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Marketing managers have one of the most demanding roles in any organization. You’re balancing creativity, analytics, strategy, and execution—all while juggling multiple responsibilities with limited resources. The challenges are real, often leaving many marketing managers feeling stretched thin and overwhelmed.

If this sounds familiar, rest assured you’re not alone. Conversations with marketing managers and directors reveal several common pain points that span across different areas of the marketing process. Let’s take a closer look at these issues and explore strategies to overcome them.

Time and Resource Constraints are the Most Significant Barrier to Success

One of the most significant barriers to effective marketing is the lack of time and resources. Many teams are forced to do more with less, leading to stretched bandwidth and reduced efficiency.

Common Challenges

• Time/Bandwidth Issues: Juggling multiple campaigns, tasks, and responsibilities. Small teams often lead to multitasking and limited focus on strategy.

• Limited Budget: Tight budgets restrict access to premium tools, team growth, or larger advertising campaigns.

• Staff Shortages: Lean teams mean executing all your desired initiatives is difficult.

How to Address These Issues

• Prioritize Tasks: Focus on high-impact initiatives, and explore agile methodologies to manage workflow.

• Outsource Strategically: Freelancers and agencies can fill resource gaps for tasks like content creation or analytics.

• Use Technology: Automation tools (e.g., HubSpot or Hootsuite can take repetitive tasks off your plate.

Data Management and Analysis Challenges Can Feel Overwhelming

Data is a goldmine for marketers, but managing and making sense of it can feel overwhelming. These issues can bog down even the most experienced professionals, from scattered datasets to proving ROI.

Common Challenges

• Data Silos: Information stored across multiple platforms makes integration and reporting hard.

• Tracking ROI: Proving the value of long-term campaigns or awareness projects to executives is difficult.

• Data Overload: Too much unorganized data can prevent actionable insights.

• Skill Gap: Not all marketers are trained in tools like Looker Studio, GA4, or data analysis techniques.

How to Address These Issues

• Invest in Centralized Tools: Platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Hubspot, or Adobe Experience Cloud can integrate your data with Google Analytics for a single-pane view.

• Implement Simple yet Actionable Analytics: Establish clear KPIs and automate key dashboards for regular reporting.

• Upskill Your Team: Offer training to your team in analytics tools (Google Analytics, Looker Studio) to bridge skill gaps.

• Collaborate with Specialists: Consider hiring or outsourcing to marketing data analysts to unlock insights faster.

Keeping Up with Rapid Changes and Trends Adds Complexity to an Already Demanding Job

The digital marketing landscape evolves at lightning speed. AI, social media algorithm updates, and emerging platforms complicate to an already demanding job.

Common Challenges

• Digital Marketing Speed: Rapid changes in AI and platform updates make staying relevant hard.

• AI Integration: Many marketers are unsure how to effectively leverage AI.

• Platform Navigation: Tools like GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Ads can feel overly complex.

How to Address These Issues

• Stay Educated: Dedicate time for regular industry learning through newsletters, webinars, online communities, and professional training.

• Experiment with AI: Begin integrating AI tools for content, copy, and ad optimization.

• Hire Experts: Bring in platform specialists to optimize setup and performance where required.

Content Strategy and Creation at Scale is Challenging

Content remains the fuel for most marketing campaigns, but managing its creation and strategy is a tall order. Marketing managers face challenges in creating engaging, consistent content that stands out.

Common Challenges

• Creating at Scale: Limited resources make producing frequent, high-quality content difficult.

• Multi-Platform Strategies: Adapting content for unique audiences across social, email, and video platforms is time-consuming.

• Video Content: Video content can be one of the most challenging formats due to time and production resources.

• Planning and Strategy: A lack of proactive planning often leads to reactive content rather than strategic storytelling.

How to Address These Issues

• Batch Production: Create content in focused blocks to optimize time and resources.

• Repurpose Content: Have a blog? Turn it into a YouTube video, Instagram carousel, or email newsletter.

• Use Tools: Platforms like Canva for design, Grammarly for editing, and Descript for videos simplify production.

• Develop a Content Calendar: A clear schedule ensures you stay ahead with content ideas and publishing timelines.

Stakeholder Alignment and Buy-in is Essential

Marketing efforts can falter if key internal stakeholders, such as sales or leadership, are not on the same page.

Common Challenges

• Buy-in from Executives: Showing C-suite executives the ROI of marketing efforts can be tough.

