Twenty-five is a number with a lot of significance in our world. It is the atomic number of manganese, it is the number reserved for the player deemed the best “slugger” on a baseball team, and it is the name of the national board game of India. To the hardworking men and women of the Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency, however, twenty-five carries a much higher level of significance.

A Walk through History

The Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency was founded in 1990 by Laurie Beasley after a successful career as a marketing manager for Borland International. After leaving Borland, Laurie began to consult for other software and hardware companies who all recognized the need for an upgraded revenue model. This was rewarding consulting work; however, Laurie began to recognize that companies were having trouble executing the plans. Direct marketing is both science and art, and companies were struggling with both aspects. Eventually, Laurie decided to switch from just being the consultant who built models, to a full-service agency that built the model and executed it using database marketing.

In 2001-2002 the U.S. experienced the dot-com crash. Many agencies went out of business then, but Beasley Direct and Online Marketing thrived by adding a full set of services to help companies get their digital marketing programs up and running, including websites, email programs, and online advertising.

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession. Many more agencies went out of business during that year and the years which followed. The members of Beasley Direct jumped in and helped companies shift a heavy proportion of their marketing budgets to online, including search and social media.

Beasley Directs Growth along with Marketing Advances

Despite the challenges of the past, technology moves ever forward. With the arrival of the Internet, a huge shift occurred in marketing. To stay ahead of the curve, Beasley Direct added creative and technical services for developing websites and online advertising. As Internet marketing has progressed, Beasley Direct fought to stay ahead with the addition of sophisticated email and search marketing services, and more recently content marketing and social media services.

“Marketing managers must understand and use a wide array of tools…. We help clients avoid letting the tools replace or hinder good strategy, and to the relief of most of our clients, we help in the day-to-day optimal use of the tools.”–Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

With all these advances in marketing technology, a huge need grew in the industry for training marketers to keep up and stay ahead of changes. To meet this growing need, Laurie Beasley created and managed a Certificate in Direct and Online Marketing at San Jose State Professional Studies, and then cloned this program at UCLA Extension, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UC Berkley Extension, and the Online Marketing Institute. Many of the Beasley Direct consulting staff members now teach in these programs.

What Does the Future Hold for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing?

“I believe the future of marketing will evolve with social media and the internet. Mobile marketing will continue to force innovation on marketers to keep their websites, search and social media effective for the mobile user. The introduction of mobile apps, kiosks, and third screen interactivity will provide many more avenues for marketing messaging and lead generation.”–Laurie Beasley

A Message to Other Marketers

“Marketing never stands still, and you need an agency that will keep you ahead of the curve. Beasley Direct has stayed far ahead of the learning curve, adding technical and creative skills to an ever-growing list of media channels.”–Laurie Beasley

With a future that includes wearable technology and a technologically desensitized population, the fight to stay ahead of marketing curves will never be over. However, you can bet that Beasley Direct and Online Marketing will be at the front lines, ready to provide absolute top notch services.

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Elizabeth Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client onboarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post Beasley Direct & Online Marketing Agency Celebrates Twenty-Five Years of Great Service appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The DMA sponsored the direct marketing response rates survey , along with Demand Metric Research Corporation, from December 2014 to January 2015 with a total of 612 responses collected, 485 of which provided usable data. The purpose of collecting this data is to track the Response Rates of different marketing avenues from a very extensive sample size. This data will allow marketers to compare their success with results from other companies and determine where to concentrate their efforts next. Below are some highlights from the report.

Mobile

Of all the samples in the Direct Marketing Response Rates Survey mobile marketing was the smallest. According to the survey graph showing the amount companies reported using each marketing medium, picture above, only 18% of companies are including mobile in their campaigns. The survey participants reported their primary use of mobile advertising campaigns are to make a direct sale (33%), followed by lead generation (26%) and driving brand awareness (26%). However, about 42% of the survey participants didn’t know the click-through rate for mobile ad campaigns, which made it hard to report on the response rates.

Email

Survey Participants did not have the same trouble reporting on their email campaign response rates, as with mobile. In fact, email retains the top spot in terms of the number of organizations that reported using it at 82% use in promotional campaigns. However, Click through rates were lowest for lead generation emails sent to prospect lists (3-4%) and highest for B-to-B emails sent to house lists (17-18%). Open rates ranged from a low of 7-8% for emails sent to prospect lists to drive traffic. Ironically, emails sent to house lists to drive traffic enjoyed the highest open rate at 23-24%.

Online Display

Slightly over half of companies report that lead generation is their primary purpose for campaigns. Conversion rates were lowest among digital media types, at between 1.1% and 1.5%, which is a 17% decrease from the previous years. The low click-through and conversion rates likely contribute to the highest CPA among digital media types in the study, ranging from $41 to $50.

Paid Search

The use of paid search has gone done almost 10% in use by companies since 2012, according to the report. Two-thirds of the survey participants who use paid search reported using both brand and generic keywords in their paid search campaigns. Conversion rates ranged from 2 to 6%, with an overall rate of 4% for branded and 3% for generic keywords.

