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sales

How to help your prospects buy

in General marketing, Sales & sales process

In my previous article, How to get the most from a print ad, I pointed out the importance of not inundating your sales force with unqualified leads.  When you run a campaign, focus on driving profitable revenue, not just a long list of names for your database.  It’s ROI, not just the response rate that counts.

But what about inundating your sales force with qualified leads?  Is it possible to generate too many responses?

Too many responses?  What a great problem to have!  But if you haven’t effectively planned to fulfill those responses, you’ll lose sales and can even damage your credibility in the process.

For example, in his Emergence Marketing blog, Gabe D’Annunzio points out how Verizon Wireless left him disappointed and frustrated when it came to delivering on their slogan, “We never stop working for you.”  He received an offer in the mail and tried to respond — NINE TIMES — and never got through.  His comment:  “This is clearly not my idea of a company that never stops working for me. This is a company that simply stopped working.”

Did Verizon just underestimate the response they’d generate with their offer?  Did they have other problems that were beyond their control?  Or did they fail to plan effectively?  Doesn’t matter.  A great offer without a solid fulfillment plan is wasting money and damages a brand.

Before you launch your next campaign, keep the following tips in mind:

1.  Own the fulfillment process. Someone needs to lead the operation and make sure your campaign is successful at every level.  Get with every employee/department that’s affected by the campaign at least four weeks prior to launch.  Communicate the goals, high/low/average projections, campaign details and fulfillment procedures; make sure everyone is staffed, trained and ready to fulfill.  Don’t forget about IT, shipping, inventory control, or your AR/accounting departments, depending on the offer and fulfillment procedures.

2.  Provide multiple ways for your prospects to respond. Create a unique landing page on your site with a form or further information; let people send you emails; provide an 800 number and staff it appropriately.  Besides making it easier for the prospect to respond in a convenient way, you’ll spread responses over multiple channels, minimizing the impact on any one “touch point.”

3.  Have a backup plan. Know what you’ll do if your campaign response goes through the roof.  Here’s the message Gabe heard:  “Due to the overwhelming demand we are unable to take your call so please hang up and try again later.”

After hearing that message once, I wouldn’t have bothered.  If Verizon is working for me, then why don’t they have an overflow procedure in their call center?  Or a web page that I can visit to sign up?

At the very least, they could have used a message that better conveyed their brand.  “We’ve experienced an overwhelming response to this offer and we’re working hard to answer your calls as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately our call queue is full, but please try back in an hour or two.  We apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to speaking with you soon.”

In this situation, a little vulnerability goes a long way.  An alternate contact channel would have been even better.

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New to B2B internet marketing? Start with content.

in Interactive marketing

Photo: Internet strategy mazeThere’s a reason marketers are literally pouring their budgets into new internet marketing programs.

They work.

Marketers spent $16.9 billion on search, display and rich media in 2006, and that number could be $31.3 billion by 2011 according to ClickZ and IDC Internet. Internet advertising is growing three times as fast as the overall ad spend, they explain.

B2B companies are still relatively new to internet marketing. But even an entrenched, traditional firm can successfully implement an internet marketing strategy with dramatic results.

But where do you start? Optimize your website? Launch a paid search campaign? Try your hand at blogging, article writing, social media? The choices are overwhelming.

Here’s a great springboard: Add valuable content to your website. Don’t just slice & dice your sales literature — I’m talking about high quality pages, white papers, tools and other content that’s meaningful and relevant for your prospects and customers.

Enquiro has published a number of terrific studies about the role of search engines in the B2B buying process. In their 2007 search study, 65.3% of business buyers said they would start their research with a search engine. “We found a heavy reliance on online research in all aspects of the purchase cycle,” they say. “Online resources are critical in the business purchasing process and a few of them stand head and shoulders above the rest, notably websites and search engines.”

Quality website content can help you take advantage of this trend and deliver three big benefits: 1. Lure visitors and prospects, 2. Qualify & engage your audience, and 3. Build your brand.

1. Lure visitors and prospects

Many B2B companies think of their website as a static brochure — home page, product page, services page, about us, and maybe a news center. And if people are searching specifically for your company or product name, they should find you.

But what about the prospects who have never heard of you? What will they search for? They’ll use a keyword or phrase that describes their problem, their pain or a general category of solution.

When your site is inwardly-focused, it’s virtually impossible to rank highly in search engine results for broad terms unless you pay for it. Why? Because you need GOOD content that’s relevant for those general descriptions people are using.

Search engine spiders need content

Search engine spiders scour the entire web about once a month. They “read” as much of your site as they can and then decide 1. what it’s about and 2. whether it’s important.

When you give the spiders more rich, relevant content about your area of expertise, you’re improving the likelihood that they’ll say yes, this is important and deserves to be ranked highly in search results.

Spiders also prefer content that’s updated regularly. In fact, when you update regularly they’ll visit you more frequently. That gives you a chance to get your new content in the search engine results more quickly and can help your Google PageRank.

Generate more inbound links

When you offer more quality content on your site, you’re creating more reasons for other sites to link to you. This activity delivers two benefits:

  • People will click through from other sites.
  • Search engines will reward you. Spiders say, hey, this content must be valuable or other quality sites wouldn’t link to it. And when they’re deciding what sites are the most valuable, these “votes” are a critical variable.

2. Qualify and engage your audience

You’re probably painfully familiar with this vicious cycle: Marketing generates leads but sales doesn’t follow up; salespeople complain that leads aren’t qualified and not worth followup.

This morning I wasted 45 minutes of a sales rep’s time (and my own) because I misunderstood his service. I had done a Google search, looked at a bunch of websites, and contacted a few that I thought were the best fit. However, I wasn’t the ideal client for his company.

He could have shortened that call to 10 minutes if he had asked more qualifying questions. Better yet, his website could have done it.

You can cover much of the early sales process with strategic website content. Spend more time educating your prospects and your leads will be more qualified.

3. Build your brand

Your website is often the first interaction your prospects have with you. What does it say about you? Does it create trust? Does it make prospects want to do business with you?

If your site is a standard brochure-type site with an inward focus, you’re missing an opportunity to build your brand (and B2B brands are important just like onsumer brands).

Instead, create more content that communicates your brand promise. Speak directly to your audience and their pain. Build value and make them want to work with you.

Conclusion

It isn’t easy to write good content for the web, but a great copywriter can help you develop the strategy and create these valuable assets that can help you drive traffic, leads and revenue. And consider creating content for different market segments or buyer personas, too.

Once you have solid content on your site, you can start adding social networking tools and campaigns to leverage that content. But you have to start somewhere … and that means creating content first.

This is a really long post and I want to share some specific content ideas and examples. Look for them soon!

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Distribution channels for services: Big ideas, big payoffs

Last week James talked about the unglamorous but important topic of distribution channels. It’s one of the “4 Ps” (“placement”), but many marketers and smaller companies don’t think about it as often as they should. And it’s potentially the most important strategy in your arsenal.
When you sell a physical product, it’s easy to keep distribution [...]

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Distribution channels – not sexy, but smart

Distribution channels have become the least glamorous strategy in the B2B marketing portfolio. Who writes about building channels, nurturing partners and channel performance?
I feel grizzled just tackling this subject. Social media, search marketing and new media are the topics with heat even in the B2B crowd (a small group compared to consumer marketers, [...]

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Getting talent on the bus

It’s always challenging to recruit top talent for your team.
If you’re an early stage company, it’s even tougher. You need extremely talented people who share your passion and vision, are willing to work longer hours, carry more responsibility, in a less defined position, and for less cash than your established competitors.
Even if you’re an established [...]

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