• Sales Alignment: Sales and marketing often struggle to align messaging, goals, and strategies.

• Internal Collaboration: Communication gaps across departments hinder cohesive campaigns.

How to Address These Issues

• Communicate ROI: Use data storytelling tools like Looker Studio to create visual reports for executives.

• Hold Alignment Meetings: Regular sync-ups between marketing and sales teams can create better unity.

• Use Shared Goals: Establish shared KPIs to better align cross-department initiatives.

Navigating Specific Platforms and Channels Can Be Challenging

Navigating specific marketing platforms, whether for SEO, social media, email, or ABM (Account-Based Marketing), comes with its own set of complexities.

Common Challenges

• Social Media: Engaging organic followers, keeping up with algorithms, and creating efficient paid campaigns demand time and creativity.

• SEO/SEM: SEO trends, Google’s algorithm updates, and integrating tools like GA4 require technical understanding.

• Email Marketing: Low open rates, messy data, and audience segmentation issues are frequently diagnosed pain points.

How to Address These Issues

• Leverage AI for Social Media: Try AI-driven tools like Hootsuite for scheduling and analytics, or Canva for templates.

• Hire an SEO Specialist: Optimizing your content and mitigating algorithm changes is often best handled by experts, even temporarily.

• Improve Email Segmentation: Tools like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot and Klaviyo help personalize email marketing to boost performance.

Final Thoughts and How to Resolve These Challenges Moving into 2026

Marketing managers face diverse challenges, but every pain point presents an opportunity for optimization. You can alleviate many of these struggles by identifying your team’s highest-priority issues and addressing them strategically, whether through tools, outsourcing, training, or improved processes.

Remember, marketing success comes from adapting to challenges with creativity and resourcefulness. Contact us if you need help with SEO, paid advertising optimization, or analytics.

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Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., a full service direct and online marketing agency, is announcing that it placed 18^th in the Silicon Valley Business Journal List of Largest Advertising, Marketing and PR Agencies.  The list is updated yearly and ranked by the quantity of local full-time employees. If the list had been ranked by overall employees (both local and nationwide) Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., would have been ranked much higher on the list.  Every year the Business Journal surveys local agencies and creates the ranked list. The list is available free to Business Journal subscribers, and for a fee to non-Business Journal subscribers, and you can purchase it here.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including:  content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com.

About the Silicon Valley Business Journal

The Silicon Valley Business Journal is the local version of the American City Business Journals (ACBJ), which is the largest publisher of metropolitan business newsweeklies in the United States, with 43 business publications across the country reaching more than 3.6 million readers each week. They also offer specialty publications for sports fans, sports business readers and classic car enthusiasts.

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The ABC Glove Corporation (not the real name) is a leader in the field of industrial gloves. The average value of a new customer account to ABC is high -— around $50,000 per customer per year. The target contact is a decision maker in safety, operations or purchasing within metal manufacturing industries.
ABC’s ambitious goal was to gain $2.5 million in incremental sales. The corporation’s marketing department tried everything: pay-per-click advertising, email, tradeshows and more -—-but could not acquire enough qualified sales leads to hit this target. ABC called us in to help them take a fresh and more productive approach that would result in more appointments for the sales department.

First, we identified the sales-ready “A” lead criteria based on their selling process and marketplace. Then we did some simple, back-of-the-napkin analysis of the needs of the lead-to-sales funnel. Based on the estimations of the vice president of marketing, we found that achieving an incremental $2.5 million in annual sales at $50,000 per sale meant they would have to close 50 new sales in a year. At a 20% proposal close rate, they needed 250 qualified sales opportunities in the proposal stage. At a 25% conversion rate (qualified sales-ready A leads to proposal rate), ABC needed 1,000 “Qualified A” leads in the sales team pipeline. And the conversion rate of marketing inquiry level (MQL) leads to sales-ready A leads is 10%. The bottom line: ABC Corporation needed 10,000 MQLs in the top of the demand generation funnel process to be able to hit their incremental sales target.

Why Wouldn’t Email Alone Work?

The VP of marketing estimated that on the high end, the available universe of contacts in companies in metal manufacturing was roughly 7,500. If ABC emailed all 7,500 and got a 1% inbound response, that would equal 75. If 50% of those leads filled out a form, that would result in 35 marketing-level MQL leads. ABC would have to email to this list at least 285 times to get the 10,000 marketing-level leads in the pipeline. (But it is unlikely that every email would result in a 1% inbound response as the response rates from this small audience would decline over time.) So email alone could not achieve the sales goals.