Paid search was reported to most frequently be used by survey participants in mixed B-to-B/B-to-C campaigns (30%), followed closely by B-to-C campaigns (29%). Branded keywords in the B-to-C environment enjoyed the highest click-through rate at 5-5.9%, while generic keywords in the B-to-B environment had the lowest click-through rate at 2-2.9%.

Social Media

Social media, which was included for the first time in the Response Rate Survey, had one of the lower click-through rates among digital media types at between 2.1 and 2.5%. However, a good 37% of companies reported not knowing the click-through rates for their social media ad campaigns, so there is a significant amount of unaccounted for data.

Behind mobile, social media shows the greatest projected usage increase of this year, with 64% of survey participants indicating plans to grow social media advertising in the next year. Virtually everyone who uses social media advertising also uses mail, and over half also uses direct mail, online display and paid search.

Telephone

The primary reported purpose of telephone campaigns is almost equally split between direct sales (41%) and lead generation (37%) The response rate for telephone – between 9 and 10% – is one of the strongest of any media type in this survey, regardless of whether house or prospect lists are in use. Only 4% of survey participants report plans to decrease their tele-marketing in the next 12 months, while 36% report usage will remain steady, and 57% plan to increase their telephone usage.

Direct Mail

Over 41% of survey participants reported using Direct Mail as part of their campaigns, which is the second highest amount of any of the listed marketing types. Over half of the respondents for Direct Mail reported a monthly direct mail volume of 100,000 or less, with the median monthly mail volume falling in the range of 50,000 or less. The survey results showed that the median response rates for house lists are at 3.73%, while the median response for prospect lists is at 1.00%.

We Have All This Data, So What Now?

The data gathered by the DMA Response Rate Report 2015 shows the extent to which customers are responding to different types of marketing efforts. The purpose of gathering all this data is to help marketers plan campaigns that will get best response results for their company. The modern marketer is more likely to use more than one type of advertising, and in fact, just 35% of this study’s respondents claim to use just a single one, and that one is most often email. Gathering and providing this Response Data Report is just another way the DMA is making an effort to advance and protect responsible data-driven marketing.

If you would like to purchase a copy of the full Response Rate Report, you can do so by going to https://thedma.org/marketing-insights/bookstore/.

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client on-boarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance.  She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Strategic Communications from National University.

*DMA Response Rate Report 2015: Performance and Cost Metrics across Direct Media. Direct Marketing Association, 2015. Print.

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News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. of Northern California has become an email marketing agency for Nomadic Display. Work will focus on email strategy, copy and design. The emails will be optimized for deliverability and mobile compatibility. The campaigns will showcase Nomadic Display’s innovative and economical design solutions with case studies and solutions guides, and they will be timed to help marketing and design departments searching for solutions for major trade shows.

About us: 

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct 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 Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct 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. 

Nomadic Display  is a leading producer of custom modular and portable display solutions for purchase or rent. Our high quality, lightweight display environments help companies cost-effectively build business at trade shows, corporate events, road shows, airports, shopping malls, and showrooms. Nomadic systems integrate with one another to grow and adapt to changing business needs. We stand behind our products with the industry’s best lifetime warranties and a global 24/7 toll-free service LifeLine. We use eco-friendly practices in the design, fabrication, and delivery of our displays and graphics; most of our product components are sustainable and recyclable. Our award-winning displays can be seen in 200 showrooms in over 34 countries and online. To learn more, visit www.nomadicdisplay.com. 

Press Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Becomes an Email Marketing Agency for Nomadic Display appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

In our final installment on how to develop and nurture sales-ready qualified leads, we will look at a second case study where a firm successfully incorporated a multi-touch, multi-channel marketing approach to boost sales. However, this case study is quite different than the previous ABC Glove case study. The product is a complex technology sale and required more fine-tuning of the strategy and tactics as the campaign progressed, as you’ll see in this case study.

The client, XYZ Software (not the real name), is a large wide-area network (WAN) software optimization company. The sales process for this category of product is complex—and not made any easier by the fact that XYZ sells to IT professionals at medium to large firms, who are extremely busy and difficult to reach. The pain point for these professionals is slow-running networks, but isolating the network speed issue is often difficult and easily trumped by daily fire-fighting situations that demand immediate attention. As a result, IT professionals may be so busy that they do not realize how poorly their network is performing until it goes down.

XYZ Software had been focused on top-of-funnel marketing with email campaigns, webinars, pay-per-click (PPC), lunch-and-learn events and trade shows. As is often the case, there was no mid-funnel process in place for tele-qualifying inbound leads or generating pre-qualified sales opportunities. This resulted in a large number of unqualified “warm” suspect leads in the top of the sales funnel that either dropped out of the funnel or remained in the funnel without further attempts to qualify them. Consequently, Sales was not following up on the majority of leads because they were not pre-qualified to meet the sales-ready criteria. (Figure 1 illustrates XYZ’s situation perfectly.)

