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

It can be a disappointing experience to set up a PPC (pay-per-click) account on Google AdWords or Bing! and see initial success—but then when you try to grow the program You see no improvement (or even a reduction) in the results. Sometimes there seems to be an invisible barrier that allows you to achieve early, easier successes. But, it won’t let you through to the big returns.

When this happens, you need to perform a PPC Optimization Audit on your PPC account. This is to analyze the setup and tune it for maximum performance. But don’t rush to a PPC audit too soon. You need to have your account up and running for at least three months. Six months is even better—or there won’t be enough data to be meaningful.

That being said, it is important to perform a PPC Optimization Audit before you get desperate. You don’t want to wait until things aren’t working to look at how to improve overall account performance to grow your business.

The person who set up the account should not be the person who audits the account. Fresh eyes are needed to catch some of the things you might be missing, question assumptions, and revisit decisions.

Day-to-Day Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

First, revisit the larger issues. Such as, where are your ads are serving, how they are set up, and your goals for the account (and have these goals been achieved?). This will allow you to judge whether or not the account is performing according to expectations. Additionally, it will indicate where the account needs to be tweaked if expectations have not been met.

The big three KPIs are click-through rate, cost per click and cost per lead or sale. All three are important, with cost per sale being the top concern. This is a good place to start, and where a lot of people put their focus.

Click-Through Rate:

Do an in-depth analysis to improve your overall click-through rate on the account. First, start to look at click-through on a keyword-by-keyword level. Often you may have keywords that are high volume but low click-through, dragging down the entire campaign. Identifying these high volume/low performance keywords and segregating them into separate ad groups and campaigns will allow you to focus on the top-performing click-through keywords to maximize potential. Because high volume/low performing keywords generate so many impressions, they can steal funds from more productive, lower volume keywords. There are times to outright kill these high volume keywords, and times to sequester them in different AdGroups where you can control how much you spend on them.

The higher the click-through rate you are able to achieve by doing this, particularly on the most valuable keywords, the higher your Quality Score will be, driving down cost per click and improving your average position.

While driven primarily by click-through rate, there are other factors involving Quality Score (which we will discuss in a future post). Quality Score is important because it determines where you appear on a search page. A high Quality Score results in higher page position and usually lower cost per click. We will be discussing Quality Score in depth during an upcoming post.

Cost per Click:

While it appears attractive and simple as a KPI, it isn’t necessarily the most accurate way to measure your account’s performance. Cost per click is often viewed in the aggregate, whether at the ad group, campaign or account level. Again, cost per click is most valuable when analyzing it on a keyword-by-keyword basis. Cost per click needs to be viewed as part of the larger cost per sale/lead equation. It’s important to know how valuable your keywords are on a keyword-by-keyword basis and how that relates to the eventual cost per sale/lead. Some high CPC keywords will attract more qualified customers, while lower CPC may attract more clicks, but convert fewer prospects. The average cost per click of the keywords reflect this; high-frequency/low CPC keywords can sometimes be more expensive than the lower frequency, higher CPC keywords with a stronger conversion rate. Focusing strictly on cost per click doesn’t tell you the whole story about how keywords are actually performing.

Cost per Sale or Lead:

We view this as one of our core metrics. Understanding cost per sale is vital to running an effective campaign over the long term. However, not all sales or leads are equal. As you are performing the account audit, look at the various units in your account—AdGroups, keywords, the ads—and map keywords to your cost per sale metric. Also consider the value of the sale. Is it a one-off or does it have higher value over time? Even if it is a one-off, is it a low revenue sale or high revenue sale? Figure out how to restructure your account to get good, smart, easy-to-use units that you can aggregate into one AdGroup. Give it a budget that will reward that value and form other groups with lesser-value keywords where you can control the costs.

Other Factors To Consider

Overall Impression Share:

Looking at all impressions for a single keyword, what percentage of these are you getting? Having a low Quality Score for the keyword can impact this. Quality Score reflects how relevant a given keyword is, based on its click-through rate, its relevance to the language of your ads and the final landing page(s).

Conversion Rate:

This is the conversion rate once people get to the website. Many people look only at the wide end of the funnel metrics (CTR, CPC, etc.), where the traffic starts, but forget to look at the narrow end—how the individual landing pages perform once a prospect gets to the site. There may be landing page elements that are causing drop-offs in conversions, which you can observe as partially completed forms and abandoned shopping carts. A good, hard look at landing page performance will often allow you to dramatically improve conversion rates and make your marketing dollars work more effectively.