Multi-Touch and Multi-Channel Solution

Under the conditions of this small but highly valuable target market, we determined that ABC needed a much higher lead-to-sale conversion process to meet their sales goals. We recommended a multi-touch and multi-channel sequence of email and tele-prospecting. This would result in actual appointments being made for the sales department.

We normally recommend testing different approaches with a small sample of prospects to see which approach stimulates the highest response level. In this case, we tested two offers. A book about physical safety in the metal manufacturing environment versus the offer of a free pair of gloves. The VP of marketing suggested the offer of a free pair of gloves because in his experience, the prospect would request a sample pair in any case, so he felt this would short-circuit the process to some degree. We were less certain, as we have found in the past that a free sample sometimes feels like too much of a commitment early in the relationship. We also tested two lists, an in-house list versus a rental list.

The test showed that the appeal of the offer was about equal between the gloves and the book. (We went with the gloves for the roll out campaign). Both lists performed equally well.

The Multi-Touch Lead Nurturing Process Involved:

Initial email campaign.

• Initial call (left voice message or in some accounts we must be directed to proper contact).
• Call to engage new contact in the value prop and offers.
• Email to the correct contact, and or email content as requested to support our dialog.
• Call to complete the value prop and offer conversation, listen to needs and pain points and gather those critical data points into the lead qualification script-record, and if qualified, close on ABC sales rep appointment.

Marketing collateral for Glove Company campaign.

We often find it takes seven to thirteen touches to deliver a sales-ready lead. In this case, the average number of touches was 4.28. Why did our campaign for ABC require so few touches? The answer is embedded in our multi-touch best practices:

Have a good list (few incorrect contacts).

• Develop creative that captures hearts and minds and have follow up content and dialog to support it.
• Offer something of high perceived value.
• Optimize the value proposition delivery by adding tele-prospecting to the mix. This creates a personal relationship with the prospect. Remember: people buy from people, and prospects don’t share their qualifying pain points on lead forms.

We were able to generate enough qualified sales appointments to help them meet their additional $2.5 million sales goal, and we taught them how to sustain this level of growth year over year.

Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. The company provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

The post How We Helped an Industrial Glove Manufacturer to Schedule New Sales Appointments that Resulted in $2.5 Million in Incremental Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

This is a successful meeting maker campaign that includes an appeal to emotions, multiple touches, and a carefully designed offer. The call to action was to set up an appointment for Sales. We were marketing to engineers — always a tough sell because of their skepticism. We sought to persuade them to consider replacing a tried-and-true instrument with something they may not even have heard of. Our team did this not by leading with product features. Instead, we pulled on their heartstrings — reliving a recent event in which engineers were heroes because of the quality of their instruments and their work.

Background:

Anritsu’s VectorStar Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is used to measure microwave and mm-wave frequencies in design, testing and manufacture of electronic components where extreme accuracy is required. A new model leapfrogged the competition in features and performance, providing the opportunity to generate sales leads through a multi-channel marketing campaign.

Electrical engineers (EE) are the primary audience for this campaign. They think in a methodical way and demand proof of product claims. Engineers require detailed specs and technical information to make a buying decision. They are not at all impressed by marketing copy and claims unsubstantiated by statistics.

The Challenge: Marketing to Engineers

Anritsu’s predecessor company, Wiltron, invented the modern VNA tester in the late 1950s. While Anritsu continued to improve VNA high-performance technology, several well-funded companies have entered the market and developed similar versions of Anritsu’s products, taking the lead in sheer sales order volume. We needed to get Anritsu back on our buyer’s “short list”.

Electrical engineers are process-oriented. Consequently, if they are comfortable with a tool and that tool satisfies their requirements, it’s difficult to get them to switch. VNA testers start at $100K and have a long sales cycle because they are considered a capital equipment investment.

Campaign Objective:

Our goal with the campaign was to bring Anritsu to the table with new customers that the sales force had not yet penetrated, creating awareness of the Anritsu VectorStar solution and ultimately generating face-to-face consultation meetings with qualified firms. A consultation requester who met key budget, purchase authority, need and timeframe-to-purchase criteria was considered an “A” category sales lead. In addition, the “B”-rated leads are prospect contacts with proven interest that opted in to future communications, but were not yet qualified.