Figure 1: Low-Quality Leads from Marketing Tend To Drop Out of the Lead-to-Sales Funnel

Source: Forrester Research

XYZ called us in to diagnose and figure out how to turn more “warm” leads into sales-ready qualified prospects and turn more of those prospects into customers. As we did with ABC Glove Corporation, we first identified the problem. Then, in this case, we recommended a multi-touch, multi-channel lead nurturing program that integrated a tele-qualifying process owned by Marketing. We tested two offers: a Gartner Magic Quadrant versus an on-demand webinar/seminar featuring a Gartner analyst. We also tested three lists: the house lead file, a rental list of the primary competitor’s customers, and a webinar/seminar attendee list. Later, as the program rolled out, we also included webinar attendees and inbound responders in the lead nurturing program.

As it turned out, both offers performed equally well, splitting nearly 50/50. All of the lists were productive, but because we tracked the metrics, we were able to determine that the webinar list outperformed the others.

We tracked the number of attempts to reach IT titles for each list. The number of touches required to convert a prospect into a sales-ready lead ranged from two to nine touches, with an average of 7.51. Please note this is significantly fewer touches than the 7-13+ touch range we have been saying are required. This is directly due to the recommended messaging and creative in a combination of multi-channel outbound marketing emails integrated with tele-qualification and tele-nurturing, which raises awareness and establishes a 1:1 personal relationship with the prospect. Webinar attendance outperformed the other outbound marketing techniques with an average of 2.5 touches from us, moving prospects through the buying process more quickly than other sources.

Because we were tracking all metrics, we were able to determine that the initial messaging wasn’t resonating with prospects the way XYZ thought it would. When conversion rates don’t manifest at a satisfactory rate fairly early, it’s time to make a refinement. We addressed this quickly, listening to prospects and revising the messaging to suit. We also provided more training to the tele-qualifiers, improving their product knowledge and teaching them different ways to overcome objections.

We also changed the messaging about XYZ’s prime competitor. Instead of talking about the competitor as such, we repositioned XYZ’s technology as a solution to problems encountered by users of the competition’s product—a subtle yet effective way to handle the objection and move the dialog forward in the qualification process.

As part of the lead nurturing program, the calling team followed up with prospects by sending relevant informational material such as white papers and case studies as well as invitations to on-demand webinars designed to refine the sequential touch points, improving the quantity and quality of dialogues with prospects. This peer-to-peer approach helped to establish a sequence of nurturing by educating prospects on the viability of XYZ’s offerings. Prospects then began to open up about their network problems, which made them more inclined to set up a consultation meeting with the field representative.

We cannot share the actual numbers that resulted from this lead development program, but we can say that the program is still in place at XYZ Software, and the competing company has experienced a loss of market share to XYZ as a result.

In summary, traditional outbound marketing programs are insufficient to develop and deliver sales-ready qualified leads to the sales funnel. Marketing must step up to the plate and take on the responsibility of tele-qualifying warm leads into qualified leads before passing these on to Sales. This is a paradigm shift for Marketing and will require Marketing to justify the resources required to add multi-touch nurturing and tele-qualifying to its functions. It also means that Marketing must become rigorous about tracking the metrics, because in these leaner times, nobody gets more budget until a strong case has been made for the ROI of such a step. The reward is a boost in qualified leads delivered to Sales (making Marketing of greater value to Sales), and increased sales conversion rates (of value to everyone). Multi-touch, multi-channel programs represent a way for Marketing to graduate from the position of being a necessary evil to become an essential and valued player on the corporate team.

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This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., and Tom Judge, vice president Strategy at Direct Marketing Partners.

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 Californiawww.DMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

Tom Judge

Direct Marketing Partners (DMP) is a lead management and lead funnel tele-qualification services provider for B2B selling firms. Services include multi-touch peer to peer tele-prospecting and email lead gen campaigns with marketing automation and funnel metrics to optimize lead-to-sale conversions. Tom Judge provides strategic guidance for DMP clients and educational workshops on optimizing b2b lead-to-sales funnels for companies and at industry conferences. He also serves as the Vice President of the DMA Northern California Chapter, contributor at Sales Lead Management Association www.salesleadmgmtassn.com, and program chair for the Northern California Business Marketing Association Sales Lead Roundtable www.norcalbma.org. He is a former instructor on sales lead management at. San Jose State University and University of California professional development programs.