Network Settings, Overall Account Settings:

Some of the elements you should examine include:

• The default setting for new campaigns is “Display Select.” This means that your ads will be displayed next to content on a publisher site along with being shown next to search results on Google. This generates a lot of traffic, but can drive down click-through rates overall because content ads are by nature interruptive; they requires diversion of the user’s attention from the content users are interested in. When your ads appear on the “search” network, they will be more productive because they appear in front of a person who is actively looking for what you are offering.
• If you want to be on the Display Network, examine where your ads are actually appearing and assure that the sites are relevant to your offer. This may curtail reach (and therefore traffic), but this is likely to result in lesser reach with better results, which is desirable.
• When using the display network, some graphic/display ads will work better than text results alone. Focus on immediately attractive offers. You need attention-grabbing graphics and copy to be effective here.

Are You Taking Advantage of Different Device Types?

If your ad is designed for the generous real estate of a desktop computer screen, it will probably not do as well on a mobile pad or smartphone. If you are targeting mobile devices, be sure to include location-specific ads, click-to-call and other techniques designed to optimize mobile ads.

Timing and Seasonality:

Analyze your account performance through the lens of whether your business is 24/7, or if there are days of the week and hours in the day that achieve better results. If the latter is the case, you may be paying for ads appearing on days or at times that don’t produce results. Adjust the timing, save money, and get more out of your investment.

If you have a nationwide business, you need to assure that your ads are set to run at appropriate times in each time zone. Remember that Google sets up the time zone on your account at its inception and this cannot be changed. Every ad you run under a schedule will be served based on this original time zone. You have to consciously set ad timing for other zones so that they are serving when your customers are looking for your products.

Localization:

Google rewards advertisers who go the extra mile by localizing their ads. For example, if you are advertising in France, Google will prioritize French language ads first. Your English language ad will trail far behind. This is a natural reflection of Google’s focus on delivering the best user experience possible—because that is what makes the most money for Google. Make sure that your landing pages are in the local language as well.

Using Ad Extensions on Google AdWords:

Ad Extensions will allow you to add a number of features to your ads, including click-to-call and location-based extensions that tie into a retail store. You can also set up ads so that online reviews show up next your ad. Site Links Extension can allow for additional pages from your site to appear with your ad if it is in the top two ads on the search results page. These often get double-digit click-through rates.

Using Google’s Upgraded URL Structure:

You can apply a template tracking tag set across the entire account that automatically appends to all URLs. This feature is very new, having rolled out on July 1, 2015.

A periodic PPC Optimization Audit of your PPC account will be highly beneficial. You can trim the deadwood activities, focus your dollars on the most productive areas, and lower your cost per lead or sale. More important, you can gain greater insight into what is driving your business and how best to approach it.

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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 19 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’s Extension in Silicon Valley.

The post How To Do a PPC Optimization Audit on Your Account appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

by Laurie B. Beasley, president, Beasley Direct Marketing

This is Part 1 of a Multi-Part Blog Series Derived from Our New Guide “How To Market Complex Products & Services”) 

Selling complex products and services is difficult. Direct salespeople have a tough job because they have to get on the radar screen of a busy professional who may initially have no interest in their product or service, deliver a selling message, handle questions and objections, and ultimately get some act of commitment. You can make their work much easier by delivering prospects who are already engaged and somewhat knowledgeable. Direct salespeople often resort to “systems” to help them focus and build their confidence.

Here’s a typical sequence called “Track Selling” which was developed by Roy Chitwood of Max Sacks International, a sales training organization. As you read, think of how your marketing communications can support or even replace each step.

1. Approach. As the salesperson initiates the conversation, they need to get the potential buyer invested in the sales call so that the prospect will not become distracted and inattentive. This is exactly what you should be doing with creative message and execution, starting with your outer envelope teaser or email subject line.
2. Qualification. Does the prospect have the proper buying authority? If not, can they tell you who does? You can do much of the qualification through your target audience lists and the qualifying questions you ask on your contact form.
3. Agreement on Need. The selling can’t begin until the buyer agrees they need what’s being sold. Your role is to present strong benefits, tied to reader pain points and deficits, in your messaging.
4. Sell the Company. Why isn’t this step #1? Because, until need has been established, it doesn’t matter who you are. Now you have to prove you are capable of filling the need. This is typically done in real time by the salesperson, but you can support it by the professionalism of your presentation and possibly by including credibility messages (like client list and testimonials) in your copy.
5. Fill the Need. This is what the salesperson is paid to do. But you can support them by providing interested, educated prospects to begin with.
6. Act of Commitment. Salespeople know it’s much easier to get a sale when the prospect has agreed to a smaller commitment (the trial close). And you’ll deliver that first “yes” by getting a response to your mail, email or telesales call.
7. Cement the Sale. The sale won’t stand up if the buyer develops FUD (fears, uncertainties and doubts) after the salesperson leaves the building. You can help prevent FUD by providing a clear and realistic picture of what a buyer can expect.