Creative and Marketing Strategy:

The creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover, which had made a spectacularly successful landing on Mars about the time this project began. Engineers are inherently interested in the accomplishments of other engineers and how they solved tough problems. The Mars Curiosity Rover landing was one of the toughest, with thousands of measurements and calculations that had to be coded into the landing and could not be altered during the “seven minutes of terror” during which the Curiosity Rover descended to the planet’s surface. To quote from our letter to prospects:

Marketing creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover.

As it descended through the atmosphere of Mars, the spacecraft carrying the Curiosity Rover fired its rockets 79 times, went through five configuration changes, and slowed from 13,000 mph to a standstill. In the final operation, a “sky crane” was used to gently deposit the Curiosity on the surface since retro rockets would stir up too much dust.

We pointed out the extreme precision this required, and then made the transition to the reader: we think of the NASA and JPL engineers as heroes, but you are required to make equally exacting measurements every day. That’s why you deserve an instrument like the VectorStar.

The Campaign’s Focus

The centerpiece of the campaign was a direct mailing in a transparent tube containing a poster. An artist’s rendering as a constant reminder of the Curiosity Rover’s descent sequence was on one side (NASA has done renderings but the client did not want to violate any potential copyrights so we commissioned our own) with Anritsu product specs at the bottom. Our hopes were that engineers would mount these in their cubicles, thus providing a constant reminder of the VectorStar, complete with a call-to-action. In addition, we followed this up with an email on the same theme, and then began the telemarketing campaign.

Personalized direct mail envelope with Mars Curiosity Rover.

Twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the email delivery, the calling team began to engage email and direct mail recipients. As a result, this multi-touch process had the effect of increasing the number of contact presentations and shortening the lead generation cycle. And, most contacts recalled receiving the direct mail piece or email. Many were familiar with the offering and willing to engage. Program metrics are indicative of the effectiveness of this process with the high volume of completed call scripts as partial evidence.

Call-to-Action

The call-to-action was a free gift when a prospect completed a VectorStar sales presentation. We tested two offers: an Anritsu-branded backpack (appealing because our target likes to carry lots of gadgets around) versus a VNA technical manual valued at $50. Because of concerns about accepting gifts, government and government contractors were offered only the book.

Additionally, all prospects that registered their contact information were immediately provided a free download link for a relevant white paper.

Because the price of the VectorStar VNA is $51,000 and up, we knew that repeated contacts—and often multiple contacts—within the same company would be necessary to close the sale. The goal of the multi-touch approach was to start the process by gathering as much information as possible. At the same time we gained initial commitment to enter the lead pipeline.

Results:

Overall, the campaign was highly successful. Based on the sales CRM reports, the program generated over $2.8 million dollars in the sales pipeline during the three-month campaign window. Furthermore, many high sales potential leads are still being nurtured.

The campaign had a specific goal of developing 69 “A” leads that were considered opportunities in the CRM system. Through direct response and follow-up calling we developed 115 leads, which put us at 167% of the goal. In addition, the Calling Team gathered 426 opt-in contacts for continued nurturing and development.

Personalized email for Anritsu VectorStar with Mars Curiosity Rover.

In conclusion, the VectorStar campaign shows best practices for an effective multi-part B-to-B nurturing campaign: start with a memorable contact sequence, then follow up with multiple touches that develop the prospect into a sales-ready lead. Because so many recipients remembered and engaged with the mailing and follow-up email, it was easier to get them on the phone and easier to complete an initial sales conversation. Because of this effective warm up approach, calls were completed faster, allowing more contacts to be made within the allotted time and budget. The result: more leads and sales opportunities.

Marketing collateral for Anritsu VectorStar campaign.

Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. The company provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

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By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

As SEO marketers, we are well aware that SEO metrics are crucial to understanding the effectiveness of our programs—and justifying that marketing budget. For a while now, people have been paying close attention to SERP (search engine rank position) and Page Rank. At Beasley Direct Marketing, we think these are good yardsticks. But real SEO metrics that define success for our clients have more to do with traffic volume to the site from searches and making sure that traffic is well qualified to take the next step in the sales cycle. (It’s nice to get site visitors, but it’s even better to get visitors who want to purchase.)

