February 2007

February 2007

Survey

What’s in it for you? A good chance at winning a hundred dol*lar gift card. Given the sample size, we’re expecting approximately 30 completed surveys. So you’ve got about a one in 30 chance of winning. The winner won’t be chosen at random, though. We want to reward quality input, so we’re going to pick the entry that gives us the most actionable information. The survey closes at midnight on February 23rd. It’ll only take about five minutes to complete and the winner will have that gift card by next week.

Click Here for Survey

I'm Bob Leonard, owner of Bolen Communications. We develop B2B sales tools and marketing content that deliver qualified sales opportunities to you and your channel partners. Welcome to our newsletter. It’s called The Funnel because it’s all about the sales funnel - filling it with qualified leads and nurturing them until they're ready to close. This issue outlines a simple and effective lead generation process designed to deliver a steady stream of high quality leads.

"By engaging the
prospect early in her
buying cycle, you can avoid the typical competitive bake-off
that results in
'lowest bid wins'
scenarios."

Before we begin, please look to the left, in the red column. There’s a click through to a brief survey. We want to learn more about your sales support and marketing needs. And we're making it worth your time and effort.

How Much Is Lead Generation Really Costing You?

In a cherry orchard, you cultivate cherries by watering and fertilizing the trees. Building a relationship with every potential prospect is like paying individual attention to every cherry on a tree. Imagine sprinkling a small but precise amount of water on each cherry every day. You wouldn’t. You’d set up an irrigation system to automatically water the trees. As each cherry ripened, you'd pick them one by one.

How well are your top sales people compensated? I hope you’re not using them to find and water individual cherries. That’s an expensive way to fill your sales funnel. It's much more efficient to deploy low cost lead generation activities. Then, as the cherries ripen, you have them delivered to your sales force. Your sales people can focus on the ripest cherries - the big sales, and the deals that are ready to close.

The management of sales leads is critical. Sadly, leads continue to land on the scrapheap according to a report by the Business Performance Management Forum. The report entitled "Gauging the Cost of What’s Lost," found that, "80% of leads are lost, ignored or discarded. Also, 73% of respondents said their company has no process for re-qualifying and revisiting business leads."

There are two straightforward activities that drastically reduce the percentage of lost leads. The first is to better qualify the leads before dropping them into the funnel. The second is to nurture leads that aren’t ready to close this month. By increasing the number of qualified leads in the funnel, and keeping those leads warm and engaged until they’re ready for the sales force, you can increase your close rate by 30% or more.

Successful B2B marketers work with their Sales counterparts to clearly define “sales ready” leads. They forward only the leads that meet the agreed upon criteria. They continue to nurture the remaining leads until the prospects become “sales ready.”

The result is sales people who spend their time building relationships and closing business, not chasing leads that won’t close for months, if ever. Prospects are happier because they’re being fed the information they need without having to fend off the advances of an over eager sales person.

And you have the opportunity to educate and influence that prospect before she’s actively searching for a solution. By engaging the prospect early in her buying decision process, you can avoid the typical competitive bake-off that results in ‘lowest bid wins’ scenarios.

In generating leads for complex B2B products and services, initial contact is typically through a direct response vehicle. This can be online (blog, email, pay per click, podcast) or offline (advertisement, sales letter, telemarketing). The object is not to make the sale immediately, but merely to get prospects to identify themselves. Once they make themselves known, they enter the sales funnel and you can convert them into paying customers over time.

Define Your Ideal Prospects

Who do you want to do business with? Look at your current customers. Develop two short lists. One for those customers you most enjoy doing business with, and one for those who are the most profitable. Typically, the two lists will be nearly identical.

What are the traits and demographics of these customers?
What industry segment are they in?
What size are they (by revenue and number of employees)?
Are they early adopters or laggards?
How long have they been in business?
Where are they geographically?

