem with this software, considering the price they are claiming! Unavailability of the free version is also a big turn off as you cannot simply test this software even once before spending money for it!

The tool can act as a boon for sales and marketing teams as it may help them in locating the profiles of their prospective customers and keeping track of potential rivals/competitors in the market. The tool provides new leads and the audience to the companies, helping them to explore a whole new avenue of opportunities. Considering the limitations of this tool, one has to keep in mind that the tool is not meant for small sized businesses.