The post Why It Takes 7 to 13+ Touches To Deliver a Qualified Sales Lead (Part 6: Case Study) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

In the previous four installations of this topic, we discussed what it takes to deliver a qualified, sales-ready lead. In summary, we said:

• Marketing is now required to generate more of the higher quality sales-ready leads defined by the sales organization.
• This isn’t easy to do. Marketing automation can’t make it happen alone.
• You’re going to have to plan for multiple touches and multiple channels unique to each market and buying conditions.
• To shorten the process: have a comprehensive plan, targeted lists, segmented messaging, compelling offers, great creative (email, direct mail, etc.), a plan for personal touches (tele-prospecting)—and track the metrics so you can adjust.
• We also said that Marketing must take over the job of pre-qualifying leads. The leads that come in from marketing automation software or over-the-transom inquiries simply do not contain the level of data that Sales requires to justify their limited time and sales resources.

In this posting, we’re going to look at a real-world scenario in which a major manufacturer of industrial gloves put these principles into action and reaped the benefits.

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.

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 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 and only 7.5 Sales-ready A 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 with comprehensive metrics benchmarking. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: Incorporating Multi-channel and Multi-touch Solutions into the marketing and Sales Process

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 final campaign because sooner or later, the prospect would request a free pair of gloves anyway. 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 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

Remember that we have been saying it takes seven to 13-plus 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 what we’ve been saying all along:

• 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 online.

While we can’t share final numbers for incremental sales for this client, we do know that the client’s sales team is delighted with the results and they are continuing to implement our multi-touch, multi-channel approach.

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This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., and Tom Judge, vice president Strategy at Direct Marketing Partners.

Laurie Beasley

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 Californiawww.DMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

Tom Judge

Direct Marketing Partners (DMP) is a lead management and lead funnel tele-qualification services provider for B2B selling firms. Services include multi-touch peer to peer tele-prospecting and email lead gen campaigns with marketing automation and funnel metrics to optimize lead-to-sale conversions. Tom Judge provides strategic guidance for DMP clients and educational workshops on optimizing B2B lead-to-sales funnels for companies and at industry conferences. He also serves as the Vice President DMA Northern California Chapter, contributor at Sales Lead Management Association www.salesleadmgmtassn.com, Program Chair for the NorCal BMA Sales Lead Roundtable www.norcalbma.org, former Instructor on Sales Lead Management, San Jose State University and U.C. Professional Development Programs.

The post Why It Takes 7 to 13+ Touches To Deliver a Qualified Sales Lead (Part 5: Case Study) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

In Part 3 of this series, we examined the first four out of ten ways to shorten the qualified lead generation process: planning, clearly defining “sales-ready qualified lead”, quantifying the “sales-ready lead quota, and aligning Sales, Marketing and Management with your plan.

In Part 4, we look at the remaining six tips to shorten this process to bring in sales-ready qualified leads in fewer than seven to 13-plus touches.

5. Improve Target Prospect Data

Forrester Research reports that 37% of firms indicate this is a significant marketing problem at their company. Our guess is that the reality is more than 50%. The prospect database is only as good as the accuracy of the data, and it is a never-ending task keeping the data clean and current. People move around from job to job and company to company; companies are acquired or merge.

Usually, your prospect database is inherited from those who came before you. It is often a jerry-rigged compilation of data from different departments, with little consistency in the kinds of data being collected. Until you have standardized and fixed the database, it will constantly create gaps in your marketing tools and CRM system.

Because database cleanup is a huge job, the tendency to delay dealing with it is sometimes irresistible. But the ROI on a really good database is significant. Devise an approach to fixing and standardizing the database by creating a formal assessment, de-duping and cleaning process. Then create a standard to keep it current and consistent. Put all potential prospect records through this process. The payback is worth the investment of your time and attention.

6. Segment Your Target Markets

As the old saying goes, don’t try to boil the ocean. It’s a great deal easier to segment your target markets into smaller, more manageable segments that it is to try to address all markets at the same time. (See Figure 1.)

Compare campaign performance by segment to identify which segments perform the best. Historically, smaller, well-focused campaigns outperform larger, less focused campaigns. Messaging can be more targeted. The campaigns tend to be less costly, yet more productive, and conversion rates are higher. Filter inbound responses into your segments and monitor the touch quotas—you are likely to see fewer touches required for conversion.

Figure 1: Common B2B Market Segmentation

Source: Beasley Direct Marketing

7. Tell a Story with Your Content

Your content must tell your prospects a compelling story to convince them that you understand their issues and have the solution. Content must be personalized to the segment you’re addressing; the verbiage that appeals to engineers may not communicate as effectively to other members of the buying team—such as finance.

Use consistent messaging across all touch point media, and sequence it to the buyer’s journey. You must earn the right to gather the qualification information by providing relevant, meaningful information that resonates with buyers and positions you as a peer and an industry leader—someone with whom they want to speak.

Strive to be memorable. This can be done through creative images or verbal themes; just stay away from the overly cute and gimmicky if you want to be taken seriously. (This varies from industry to industry, of course.)

