The one thing every organization can do right now to stop 80% of its Leads from vanishing!!

Breakthrough Business Solutions

Table of contents

1. Executive Summary 2. A day in the life of lead attraction 3. Timing is everything 4. Education , repetition & variety 5. Buyer Roles, Buying Stages, Content & Timing 6. Campaign Matrix 7. Conclusion 8. About Breakthrough Business Solutions

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Executive Summary

1. Any lead attraction campaign brings three types of leads : Hot 10% ; Warm 80% ; Cold -10% 2. Sales teams concentrate on the hot leads which bring in immediate sales. And that is natural. They have a monthly target to meet. 3. Sales executives neither have the time, patience, knowledge or skill to nurture the warm leads. As a result the warm leads get neglected, are not nurtured systematically, and they slip through the cracks. For every one sale that comes through the hot lead, another 2 to 3 sales will come through the warm leads. But they are lost because of lack of lead nurturing. 4. The reason is, people buy when theyre ready to buy , not when youre ready to sell. Theres a huge gap between getting the lead and closing the sale. If this gap is closed, the sales process shifts from hunting mode to harvesting mode. 5. This gap is closed by maintaining an ongoing conversation with warm leads. The conversation is carried out by dripping relevant content to prospects over time, helping to educate them, building trust with them and building credibility with them. As a result, when they are ready to move to the next step, they will contact you. 6. The content should be educative and should have variety. It should generate valuable insight on issues that customers and prospects care most about. It should change peoples minds and incite action. 7. These content pieces range from education pieces and industry oriented pieces to consultive pieces and product related pieces. They should come as, monthly newsletters, case studies, whitepapers, testimonials, micro sites, e-books, pod casts, web casts , websites . They should be delivered through email, direct mail, fax, phone, CDs, internet & in person presentations. 8. By creating 30 to 50 pieces of different types, in different formats and delivering through different mediums in a sequential drip, you will have the client in a vice like grip. So, when he is ready to buy, not only will your company be on the top of his mind, he would have formed such a strong trust and credibility for your company that he would buy only from you. 3

A day in the life of Lead attraction

Step 1: Attract leads with a direct mailer, emailer, telecalling, direct response advertising or some other campaign Step 2: Distribute leads to sales executives Step 3: Sales Executives call on the leads Step 4: Sales Executives work with hot leads to close sales Step 5: Throw away, postpone or neglect the leads that arent hot Step 6: Repeat the process Just about every business does this. And its not bad... until one realizes how much money is being left on the table. The fact is, for every deal that is closed, another 3 deals could be closed, if a lead nurturing process was followed. Every time a marketing campaign is run, the leads can be divided into three categories: Leads that are ready NOW (HOT): 10% Leads that arent ready now but will be ready soon (Warm these leads are critical to success): 80% Leads that may never be ready (cold or bad leads): 10% Every smart sales person goes for the low hanging fruit leads that are ready now. This is natural because sales executives have monthly, quarterly targets to meet and the fact is they dont have the time, skill, knowledge or patience to constantly follow up. Theres nothing wrong with spending time with hot leads. The problem is of all those warm leads that get neglected. Of course, everyone says theyre going to follow up with the other leads one of these days, but the fact is, it never happens. And even if it is done, it is not done systematically because it is tedius grunt work. In the meantime, the warm leads get cold and they slip through the cracks. What is needed is a system to follow up like clockwork.

Timing Is Everything

People will buy when theyre ready to buy, not when youre ready to sell. In other words, follow-up with them... consistently! Because if you dont, someone else will land that business. That someone else who lands the business will be the competitor, who either: Followed up religiously; or (more likely) got lucky enough to cross paths with the prospect at the right time. No one wants to leave new business to chance. But the one thing you can control in this situation staying in front of the prospect is probably the single greatest challenge in business. In between getting the lead and closing the sale theres a huge gap. Marketings job doesnt end when the lead is acquired; The sales job doesnt begin and end with a meeting and checking the lead status. Someone has to be in charge of warming the leads that arent hot right now, but will be hot down the road. How does one do that? 1. Send relevant, valuable information to every prospect on a scheduled, recurring basis. 2. Communicate to prospects efficiently, aside from the normal, time-consuming, oneon-one meetings. 3. Log all communications in an organized fashion.

Education, repetition and variety

1. EDUCATION. Follow-ups must provide valuable information. Prospects must believe that you are on their side and should be trusted. Youll accomplish this if you provide them with accurate, insightful information. The sales process is confusing and intimidating for customers. They want to trust you. Give them the information they need and earn their trust. 2. REPETITION. Its a proven fact that human beings have to hear the same thing over and over before it sinks in. You know your products and services like the back of your hand, but your customers dont get it the first time they hear the message. Dont make the mistake of thinking that if a prospect heard the pitch once, they understood it. Chances are, they didnt. Tell them again, and again and again. 3. VARIETY. You need to consistently tell your message. But follow-up message as well as delivery needs variety. To maximize sales, use multi-step follow-up sequences that incorporate direct mail, phone, email, fax, pod cast, web cast, and other media! Some prospects will respond to your call, others to your email or letters and others to your fax. There is serious power that comes when you contact your prospects using multiple methods.