We look at absolute traffic volume from search over time and try to increase it. In addition to getting traffic to the site, we study what happens once people get to the site. Are people interacting with the site to better understand the product mix and take the next step in the sales cycle? To understand this, we look at metrics such as time on site, number of pages read, click path through the site, which pages visitors have gone to and what they did on those pages, any onsite conversion such as lead form completion, collateral downloads, or actual sales transactions.

We know that these metrics are the key to understanding how effective our search campaigns have been. By studying these metrics over time, we can further refine campaigns to be more powerful.

We do look at offsite metric information also. These include data we get from Google Webmaster Tools and the Bing Webmaster Toolbox. We look at the total number of search impressions, clicks and click-through rates, and to a lesser extent, average position on the search page. When we implement SEO tactics correctly and see an increase in the number of times we appear in front of potential users and see the number of times they actually click on the link, we gain valuable feedback on whether or not we are doing our job successfully. It also provides real insight on what our users are seeking from our products and services.

While search engines provide this data through their toolboxes, what they share with us is actually only a partial picture, a representative set of their data. We look at it for guidance, but at the end of the day, it’s about the traffic that actually arrives at the site and how people interact with the site to convert.

We do look at things like PageRank on Google as well as the other authority and trust metrics from major link research sites such as Majestic SEO, AHREFS.com, Link Research Tools and MOZ.com Open Site Explorer. All major link research tools have trust and authority metrics that look at both client sites and all sites that reference our clients’ sites. These allow us to best understand where we exist in the larger Web as well as giving us guidance on sites that we may wish to contact for link building and marketing purposes by offering to share content.

SEO is a complex, ever-changing process that rarely has an end point. The SEO metrics to which you pay attention will change over time, but the main emphasis needs to be on onsite metrics that really explain to you how your customer is interacting with your Website. In the final analysis, what you want is for customers to come to your site, find what they need, go to the next stage in the buying cycle, become a lead, and eventually complete a sale. With any marketing campaign, this is your end goal—so don’t let the tail wag the dog with secondary metrics.

For a more extensive examination of how to boost effectiveness of search engine optimization, please download our free whitepaper, “Boosting SEO with an Organic Site Review.”

* * * *

John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at (UCSC Extension, Silicon Valley).

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Poster of the Mars Curiosity Rover created by Beasley Direct Marketing for Anritsu’s VectorStar Campaign

By Laurie B. Beasley, president, Beasley Direct Marketing

This is Part 4 of a Multi-Part Blog Series Derived from Our New Guide, How To Market Complex Products & Services.

Here is a successful campaign that followed many of the guidelines we’ve been talking about, including an appeal to emotions, multiple touches, and a carefully designed offer. The audience was engineers—always a tough sell because of their skepticism—and we sought to persuade them to consider replacing a tried-and-true instrument with something they may not even have heard of. We did this not by leading with product features but with a pull on the heartstrings—reliving a recent event in which engineers were heroes because of the quality of their instruments and their work.

Background

Anritsu’s VectorStar Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is used to measure microwave and mm-wave frequencies in design, testing and manufacture of electronic components where extreme accuracy is required. A new model leapfrogged the competition in features and performance, providing the opportunity to generate sales leads through a multi-channel marketing campaign. The primary audience for this campaign is electrical engineers (EEs). They think in a methodical way and demand proof of product claims. They require detailed specs and technical information to make a buying decision. They are not at all impressed by marketing copy and claims unsubstantiated by statistics.

The Challenge:

Anritsu’s predecessor company, Wiltron, invented the modern VNA tester in the late 1950s. While Anritsu continued to improve VNA high-performance technology, several well-funded companies have entered the market and developed similar versions of Anritsu’s products, taking the lead in sheer sales order volume. We needed to get Anritsu back on our buyer’s “short list”. Electrical engineers are process-oriented. If they are comfortable with a tool and that tool satisfies their requirements, it’s difficult to get them to switch. VNA testers start at $100K and have a long sales cycle because they are considered a capital equipment investment.

Campaign Objective

Our goal with the campaign was to bring Anritsu to the table with new customers that the sales force had not yet penetrated, creating awareness of the Anritsu VectorStar solution and ultimately generating face-to-face consultation meetings with qualified firms. A consultation requester who met key budget, purchase authority, need and timeframe-to-purchase criteria was considered an “A” category sales lead. In addition, the “B”-rated leads are prospect contacts with proven interest that opted in to future communications, but were not yet qualified.