8. Make Your Offer Compelling

Always offer something of perceived value. Research has shown that valued offers do get better results. Content can sometimes be your best offer if you have information that your customer can use in their work. ROI calculators are usually popular, as are  educational white papers and case studies. Do a little research to find out what each segment will find interesting and compelling. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2: Business-to-Business Offers and Content

Source: PODI

9. Listen to Prospects and Engage with the Human Touch

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) reports that tele-prospecting (when used properly) delivers the highest response rate of all direct marketing media. People are busy. They can easily disengage from online media, or skip over your emails without much thought. It’s harder for people to ignore a real person on the phone with a compelling message.

A personalized tele-prospecting call can be extremely efficient in soliciting information that many customers are reluctant to offer online or in any other way. Listen to the prospect like a peer—that is, as though you were in their shoes. Find out what they need/want to know. Train your calling team to provide helpful information and insights on the call to create value first. Do this before you start asking for the data you need to determine whether or not they are qualified.

Many firms struggle with the listening aspect; it’s a hard skill to master. However, history shows us that when inserted as part of a multi-channel touch sequence, the human touch can take a non-responder to qualified status quicker than other channels. Timing is everything, of course. If you wait too long after a prospect responds to make personal contact, the opportunity may be long over.

Some people ask “If a tele-prospecting effort is ultimately what’s needed, why don’t we just skip the outbound email or direct mail campaign, and just cold call?” You can do cold calling without campaign support. However, sending email and/or direct mail in advance makes it a warm call, and this helps open the door. Our experience is that “warming” prospects first with such a campaign increases telemarketing productivity by 30% to 40%. You can reference the campaign to draw prospects into a relationship and a peer to peer conversation. If they read the campaign material, the prospects may be better informed than they would be if no touch preceded the call.

10. Track All Touch Metrics

Because marketers are so busy, tracking and metrics sometimes get left in the dust. Don’t allow this to happen. Metrics are your best friend when it comes to gauging the success of campaigns and allow you to learn by comparing different approaches and their effect on the lead to sales conversion pipeline. Metrics are also the only way to justify your budget and very existence.

Set up your campaigns with the idea of testing and benchmarking tactical campaign results foremost in your mind. Make sure your systems for tracking are in place before you launch, and that Marketing and Sales are in a position to freely share and compare data status. Constantly monitor funnel conversion rates and stay current on where you stand vis á vis the master plan and sales goals. Figure 3 presents a sample tracking form based on Excel.

Figure 3: Analyze Key Performance Indicators, Compare to Plan, Make Adjustments           as You Go

Source: Direct Marketing Partners

11. Acquire/Develop Comprehensive Lead Management Resources

Implement a lead management system and team that give you end-to-end visibility into all of your campaigns. Lead management is critical to staying on track with your plan and your quotas.

Important: Get the manual process working first, before you automate. If you purchase the software first, you may discover that the software doesn’t have all the capabilities you want. Refine the process, then buy the right automation tools.

Multi-touch marketing is complex. Some prospects will be touched dozens of times by multiple touch vehicles. Track them all. (If you can find marketing automation software that tracks both online and off-line touches, so much the better. Many software packages track online only, which provides only a partial picture.)

You will need a skilled and experienced team to make this work. Whether you contract this work with a lead management services firm or bring it in-house is less important than making sure you have the right skill levels.

Monitor touch streams closely and fix any problems as they arise. One of the advantages of having real metrics is that they allow you to respond quickly when things aren’t going as anticipated. And yes, this does happen. By monitoring the funnel conversion metrics you can identify which approaches worked the best, what approaches should be repeated and which discarded.

In our next installment, we’ll examine a real-world case study of a firm that shifted to multi-touch, multi-channel marketing and added email and tele-prospecting sequences, reducing touch requirements down to four to five touches (versus the seven to 13+ that we’ve been discussing) while increasing their sales pipelines.

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This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., and Tom Judge, vice president Strategy at Direct Marketing Partners.

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 Californiawww.DMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

Tom Judge

Direct Marketing Partners (DMP) is a lead management and lead funnel tele-qualification services provider for B2B selling firms. Services include multi-touch peer to peer tele-prospecting and email lead gen campaigns with marketing automation and funnel metrics to optimize lead-to-sale conversions. Tom Judge provides strategic guidance for DMP clients and educational workshops on optimizing B2B lead-to-sales funnels for companies and at industry conferences. He also serves as the Vice President DMA Northern California Chapter, Contributor at Sales Lead Management Association www.salesleadmgmtassn.com, Program Chair for the NorCal BMA Sales Lead Roundtable www.norcalbma.org, former Instructor on Sales Lead Management, San Jose State University and UC Professional Development Programs.

The post Why It Takes 7 to 13+ Touches To Deliver a Qualified Sales Lead (Part 4) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

If you’ve followed our first two posts on this subject, you understand why it can easily take 13 or more “touches” to convert a prospect into a sales-ready qualified lead. But there are some ways to shorten the process. In this installment we’re going to examine four of those ways.