Salespeople also have to handle objections—specific concerns the prospect may have about the suitability of the product, about its price, about the credibility of the offer. They do this in real time, but sometimes you as the marketer can anticipate likely objections through your research and head them off in your messaging.

In the next installments of this blog series, we will delve into more detail on how to market complex products and services through deliberate use of appropriate language, rewarding your audience, planning a campaign, and developing measuring results. At the end of the series, we’ll provide a case study that demonstrates how all this works in the real world of B2B marketing.

Get free Digital Marketing Case Studies here.

Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

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.

The post 7 Steps to Answer Customer Objections in Your Lead Generation Campaigns (Part 1) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts: Laurie B. Beasley, president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., will be teaching a six-week, live online course on Demand Generation & Lead Conversion for the National Direct Marketing Association starting May 2, 2014. Register now.

The pressure for B2B marketers is on. Modern B2B buyers have an increasing tendency and capacity to research purchasing decisions online long before they engage with Sales. They are empowered with information, and winning over modern B2B buyers requires organizations to revolutionize their marketing approach. This course will help today’s B2B marketer set goals with the Sales department, manage the touch points for lead qualification and optimize communication channels.

Practical challenges will be addressed, such as:

Challenge: Did you know? On average, it takes 6.8 people to make a decision in a 100 person company. The buying committee is changing marketing.

Solution: Learn how to segment your lists and craft messages to better target decision makers during this six-week course.

Challenge: Sales teams demand higher quality “sales-ready” leads to hit their numbers. It can take 7 to 13+ big touches to generate a qualified Sales opportunity. The marketer is on the hook to manage and deliver qualified leads.

Solution: We’ll discuss what marketing automation can do to help the process, and more importantly, how to make it fit in with your strategic goals.

Challenge: Is lack of resources your go-to excuse for lack of effective lead generation campaigns and qualified leads?

Solution: We’ll also talk about the analytics and reporting needed to track your efficiency and adjust resources.

Join Laurie Beasley from the comfort of your own desk, for an interactive, hands-on 90 minutes filled with case-studies, six Fridays, beginning May 2nd through June 13th to gain the skills you need to meet your strategic goals. Register now.

Instructor Bio:

Laurie B. Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for over a hundred companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president of the DMA Northern California Chapter.

 
 
 
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, 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.

The post Laurie Beasley to Teach 6-Week Online Course on Demand Generation&Lead Conversion for the National Direct Marketing Assn. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

• Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has become an email marketing agency for OpenTable. Work will focus on email strategy, email deliverability, and execution of several email marketing programs.

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, 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.

OpenTable OpenTable.com is the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, seating more than 14 million diners per month via online bookings across approximately 31,000 restaurants. The OpenTable network connects restaurants and diners, helping diners discover and book the perfect table and helping restaurants deliver personalized hospitality to keep guests coming back. The OpenTable service enables diners to see which restaurants have available tables, select a restaurant based on verified diner reviews, menus and other helpful information, and easily book a reservation. In addition to the company’s website and mobile apps, OpenTable powers online reservations for nearly 600 partners, including many of the Internet’s most popular global and local brands. For restaurants, the OpenTable hospitality solutions enable them to manage their reservation book, streamline their operations and enhance their service levels. Since its inception in 1998, OpenTable has seated more than 575 million diners around the world. The Company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and the OpenTable service is available throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the UK. OpenTable also owns and operates toptable, the leading consumer destination site for restaurant reservations in the UK.

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 Service Agency for OpenTable 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.

* * * *

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.

* * * *

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.

