Talk to market first simply dialing and smiling. Can also outsource for someone to call and set appointments for you to speak with them. Have found good affordable people on Elance.
Just call up and ask them if they'd be willing to give you advice on your idea/company. Don't sell them, just call and ask what they think of your company.
If you're afraid of burning those customers / just call ones in another city or country.
You could also call folks on Clarity to get feedback on your idea and ask the potential customers how they want to be approached.
That being said, the future of sales is based in inbound marketing - cold calling (failing for dollars) is old school and annoying.
I believe the first thing you should think about is how to generate inbound leads because without them you won't have potential customers to talk to. You might have done this already but I don't know that.
As Dan said don't do "cold calls", that's just annoying and the chances of getting a customer this way are very slim. (There is still a chance though).
What you should be doing is get people interested in your product in the first place. Offer some kind of free educational content. It might be an ebook or a webinar in exchange for contact information.
Then get to know your leads, their business and their current problems.
Back in the days I remember I have downloaded a free ebook from SalesForce. 2 days later they called me on the phone to ask me what I thought about it. Also they wanted to learn more about my business, how I deal with customers, etc.
They didn't try to sell me anything. They were only interested in learning more about myself. When they learned what I was interested in, they offered me more free educational content and a free trial of a product that was exactly suited for me.
So my advice always is: Don't try to sell. Try to understand.
If you have a solution for a big pain, everybody will want to buy it.
If you want, we can schedule a call. I'd love to learn more about your business and also to help you develop a more detailed sales strategy especially designed for your needs.
Try this:
1) Write a single page letter (or email) that describes not whats on offer but the sort of offer it is - i.e leave mystery to the question
2) Go to their website and find 6 people who might be in charge of answering the question (Senior VP of this, director of X, etc)
3) Print 6 letters and highlight one name on each letter and put them into 6 envelopes and write the highlited name on the front
4) Phone the company and ask the for mail room - and ask his name
5) Fedex the envelopes to the guy in the mailroom and request "please distribute" - it's his job to distribute them so he will
6) Each of the 6 letter will get delivered and when they open them they'll see the other names on the letters, so they have no recourse but to phone the other and find out who is going to deal with your letter - one of them will invariably contact you to find out what you're offering
This will save you tons of time spamming email boxes and cold calling - each time I've tried this it has worked
Prospecting databases exist with technology information garnered from web caching. We work with a file that has almost 8,000 selectable deployed technologies at a company level. Common tactics I see include targeting competitive products and targeting base systems required for bolt on technologies.
If you're already using a marketing automation solution, you might try testing prospecting email records to opt user's in to your content then building a relationship and conversation from there.
Always free for a call if you want to explore the idea more.