1. Plan with the Perfect Customer in Mind

We recommended in Part 2 that Sales and Marketing agree on the Perfect Prospect Profile. This includes the prospect’s position, role in the buying process, how they go about solving their problems, authority/influence on purchasing decisions, urgency and the level of need for your solution. Because today’s large purchases are often a team effort, be sure to profile every member of a typical purchasing team, which may include four to five members.

This involves a review of the historical sales data. Segment it by customer types and review the profitability data for each. Be sure that you have a thorough understanding of the buying process, and that all relevant “buyer-personas” are included. Determine what percent of prospects are converted from basic leads into “sales-ready” qualified leads. Of these, determine what percent then convert from qualified leads to paying customers. (Sales may already have this data on hand.) These are both important KPIs to identify.

Once you have built personas for each member of the buying team, develop relevant messaging for each of them. If at all possible, it would be helpful to interview some customers in each position about their concerns and role in the purchasing process to gain more insight.

2. Clearly Define a “Sales-Ready Qualified Lead”

Sales-ready criteria are defined by Sales, not Marketing, so you need to turn to your good friends in Sales to get this information. Develop your qualification criteria to include data points required by the Sales team to stage a sales campaign with a high probability of closing that perfect customer.

As we outlined in our Lead Generation Guide, digital profile data alone is too limited, as is web traffic scored leads. And we have already discussed that prospects are reluctant to provide detailed information on a landing page until they feel sufficiently comfortable about the B2B relationship. So it’s time to unplug and get into a peer-to-peer dialog with prospects via those old-fashioned devices, the telephone and the human touch. Remember, this is a pre-sales discussion; it’s not yet in the hands of the sales person.

By taking a personalized approach to the conversation, you can begin to build a pre-sales relationship that may inspire a prospect’s confidence to the point where s/he may now be willing to share information such as:

• What are the challenges or business issues they are facing?
• What is their sense of urgency to resolve?
• What are they doing today?
• What alternatives are they looking at?
• Job title and role in the buying process?
• Current stage in the buying/research process?
• Time frame to purchase?
• Size of opportunity?
• Existing budget (or do we need to build a business case?)
• Is the prospect willing to talk to your sales rep? (Getting in early provides an opportunity to influence specs! Wait too long and your company is an outsider with slim chances of winning.)
• If they don’t meet the sales-ready condition yet, then move them into a 1:1 nurture track until ready and don’t waste the sales team time resources.

3. Quantify your “Sales-Ready” Lead Quota

Ultimately, it all comes down to numbers. Well-thought-through numbers are what you need to convince Management that Marketing requires additional resources to implement a pre-qualification program to impact sales.

Figure 1 illustrates a simple lead requirements calculator. Starting with your organization’s annual sales revenue goal, break it down into revenue per quarter and average revenue per sale. That will tell you how many sales per quarter must be closed to meet sales goals. You can also create lead generation requirements models by territories, division or numbers of product deals, etc.

Figure 1: Sample Lead Requirements Calculator

Source: Direct Marketing Partners

From the historical sales data that you have analyzed, you can fill in the percentage of prospects converted to qualified sales-ready leads, and the percentage of those qualified leads that convert to sales. This will tell you how many sales-ready qualified leads Marketing must produce per quarter and per month to meet sales objectives. It’s our observation that most firms miss this important step in their plans!

Now you can calculate the resources Marketing will need to take on the added task of pre-qualifying leads for Sales. And you can calculate the ROI of adding these resources, whether contracted from a vendor, or by hiring. This is the kind of hard data Management will need and demand to allocate additional resources to Marketing.

Don’t be afraid to play with the numbers. Run them bottom-up and top-down. Create different models for different buying scenarios. Look at the sales steps and current conversion rates. Then create your comprehensive multi-touch demand generation, nurturing and lead qualification plan to feed your company’s sales funnel with confidence.

4. Align Sales, Marketing and Management with Your Lead-to-Sale Plan

Starting with the Perfect Prospect Profile, make sure that your Sales partners and Management are completely on board with your program—in writing. It’s especially important that Sales or channel reps have signed off on a commitment to engage sales-ready prospects within a certain period of time, and that this is all tracked in the CRM system. Your best efforts will go for naught if Management doesn’t allocate the proper resources, or if Sales lets your hot, sales-ready qualified leads slip out of the sales funnel.

In our next installment, we’ll discuss more ways to shorten the seven to 13 touches to make this process even more efficient.

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This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., and Tom Judge, vice president Strategy at Direct Marketing Partners.

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. She 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.

Tom Judge

Direct Marketing Partners (DMP) is a lead management and lead funnel tele-qualification services provider for B2B selling firms. Services include multi-touch peer to peer tele-prospecting and email lead gen campaigns with marketing automation and funnel metrics to optimize lead-to-sale conversions. Tom Judge provides strategic guidance for DMP clients and educational workshops on optimizing B2B lead-to-sales funnels for companies and at industry conferences. He also serves as the Vice President DMA Northern California Chapter, Contributor at Sales Lead Management Association www.salesleadmgmtassn.com, Program Chair for the NorCal BMA Sales Lead Roundtable www.norcalbma.org, former Instructor on Sales Lead Management, San Jose State University and UC Professional Development Programs.