Buyer Roles, Buying Stages, Content & Timing

Dripping out relevant content to prospects over time, helping to educate them and building trust and credibility with them, forms the backbone of lead nurturing program. By touching prospects regularly, helps you keep your company on top of the mind, so that the prospect will contact you when they are ready to move to the next step. To develop effective Stay in Touch campaigns, marketers should focus on four aspects: Buyer Roles Buying Stages Content Timing

Buyer roles
Different people in the organization have different buyer roles. It is necessary to know what those roles are, what their focus is and therefore what kind of information that needs to be provided to them. Economic Buyer He is the person who gives final approval to buy. His focus is always return on investment. How will it impact the organization? User Buyer He is the person who will actually use or supervise the use of the product /service being purchased. His focus is always about the impact of the product/service on the job to be done. There is a direct link between the user buyer success and success of the product/service Technical buyer / influencer He is the person whose role is to screen out. He may not decide who will win, but will definitely decide who can play. Their main focus is on whether the product/ service meets the desired specifications.

Buying Stages
There are four main stages: Awareness: Identify a business need; Consideration: Determine possible solutions; Research: Evaluate different solutions; Purchase: Select a solution and negotiate purchase. The buying process is not a simple, logical, rational and linear process where a prospect moves neatly from one stage to the next; rather, prospects move chaotically forward and backwards through the process as they balance rational decision making with the emotional impacts of fear and risk.

The buyer may or may not be rewarded for making a good purchase, but a bad purchase can damage the buyers reputation and job security. As a result, fear and risk play large roles in B2B buying decisions. Organizational risk can be dealt with rationally, but personal risk is usually unstated and hidden from the rational process. Yet personal risk remains a huge factor in B2B buying. The most important attribute for a B2B vendor is often credibility and trust and the best way to build credibility and trust is by sharing useful information. If you can help frame the discussion, your company will be seen as a trusted advisor. If buyers believe that your company understands their problems and knows how to solve them, this helps reduce the feelings of fear and can make a big difference in being selected for consideration and purchase.

Content
Buyer roles and buying stages come together with content. Content plays a tremendous role in lead nurturing, as it often acts as a stand-in, when a person is not yet sales ready. To ensure relevance, it is critical to focus content on both the buyer role and the buying stage. The content someone would find relevant changes as they move through the process. For example: Educational pieces work well during the early awareness stages. With these pieces, you are simply educating people and sharing best practices. Industry-oriented pieces work well during consideration stage. Examples can be industry overviews, analyst reports, buyers guides, case studies etc. Solution-oriented and company-focused materials are appropriate for research and purchase stage

Timing
Successful lead nurturing depends on getting the frequency of communication right. The timing of lead nurturing campaigns will be different for every company. As a very general guideline, contacting prospects more than once a week is too much and less than once a month is not enough. The timing of your lead nurturing programs are impacted by both the length of average buying cycle as well as the approaches used for lead nurturing (email, direct mail, phone, etc.). Direct mail and email could be considered less intrusive than a phone call, especially if the content of communication is more educational than sales-oriented. Creating 30 to 50 pieces of nurturing content spread across the roles and stages, so that the typical prospect will receive a piece every two to three weeks, and slightly more frequently later in the buying cycle is extremely important.

Campaign Matrix

The goal of this matrix is to provide at-a-glance resource for determining the structure of Stay in Touch campaigns. By completing this matrix, youll ensure that all of your campaign components buyer roles, buying stages, content and timing are effectively aligned with each other so that you can communicate in the most relevant way with your prospects according to their buying stage. Each intersection of the matrix, should map out the content to drip out, according to buyer profile and stage ideally each grid box should have multiple pieces of content over time.

Buying stage Buyer Role Economic Buyer User Buyer

Awareness (Identify a business need)

Consideration( Deter Research( Evalu Purchase( Sele mine possible ate different ct a solution solutions) solutions) and negotiate purchase)

Technical Buyer/Influ encer

Conclusion

Create 30 to 50 information content pieces, (keeping in view the buyer roles and buying stages in mind), in various formats for delivery through various modes. These pieces create trust and credibility because they are informational and educational in nature, rather than being sales oriented. Their delivery to target prospects is also extremely cost effective compared to traditional advertising, which is expensive and cannot be repeated regularly. As a result you and your organisation develop huge authority and are always on top of the mind of the prospects. Since People will buy when theyre ready to buy, not when youre ready to sell, a well thought out, well structured, sequential drip lead nurturing campaign, will lead to increased sales, better sales and repeat sales.

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Marketing Solutions from Breakthrough Business Solutions

Lead Attraction

Sales Force training

Lead Nurturing

Sales force outsourcing

Lead Conversion

P-205, Sector-21, Noida Mob 9811417742

Email: arunpujari@breakthroughsolutions.co.in Blog: makeyourmarketingsweat.com/blog

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1 Lead Attraction : We use an accurate database of the target market and combine it with telemarketing , email marketing , direct mailing and increasingly certain aspects of online marketing, where relevant , to attract necessary number of leads . 2 Lead Nurturing: Using the concept of Education based Marketing we ensure systematic proper follow up of all the leads so that the buyer becomes predisposed to buy only from you. This includes a variety of methods including white papers, position papers, pod casts and webinars. When the prospect is ready , he calls up 3 Lead conversion: We identify the various gaps in the marketing and sales process, and plug those gaps, so that the sales team is able to close more business. 4 Sales force Outsourcing : For a launch of a new product/ service or sales expansion of existing product / service , sales force can be recruited /provided and trained to achieve the clients objectives 5 Sales Force Training: Everything being equal, a trained sales force will bring in more business than an untrained sales force. We help in studying the gaps and providing the relevant sales training to the sales force, to make it more productive.

To know more how we can work together, please call at 9811417742 or email at arunpujari@breakthroughsolutions.co.in

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