Keep digging until you’ve unearthed all the relevant information. Use it to build a template that clearly defines your targets. You can use this template as a guideline whether you purchase prospect lists or build lists in-house. It’s also helpful to have this ideal prospect profile when developing sales messaging. It’s much easier to create compelling content when you know exactly who you’re communicating with.

Once you’ve identified your best customers, stay close to them. They're more valuable than the revenue they generate. They’re your best source of critical information about your business. They’ve developed a positive attitude toward your company, and that will influence the success of any new products or services you introduce. If you ask them, they’ll tell you what they think about your products and services. What new features they’d like to see. The benefits they’re experiencing (often not the ones you’re selling).

Solicit testimonials and case studies. They are two of the most effective sales tools you can have. Your best clients want you to be successful. They’re a goldmine that you can tap to inform all the decisions you make in developing, marketing, selling and supporting your products and services.

The Offer

What you want is a fresh crop of worthwhile prospects who aren’t yet in your sales funnel. That means you have to offer your ideal prospects something enticing. Something that educates, has perceived value, and relates to your business, your products and services.

Typical offers include:

Article reprints
Case Studies
Data Sheets
Research Reports
ROI Calculators
White Papers

You make your targets aware of your offer via various online and/or offline direct response vehicles. How you communicate your offer will significantly impact the response rate.

Don’t push your products or services. You’re doing lead generation. You’re not going to sell a complex, costly product or service in a letter or an email. Sell the heck out of your offer but go light on product details. Remember, all you want people to do is raise their hands!

Deliver useful content. This is critical. You have to deliver on your promise. If you tell them you're going to give them Seven Mistakes to Avoid, deliver seven mistakes to avoid, and tell them how to avoid them and why. You’re building trust. If you don’t deliver the goods, they’ll feel ripped off and you’ve lost a potential sale.

Inject personality. The reader should feel like he’s engaged in a one on one conversation with another human being. Often the person doing the writing at B2B companies is a Product Manager. They do a nice, clean job. They follow all the rules of grammar. The problem is, they don't communicate what really makes the sale - the business benefits that resonate with the target, plus enthusiasm and personality.

So, let's assume they raised their hands and you delivered valuable information. They're safely tucked away in your sales funnel. Now what?

Drip, Drip, Drip

‘Drip’ marketing is particularly effective for complex B2B products and services. No matter how well you research and target your prospects, the vast majority won’t be ready to buy when you first approach them.

By running drip campaigns, you keep your business and products and services in front of your prospects on an ongoing basis. Frequency should range between once a week to once a month. More often than once a week and you run the risk of annoying them. Less often than once a month and you never gain momentum – they’ve forgotten about you during the interim. The point is to build trust over time, and be in their minds when they experience the pain that your product relieves.

Studies show that integrated campaigns using both online and offline vehicles are much more effective than the use of a single vehicle. Click to read a brief story about integrated marketing communications.

Managing integrated campaigns and keeping track of hundreds of prospects as they move through the funnel can be daunting. There are many sales force automation, content management and customer relationship management systems on the market. They’re available at several price points and with many different levels of sophistication and functionality. An upcoming issue of The Funnel will analyze these tools in greater depth.

Human Nature

Underneath all the latest marketing trends, human nature never changes; the same principles of effective persuasion apply. Whether it’s print on a page, an MP3 podcast, a video, a blog, whatever; people respond to concrete messages that clearly tell them what’s in it for them.

To generate more leads, do something different. Offer helpful and practical information. Write it crisply, package it effectively, promote it properly, and you’ll stand out from the crowd.

If you've read this far, it must be because you found the information valuable. If you know someone who would enjoy or profit from this newsletter, please forward it to them.

If you need help developing a lead generation process, or the content to make it run effectively, please contact us. We'd be happy to come out and assess your situation. There's no charge for an initial consultation and a written assessment.

Contact Bolen Communications

941-366-9704

Look for our next issue in a few weeks -

Lead Qualification: Getting to No.