In our first post on this topic, we examined why Marketing is generating too few sales-ready qualified leads and our solution to the problem; Marketing must take on the responsibility of pre-qualifying leads to a higher level prior to passing them along to Sales. Remember, sales resources are expensive and precious resources that we want to optimize. And studies prove that highly qualified “sales-ready” leads have a much higher lead acceptance rate and conversion rate into sales. However, developing leads to this level is no easy task. It can take seven to 13+ touches to generate sales-ready, qualified leads.

In this post, we’re going to explore one of the primary reasons it takes so many touches. Sales requires a lot of data to determine whether the lead is qualified or not. This data is hard to get in one or two—or even three—touches. We’re going to look more closely at the data that Sales requires to consider a lead “sales-ready qualified,” and the importance of a multi-touch lead qualification process.

What is BANT Data?

BANT stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe (within which the lead needs/wants to purchase). (See Figure 1.) Note that BANT represents the categories of information that each company must customize for its unique sales scenarios. You must specify your company’s version of what BANT means at your company. And yes, it’s okay to rename your sales-ready criteria—just be sure to customize it.

The reason for all this is simple economics. A salesperson needs all or most of this information to determine if the prospect is a sufficiently qualified opportunity to stage a sales campaign with his/her limited resources. It sounds simple, but obtaining this information is a multi-step process.

Figure 1: A Prospect without BANT Data Is Just a Name to the Sales Team. Low-Value Leads Will Not Be Pursued.

BANT criteria will vary from one company to the next. Not all BANT data may be available and some will be more important than others. For example, knowing need, timeframe and next steps may lead to a greater sense of urgency. When you’re on the phone with a prospect you may also find out more valuable information to prime the lead for Sales, such as: What is the prospect’s desired outcome; Who is on buying team; When the prospect needs to buy; what stage in the buying process they’re in; what information they need that we can deliver for each stage in buying process.

Warning: as you evolve into more advanced levels of information exchanges, you must “earn the right” to ask these questions. This is NOT a salesperson discussion yet and prospects will rarely give this detail on line or on a web form landing page. You’ll need a peer-to-peer level pre-sales lead development conversation to insert your company’s value and create a credible relationship. Once the sales-ready information is gathered and the score moves into the “Qualified” zone, then you’ll want the tele-qualification rep to close on the first meeting appointment with the sales team. The value to your sales team is that a sales-ready lead is delivered along with a positive relationship.

Setting Up the Sales Qualification Data

The Sales Department defines what criteria are required for a sales-ready prospect, not the Marketing team. So when you are designing a pre-qualification data gathering process, you must work very closely with Sales. As we mentioned in our last post, Sales and Marketing aren’t always in synch, and there may be a considerable credibility gap. The first step is to develop a good working relationship with Sales.

In some successful cases, Marketing and Sales have actually created a “contract” of mutual support where the responsibilities of each department in supporting the other are spelled out. This document includes what Sales considers sales-ready criteria. It also states that If Marketing delivers on this higher caliber criteria, the Sales team will engage in the sales process within a stipulated timeframe—no exceptions.

Create a “Perfect Prospect Profile” that Sales and Marketing can both agree upon. Review the historical sales data (you’ll need that good partnership with Sales to get this). Segment by customer types and review the profitability data for each segment. Understand the buying process in your industry, where customers go for information and how they typically purchase. (There are often several members of a buying team, and each may have his/her own agenda for the purchase.) Then build a buyer persona with the relevant messaging tracks for each segment.

People Buy from People

Marketing automation is great, and can be of tremendous assistance in automating some of the grunt work of the marketer. We endorse marketing automation tools, but in the B2B sales world, the fact is that 90% of inbound leads never turn into qualified sales opportunities because people buy from people, not from software. In addition, people are very reluctant to fill out response forms because they don’t want to have salespeople interrupting their day with phone calls and emails. In any case, most people will provide only limited information online, if any.

Once a response form has been filled out, now is the time to engage in peer-to-peer discussions with the prospect. Start by building a relationship. Launching immediately into the BANT questions (Are you the purchaser? Do you have approved budget?) is a turnoff. First leverage the digitally collected information as a bridge to determine where the prospect is personally. Open-ended questions (rather than buttons on a web form) will accelerate this qualification process. What problem is the prospect trying to solve? Where does it hurt? What is going on in their world that triggered the need? What would be their perfect solution if they could describe it? Are they collecting information for a team? What’s their timeline they are working with? What information would you need from us to be considered as your solution? Great phone/social skills are a huge plus here. And for most Sales teams, the earlier your prospect is in the buying process, the better—it gives your team a chance to be consultative and influence the specs, thereby gaining the inside track. Once you have enough data to determine BANT, try to move the prospect toward meeting with a sales rep. As a result of this process, most real prospects will see the meeting as a mutual best next step, and that’s where most Sales teams want to be.