The post Why It Takes 7 to 13+ Touches To Deliver a Qualified Sales Lead (Part 3) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Marketing Automation Challenges

Many companies invest tens of thousands of dollars a year in marketing automation software. They are promised better tracking and easier nurturing. They’re made to feel that all they need to do is “use the system” and all of their marketing problems will be solved. This all sounds good and sells lots of software, except it doesn’t necessarily work that way. There are two reasons. First, prospects don’t always comply with filling out registration forms. Second, marketing automation software has a very difficult time identifying truly qualified prospects—the kinds the Sales Department really wants to call. In effect, companies are letting the marketing automation system replace good marketing strategy that seeks to provide a steady stream of leads that the Sales Department that will accept and act upon.

The whole premise of marketing through marketing automation software is: a) you will be able to identify your product purchase decision maker from a prospect list or inbound responders; and b) the prospect will respond to your offer and fill out a registration form to get that offer; and c) that prospect will be a qualified lead or can be nurtured through email and informational assets to become a qualified lead. These premises have some serious risks and flaws.

Prospects Are Rejecting Registration Forms

Prospects are increasingly rejecting filling out registration forms. We’ve seen a marked decrease in forms being filled out. Why? There may be a number of reasons. Perhaps they don’t want to be bothered by a sales person calling them. Or they aren’t ready to read or view your offer. Or, they get interested in your product and decide to go straight to the website. In these scenarios, they have completed evaded your marketing automation system.

Prospects Are Stuck at the Top of the Funnel

Even if someone fills out the registration form that feeds into the marketing automation system, a minority will mature into Sales-accepted leads. Why? Perhaps they are still researching their product decisions. Or they may be reviewing several products. Or they filled out the registration form for your offer, BUT they are not the individuals who really make the product purchase decision. What happens to them? They may get a few nurture emails, which they may or may not read. However, they stay stuck at the top of the funnel until you do something to move them down.

Let’s say a campaign gets lots of leads coming into the marketing automation system. The “prospects” fill out the registration form for a white paper. They may even visit the website and view a video, which also gets recorded in their data record. The marketing automation software gets filled with thousands and thousands of leads rattling around in it. But the Sales Department will ignore 95% of them. Why? Salespeople will prioritize leads where they have some idea of budget, authority, needs and timeline for purchase…known in marketing circles as (BANT) criteria. It’s very difficult—if not impossible—to get prospects to tell you their BANT information through registration forms, even if they fill out multiple forms asking progressive questions.  See Chart 1 for an illustration of BANT criteria.

Chart 1: BANT Plus Sales Ready Leads Criteria

So what has happened?  Marketing automation has replaced a realistic marketing strategy. A realistic marketing strategy looks at the target marketplace and seeks to find prospects who meet the BANT criteria revered by Sales.

The Answer

How do we solve this problem? The answer is to slave the marketing automation system to the marketing strategy. For inbound marketing, where you have leads coming in from various campaigns and events, feed them into the marketing automation system to nurture with a few email offers. But don’t sit on those laurels. Actively nurture them through a multi-touch teleprospecting effort, seeking to start a conversation. This can go in a lot of different directions. Some will fit BANT criteria right away and can be passed along to the Sales Department immediately. Most, however, will have various objections, or need further information, or may not be the decision-maker. Teleprospecting and email touches can provide them the additional information they may need. Or get a referral to the person who does make the product purchase decision. All the while, teleprospecting will be pushing more and more sales-accepted leads with detailed BANT criteria, to the Sales Department.

Outbound Marketing

For outbound marketing, if on average .5% to 2 % of any prospect list immediately raise their hand by responding to your campaign and registering on a registration form, then you have a choice of accepting that mediocre inbound response—or doing something more about it.  We suggest actively nurturing with multiple touches that include teleprospecting out to that list. Teleprospecting can uncover people in your list who didn’t recognize your initial campaign or respond to it. It can identify people on the list who aren’t the right decision maker, but who will refer you to someone who is. Or uncover people who may need your product but want more information before they can decide to proceed. With teleprospecting, you’ll find that any decent list can yield 5% to 10% qualified leads by actively teleprospecting into it and nurturing with calls and emails.  In my experience, you’ll never get this kind of productivity through using marketing automation alone. The Demand Waterfall created by Sirius Decisions indicates that teleprospecting is a necessary step between marketing automation and the Sales Department, no matter whether you are doing inbound or outbound marketing.  See Sirius’ Demand Waterfall in Chart 2.

