New Business Lists
There are several central sources for new business lists, Companies House, Yellow Pages, Thomson Directories, Credit Reference Agencies, Telecom Companies and Directory Enquiries (118 247, 118 118 etc). Here we explain how to source them as well as the benefits & pitfalls of each of the new business lists.
Companies House
Only contains Limited companies (limited liability partnerships included) so sole traders and general partnerships will not be included when using this list. Worth mentioning as around 80% of UK businesses are sole traders / partnerships.
New business lists are easy to obtain as the date of incorporation will be included however this is not an indication that the business is or will ever trade. Many of the listed companies are registered merely to protect the name from competitors and so remain "shelved" indefiniately. Companies that are trading (identified after accounts have been filled with Companies House twelve months after formation) often contain detailed information including the business name, address as well as the contact details / home addresses of the company directors.
Yellow Pages / Thomson Directories
Probably the single most up to date source of New Business Lists! Both directory companies take a feed from OSIS which is the central database most of the UK telecom companies use when installing or decommissioning telephone numbers. As soon as a number appears on this database a feed is passed to each company who verify that the business is trading and then enrich the record before printing a free line advert in their respective directories / web sites. The record is also offered to marketing companies as new business lists.
In addition to this source of new business lists, businesses that do not have a business telephone line; typically sole traders / partnerships and people working from home (SOHO - small office home office) will call and ask for an ad to be inserted into their respective telephone directories; i.e. another great source for new business lists.
Credit Reference Agencies
This rich source of new business lists can be found through the major agencies like Equifax, Experian and D&B. These leading companies will sell their business lists for marketing purposes via list-logic. The new business lists are based on transaction requests or data capture. Large retail outlets like staples will share their transaction files with the big credit companies. This means that as soon as a business or individual buys something through a large retail outlet, the payment details are shared with credit ref agencies. As soon as a new record is found it is paired with address information. If the address is found to be a business then the information will often be sold. The same process happens when you request a credit check on a new business before selling on account (to reduce credit risk). If the organisation to be checked does not have a history then a new record is set up and again this is a great indication of a new business - the new business lists are then offered to 3rd parties for marketing opportunities.
Telecom Companies
There are over 100 licensed telecom companies in the UK that share their customer details with a central database called OSIS. This database contains the records of all business and residential telephone line installations. As soon as business line is installed by any of the telecom companies the data is shared with directory companies. New line installations appear as a "New Opportunity". The New Opportunity consists of the address, telephone number and occasionally other contact details. Obviously if this is a new account / instillation then the record will be flagged up for inclusion on the new business lists. Remembering that this is really an "engineers" database, the reality is that the records on OSIS are poorly structured and require a great deal of effort to clean and reformat. The list must be purchased via a list broker / manager such as list-logic.
Recommended Source for New Business Lists
There are pitfalls with each of the above files. Companies House records may not be trading yet and telecom companies use the new business lists for their engineers so they are not very clean or well formatted.
Our Solution & Recommendation
The best source would be to take the new business lists from Companies House and only use those records that can be cross checked with records on Yellow Pages or Credit Reference Agencies. That will filter out Limited companies that aren't trading leaving you with a rich source of new businesses. The next step would be to identify sole traders and partnerships. Here we use Yellow Pages and Thomson Directory data. This file is mainly sourced via the telecom companies OSIS feed but has been cleaned and verified by the directory companies. When you dedupe everything you are left with fantastic new business lists that have been verified as new opportunities and are ready for you to market to.
New Business Lists by type
You can also refine your new business list to include just the following category of new business list:
- New branch
- Change of address
- First time in business
- Change of ownership
Prices
This is a premium list and therefore our base price of £0.08 per record will not apply. The new businesses list is charged at circa £0.18 per record we output. These prices exclude VAT.
Fields Available
- Contact Name*
- Business Name
- Full Postal Address
- Telephone Number
- Business Activity
* most senior collected for site is a free field. 85% of our records have a senior contact name but we cannot guarantee this so we provide the contact name without charge. A count can be prepared prior to your purchase.
Before Ordering
Ask us for a free market evaluation based on the geography and business types you would like to target. There are over 2,700 business types to choose from! We will then provide you will a free no obligation quotation and break down the fields available for you to order. That's it! No more complicated than that!
Ask for a Free No Obligation Count & Quote
For more information, call or let us know what your selection criteria and preferences would be and we will email you with a free market evaluation - simply follow this link: new business list