Marketing automation systems score the digital data collected from response forms, etc., but we believe that by itself, digital scoring is inadequate. Some claim this can be resolved by doing progressive profiling within marketing automation, but we have observed it is very difficult (if not impossible) to get the critically important BANT criteria established using progressive profiling and as we’ve said, prospects typically are not willing to divulge this information on lead forms. Devise a way of scoring non-digital data obtained via professional peer-to-peer phone conversations and other research. Figure 2 shows how digital and non-digital data can be combined to determine whether a prospect is sales-ready, and to add significant competitive advantage for the sales team, which will also boost lead acceptance rates and in turn, sales closure rates. This is the new “best practices” model for B2B selling firms. If you can get to this point, your firm will be at the top of its industry.

Figure 2: Sample of BANT+ Sales-Ready Lead Data.

Source: Direct Marketing Partners

To further support these advanced levels of B2B lead development process Sirius Decisions added the tele-prospecting touch process into their highly respected lead-to-sales waterfall process. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3: Tele-Qualification Increases the Quality of Sales Leads.

Source: Sirius Decisions

In our next installment on this topic, we will cover ways to shorten the lead-generation process, including ways to align Sales, Marketing and Management with your lead-qualification program.

* For more on this topic, please see our blog post, “Why Marketing Automation May Be Killing Good Marketing.”

 * * * *

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 Mgmt. . San Jose State University and UC Prof Dev. Programs.

The post Why It Takes 7 to 13+ Touches To Deliver a Qualified Sales Lead (Part 2) appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Delivering a Qualified Sales Lead

You might think we’re exaggerating. However, we’ll show you how easy it is to reach 13 or more touches just to get to the point where a lead has provided enough information about his or her situation to be certain that the lead is really a “sales-ready lead” and not just a suspect name. Before we get to the seven to 13+ touches, let’s examine why the majority of today’s B2B “leads” never become prospects: the disconnect between Marketing and Sales. Nail the following and you’ll be miles ahead of your competition.

Sales and Marketing Live in Separate Worlds

According to CSO Insights, the average number of sales reps making their quotas was 63% for 2012. While only 42% of firms met or exceeded their 2012 revenue goals. Yet 92% of firms are raising their revenue goals for 2013—and more than 40% of firms indicate the increases are 15% or more. We can safely say there is a widening gap between Management’s revenue expectations and demands and Sales’ and Marketing’s ability to deliver. Unfortunately, instead of teaming up, Sales and Marketing are also experiencing a widening gap of credibility. Marketing points to the huge number of leads entered into the marketing automation system to prove that Marketing is doing its job. Sales points to the poor quality of the leads to prove that Marketing is not doing its job. Forrester Research says that low-quality leads create sales problems. Essentially, Marketing is pouring unqualified leads into the top of the sales funnel. Sales reps aren’t following up on the leads because there is not enough opportunity background data associated with each lead to justify real sales efforts. Time really is money in the sales business, and no sales rep will waste time on a lead unless they know that the person in question has some version of budget access, authority and—most of all—need for the product and a timeframe within which they plan to purchase. As Forrester sees it, warm suspect leads are falling out of the middle of the funnel, forcing Marketing to scramble to replace the leads and giving Sales very few real sales-ready opportunities with which to work. (See Figure 1.) Sales and Marketing are disconnected, and few leads are actually converted. Marketing costs go up, sales go down, and needless to say, Management is not pleased.

The Funnel

Figure 1: Low-Quality Leads from Marketing Create Problems for Sales

Source: Forrester Research

Most Prospects Never Receive Enough Touches

Why do warm leads drop out of the lead-to-sales funnel? Because they have not received enough touches with information exchanged to convert them to a sales-ready lead. Consider the following typical sequence of developing a sales-ready lead:

1.         Initial email campaign.

2.         Initial direct mail campaign.

3.         Call: prospect not there; leave a message.

4.         Send email follow-up.

5.         Call: prospect is not involved in any way and refers to correct contact in company.

6.         Start over. Call the referred person, leave voice message.

7.         Send email follow up. First email.

8.         Call, after no inbound response: prospect not able to talk then, but schedules another time.

9.         Send email follow up confirming call appointment day and time.

10.       Conference call held. Prospect interested, but wants more information before all the qualification questions on script (which the sales team needs) are completed.

