In the
Media
9 Tips for
Acquiring New Customers
Appeared in Microsoft's bCentral, August
2003
Marketing Intelligence /
Joanna L. Krotz
More often than not,
marketing managers and sales directors just don't get along. When revenues
drop or targets fall short, they start blaming each other.
Typically, tempers
really flare over who drops the ball on sales leads, which in time get
more and more expensive.
Here's how to
resolve that argument and get marketing and sales to speak each other's
language. After that, I list nine practical ideas to find qualified leads
in today's market.
What's a lead?
It's the job of
marketing, of course, to evoke the interest that will transform cold
clients into warm prospects. It's the sales team's responsibility to put
the fire under those warm prospects that will nail the deal.
When things go
awry, marketing shows the impressive number of customer phone calls,
e-mail queries, Web page click-throughs or Web impressions that were
forwarded to sales and ignored. Salespeople then shake their heads about
the effort they waste in following up on marketing's trivial and tenuous
queries. "All we get are window shoppers," say resentful sales directors.
The reason neither
side wins is because both are right.
Weak follow-up wastes
marketing money
The pipeline that
fuels a sale typically begins with a query. It's a process that unfolds
over time.
Recent surveys by
Warne, a Toronto marketing company, tracked more than 3,500 people who
inquired to blue-chip advertisers. Here is what the surveys found: 19% of
the inquirers made purchases within six months (whether from the
advertiser or a competitor) and 29% purchased within a year. By 16 months,
43%, and by 25 months, 57% had made purchases. That translates into two in
10 that want to buy "now" and four others that want to buy "later" — or
about six prospects for every 10 queries.
The problem here?
The surveys found that sales reps followed up on less than 17% of all
inquiries.
Clearly, inquiries
are a key to sales. Just as clearly, most businesses are wasting marketing
dollars by weak follow-up.
That's because all
queries look alike at the outset. You can't tell which will fade and which
will turn into prospects. Since good follow-up requires three or four
subsequent contacts, companies cannot afford to respond to every request
for information or pricing with such attention. So the good gets tossed
with the bad.
The solution is to
set up a cost-efficient system that triggers appropriate responses at
various points along the timeline.
Measured responses
Depending on your
industry and sales cycle, this could mean an automated e-mail program with
pre-selected messages that respond to keywords in an electronic query. It
could be a mailed media kit or annual report to respond to phone call
inquiries.
You could create a
series of increasingly detailed brochures that satisfy intensifying query
interest — until you reach the moment for face-to-face sales. Other
notions: qualified invitations to events or webcasts, white papers or free
samples sent to anyone who stops by a trade show booth, and so on. You
must also decide whether marketing or sales will manage each response, and
at what point sales takes over.
There are many
affordable options. You just need to think ahead.
Do the math
Then, to get
marketing and sales to cooperate, make sure each side understands the
costs that count.
Marketing: You
must figure out how many customer contacts are needed, on average, to lead
to a sale — and how much each one costs. The total number of
click-throughs or queries isn't particularly meaningful.
Sales: You must
calculate how many deals are needed to hit company revenue targets or
profitability. Setting a sales goal of a number of deals per month or
quarter doesn't seriously matter. Each side must be clear about what's
needed to drive inquiries into sales.
Marketing aimed at
generating sales (in contrast to branding efforts or campaigns that build
customer loyalty), usually relies on the following channels, says Mac
McIntosh, a business-to-business sales consultant based in North
Kingstown, R.I.:
- Relationship marketing
that nurtures and qualifies prospects
- An effective marketing
database
- Direct marketing that
generates queries
- Online and search engine
marketing that bridges the gap between marketing and sales
- Events or promotions that
move prospects to purchase
Multiple tactics should be
tried
"A company needs
to be doing a number of lead-generation things," advises Jerry Rackley, a
marketing consultant based in Stillwater, Okla. "Generally, using just one
approach will not adequately fill the lead pipeline and keep prospects
flowing through it." You likely need a blend of traditional techniques,
such as mass mailers, along with electronic tactics, such as search-engine
marketing.
Remember this as
you consider these nine lead-generating ideas:
1. Buy qualified
leads. Scrubbed, reliable
prospect lists can be rented from various sources, including trade groups,
professional organizations, alumni associations or list brokers. Such
lists let you tailor e-mail messages to different customer segments. For
instance, you can select highly qualified leads to receive discounted
offers or re-jigger your messages to appeal to different age groups. (For
information on e-mail marketing, see Microsoft
bCentral List Builder; for sales leads, see bCentral Sales
Leads.)
2. Become the authority. Commission a survey or poll
that offers proprietary market intelligence and then publicize the results
through the media or a Web site. "The key is to create pull demand by
building credibility and recognition," says Jim DeSena, author of "The
10 Immutable Laws of Power Selling." If you can turn the survey
into an annual event, you become an ongoing industry expert.
3. Find
a partner. "When
two business professionals complement each other, they can influence their
contacts to open doors for the other," says Maura Schreier-Fleming, author
of "Real
World Selling for Out-of-This-World Results."
4. Create an industry profile. Develop expertise or an
informative speech that's in demand for your industry. With a
professionally produced media kit and a few mailings, you can get on the
lecture or seminar circuit. "Everyone is always looking for good speakers
[who can] sell on stage," suggests Julie Isphording, a publicist based in
Cincinnati. You'll also then be able to leverage media contacts to be
quoted in news articles or broadcast features.
5. Buy ads in electronic
newsletters. Ads in vertical, targeted
e-mail newsletters can really grab attention. "Buying an ad in these is a
great lead-generation technique because you have the ability to direct the
prospect to your Web site and track the response," Rackley says.
6. Read the newspaper. "The local daily paper is
chock full of prospects who have a specific need for your product or
service," says Heath Shackleford, director of client services at
Seigenthaler Public Relations in Nashville, Tenn. A human resources
consultancy, for example, can note mergers or expansions in the news.
7. Check your database. Inactive customers who
haven't bought anything for a while or infrequent buyers are ripe for
sales pitches, advises Dianna Booher, author of "From
Contact to Contract."
8. Find a specialized show. Attendance has dropped at
many major trade shows in recent years because of cost-cutting efforts and
travel jitters. But leads can be found at affordable regional or vertical
shows — and the leads will be better qualified, too.
9. Join a networking
organization. For small businesses, these
groups, found around the country, do indeed work. The idea is to share
leads with member businesses that don't directly compete with yours.
Annual dues vary, from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. Just
make sure the group has a track record and that you can live with its
rules about sharing contact information. (For more information on
networking groups, see this
article.)
Finally, don't
forget the power of positive buzz. When the CEO is accessible to the staff
or when she hangs around to answer questions after industry events,
word-of-mouth builds and people get to hear. That kind of lead isn't for
sale. You simply earn it.
For more
marketing and management advice, visit the Web site http://www.muse2muse.com/m2m.html for Joanna's company, Muse2Muse Productions.
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