Creative and Marketing Strategy

The creative focused on the Mars Curiosity Rover, which had made a spectacularly successful landing on Mars about the time this project began. Engineers are inherently interested in the accomplishments of other engineers and how they solved tough problems. The Mars Curiosity Rover landing was one of the toughest, with thousands of measurements and calculations that had to be coded into the landing and could not be altered during the “seven minutes of terror” during which the Curiosity Rover descended to the planet’s surface. To quote from our letter to prospects:

“As it descended through the atmosphere of Mars, the spacecraft carrying the Curiosity Rover fired its rockets 79 times, went through five configuration changes, and slowed from 13,000 mph to a standstill. In the final operation, a “sky crane” was used to gently deposit the Curiosity on the surface since retro rockets would stir up too much dust.”

We pointed out the extreme precision this required, and then made the transition to the reader: we think of the NASA and JPL engineers as heroes, but you are required to make equally exacting measurements every day. That’s why you deserve an instrument like the VectorStar.

Letter to prospects linking the precision of the Mars Curiosity Rover with the precision of engineers’ every-day problem-solving.

The centerpiece of the campaign was a direct mailing in a transparent tube containing a poster with an artist’s rendering of the Curiosity Rover’s descent sequence on one side (NASA has done renderings but the client did not want to violate any potential copyrights so we commissioned our own) with Anritsu product specs at the bottom. Our hopes were that engineers would mount these in their cubicles, thus providing a constant reminder of the VectorStar, complete with a call-to-action. We followed this up with an email on the same theme, and then began the telemarketing campaign.

Twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the email delivery, the calling team began to engage email and direct mail recipients. This multi-touch process had the effect of increasing the number of contact presentations and shortening the lead generation cycle. Most contacts recalled receiving the direct mail piece or email. Many were familiar with the offering and willing to engage. Program metrics are indicative of the effectiveness of this process with the high volume of completed call scripts as partial evidence.

The call-to-action was a free gift when a prospect completed a VectorStar sales presentation. We tested two offers: an Anritsu-branded backpack (appealing because our target likes to carry lots of gadgets around) versus a VNA technical manual valued at $50. Because of concerns about accepting gifts, government and government contractors were offered only the book.

Additionally, all prospects that registered their contact information were immediately provided a free download link for a relevant white paper.

Because the price of the VectorStar VNA is $51,000 and up, we knew that repeated contacts—and often multiple contacts—within the same company would be necessary to close the sale. The goal of the multi-touch approach was to start the process by gathering as much information as possible while gaining initial commitment to enter the lead pipeline.

Results

Overall, the campaign was highly successful. Based on the sales CRM reports, the program generated over $2.8 million dollars in the sales pipeline during the three-month campaign window, and many high sales potential leads are still being nurtured.

The campaign had a specific goal of developing 69 “A” leads that were considered opportunities in the CRM system. Through direct response and follow-up calling we developed 115 leads, which put us at 167% of the goal. In addition, the Calling Team gathered 426 opt-in contacts for continued nurturing and development.

The VectorStar campaign shows best practices for an effective multi-part B-to-B nurturing campaign: start with a memorable contact sequence, then follow up with multiple touches that develop the prospect into a sales-ready lead. Because so many recipients remembered and engaged with the mailing and follow-up email, it was easier to get them on the phone and easier to complete an initial sales conversation. Because of this effective warm-up approach, calls were completed faster, allowing more contacts to be made within the allotted time and budget. The result: more leads and sales opportunities.

Appendix

A brief look at benchmarked targets versus actual productivity metrics in several key areas clarifies why the program was so successful:

The most telling metric from this group is Total Scripts per Hour, because it quantifies the calling team’s ability to engage prospects with the Anritsu VectorStar offering. This ability to engage prospects and their receptivity to Anritsu’s offer of a technical consultation was the basis for the substantial number of lead conversions.

Over the life of the initiative, 2,094 scripts were completed during 540 calling hours. This number exceeded program goal by 260%. To look at it from another perspective, when the program launched, the expectation was set that 810 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues would take place. In fact, 2,094 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues occurred. The additional 1,284 Anritsu VectorStar dialogues over the course of the campaign celebrate its success.

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Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, direct mail, and demand generation campaigns for over a hundred companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She manages the Online Roundtable for the BMA Northern California www.NorCalBMA.org. She is an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches in the Level 2 Certification program for the Online Marketing Institute. She frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the Online Marketing Summit, Interactive Marketing Week, DMA Annual Conference, and the Marketing Executive Networking Group.

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