11.       Send personalized email follow up with relevant info. The email may include information on case studies, webinars, and web pages with supporting information about the product. (AKA, mid funnel content.)

12.       Prospect now ready for a peer-to-peer talk about needs/pains, access to budget, purchase authority, level of urgency and timeframe. Now, the scoring data says the prospect is sales-ready qualified!

13.       Email to confirm appointment scheduled with field or inside sales rep, CC rep.

Quickly Get 13 or More Touches

You can get to 13 or more touches very quickly. The problem is that most so-called “leads” rarely receive any touches beyond receiving an email and filling out a response form. Some of those unqualified leads that Marketing tosses into the sales funnel are good potential leads, but they rarely receive enough touches to become qualified. Warning: don’t expect your sales reps to do this pre-sales qualification work. As we said, sales resources are slim and they are also some of the most expensive fixed costs in a company. Need more evidence? Microsoft conducted a study that shows that by the fourth contact, a full 89% of sales people have given up. (See Figure 2.) Figure 2: Most Prospects Never Receive Enough Touches To Become Leads

Source: Microsoft

This is because not enough pre-sales qualification work has been done before Sales receives the lead. Lead-generation and qualification is hard work because it takes time to gather the qualification information and build a relationship with the prospect just to set that critical first appointment. Sales people haven’t got the time—and they won’t spend the time to build a relationship until they have the data that tells them the lead is solid.

If Sales Won’t Work with Unqualified Leads, Who Will?

What can we, as marketers, do about this disconnect? Marketing’s efforts to generate leads, according to Microsoft, are largely being wasted. There are plenty of leads, but most never get to the point where Sales will work with them. Our solution to this problem might seem heretical to some, but we stand by it: Marketing must step up to the job of pre-qualifying leads to this higher level before they are passed on to Sales. “Wait!” you might say. “The Sales Department has always done the qualifying, not Marketing.” But times change, and so do the rules of the game. Historically, Sales and Marketing have often been at odds.* Sales and Marketing must learn how to be each other’s BFF if either wants to meet management’s expectations. Because salespeople will not follow up on unqualified leads, Marketing must step up to the job of pre-qualifying leads by determining the BANT data (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe) or your company’s version of it, for each lead that comes in. This also puts the level of qualification information to be gathered beyond what can be gleaned from marketing automation systems and digital-only methods.

“Hang on!” you might say at this point. “We don’t have the people or the budget to do that kind of thing!” Right. That means you have to get the budget from Management to outsource this function with experts. Or, hire the fixed-cost staff and systems to do it. And you know what that means? You must justify the added expense with some cold, hard facts and numbers that prove the ROI of adding pre-qualification to Marketing’s roster of duties.

More to Come!

In our next posting, we’re going to talk more about BANT data and lead qualification. We’ll share information on how most marketing automation systems ARE NOT able to produce real sales-ready leads. Furthermore, we’ll learn why this happens to most firms. And finally, what adjustments can be done to deliver on the sales-ready promise. In subsequent posts, we’ll show you how to justify the expense of adding pre-qualification of sales leads in the Marketing Department. Also, ways to shorten the lead-generation process, and a couple of case studies that demonstrate the success of our approach will be examined.

* * * *

About the Authors

Laurie B. Beasley

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 and Tom will be presenting a mini-workshop on the topic of boosting qualified lead generation at DMA13.

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 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

For more than 20 years, Direct Marketing Partners has blended the human touch with marketing automation and sophisticated analytics to help our clients go to market and connect with their target audience. Tom Judge’s primary role and responsibility is to provide clients with direct marketing service solutions that best achieve their ROI goals on marketing and sales investments.

Tom Judge

Tom joined DMP in 2005 after fifteen years of consulting, design and implementation of best-practice lead generation and lead management programs. In addition, he is a Marketing Instructor at University of California and San Jose State University with the Direct Marketing Certificate Program.

Tom serves on the board of the Northern California Direct Marketing Association and has spoken and led workshops at the American Marketing Association, Business Marketing Association, Direct Marketing Association and the American Teleservices Association. He holds a degree in Marketing from Southern Illinois University and has performed Graduate work at Webster University, St. Louis, MO. He is a member of the Sales Lead Management Association’s list of the 50 Most Influential Sales Lead Management Professionals.

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