Chart 2:  Sirius Decisions Demand Waterfall

Source:  Sirius Decisions

You might ask, ”Why do outbound campaigns in the first place if the real answer is to do teleprospecting?” We have found that the better the outbound campaign, whether it is an email—or even better, a combination of email and direct mail—the more productive teleprospecting will be. In fact, we’ve calculated teleprospecting to be 30% more effective with good quality campaigns going to the same contacts in advance.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation software connected to sales force automation software can help you coordinate multi-touch marketing by maintaining and coordinating the database as you execute the nurturing and calling needed to gather BANT information and distribute it to Sales. This makes the software the “slave” of the strategy, rather than the replacement for the strategy—and accelerates lead generation goals more rapidly for higher sales.

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About the Author

This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct 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 CaliforniaDMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

The post Why Marketing Automation Challenges May Be Killing Good Marketing appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has become a search engine optimization agency for Cloud Cruiser. The initial work will focus on keyword and key phrase research, content and layout strategy, website technical and architecture analysis, website link building, and social media optimization.

About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, print advertising, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and 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 emaillbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Cloud Cruiser (CloudCruiser.com ) offers an innovative cloud financial management solution that was built from the ground up for the cloud economy. It maximizes freedom of choice for our customers, as they transition to the cloud, by providing dynamic financial intelligence across heterogeneous IT environments. Our solution is used by finance and IT professionals within enterprises and cloud service providers for achieving the low cost promise of the cloud and maximizing profitability.

Contact:

Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

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Symptoms of the decline: Over the past four months we’ve noticed a pronounced trend: prospect lead form submissions are declining in raw numbers and in percentages of clicks-to-submissions. Yet other forms of campaign measurement, such as inbound calls and web activity, are rising. We’ve noticed this in the context of several different campaign types and companies, so we’re convinced it isn’t a trend restricted to one type of campaign or industry.

For example, we recently helped a client create a banner ad campaign that ran on multiple web properties. The clicks exceeded any other banner ad campaign we’ve run on same properties and for similar offers. However the submission of prospect information to lead forms were subpar. The client was left scratching their heads, until they discovered a radical spike in traffic on the product pages on the corporate website, which coincided with this campaign. They wondered if there were any other factors causing this anonymous web traffic, such as a press release or trade show. After investigating, the client formulated the conclusion that the banner ad campaign was the main, if not the only reason for the spike in web traffic.

For another client, we ran a three-month pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign directing prospects to fill out a form to receive further information. The average cost-per-click was acceptable and overall volume of clicks was on target. However the percentage of lead forms submitted were below industry metrics. We tweaked the form page several different ways, hoping to increase the form submission rate, but nothing seemed to move the needle. We were getting discouraged until we received the call center report and realized that 800# call traffic had gone through the roof during the period of this PPC campaign. We searched for whether there could have been any other reason for this increase (besides the PPC campaign) and we could find none. Our only possible conclusion was that the PPC campaign drove the significant phone traffic.

Four theories on why: Several other oddities in campaign performance over the last quarter lead me to conjecture about what is happening. Why are prospects failing to fill in their contact information on lead forms? I have four theories:

1)    They don’t want a salesperson calling them, so they don’t fill out the form. People suspect that the minute they fill out a registration page form, a salesperson targets their backs. And they’re probably right. Prospects increasingly want to dictate the time and terms of when they have a conversation with sales. They may form an interest in your product due to your campaign, but rather than fill out the lead form, they visit the website or call a sales 800# to get more information. Tip: Use track-able 800#s on your marketing campaigns, so you can attribute from which campaign a lead is coming.

2)    They are browsing on a mobile device, and if the lead form isn’t optimized for mobile, it may simply too hard to fill out. Thirty to sixty percent of browsing activity is from a mobile device. If the lead form isn’t optimized for mobile, then it may be difficult to read and fill out from a mobile device. Tip: Lead forms viewed from mobile need to be narrower in width, have bigger text, shorter forms, and bigger buttons to be more user friendly.

3)    They want to research on their own.  Prospects are taking more control of their information gathering. Instead of responding directly to your campaign, they may instead go to the website or social media to do initial research. Or they may pick up the phone and call you. All of which are good things, but we need to offer good organization and content on the website. Tip: Install an anonymous website visitor tracking system, which will allow you to see from which company IP addresses visitors are coming. Sales can then target those companies in future outreaches.

4)    They are looking for better or different content. Prospects are getting more demanding about the quality and objectivity of the information you provide. They may also be looking for shorter or more in-depth content, depending where they are in their product purchase process. Tip: Provide a variety of content in a multitude of formats. It should be content that suits every phase of the decision process, from short demos to in-depth guides and application notes.

As we lose control of the prospect product research process, we need to provide more convenient, user-friendly ways for them to gather information, talk to the sales department, and evaluate your product on THEIR terms. This means campaign planning involves a lot more than just having a landing registration page form ready when we launch the campaign. We need to make sure all of our ducks are in a row, including an excellent website experience, a variety of well-developed content, and convenient access to speak with a sales rep.

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This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct 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 CaliforniaDMAnc.org. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. 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.

The post Why Have Prospects Stopped Submitting Contact Info on Lead Forms? And What Can You Do about It? appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.