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HOW TO BOOST
YOUR COMPANY’S SALES
   WITH MARKETING




 A step-by-step guide to creating
a successful business-to-business
 “marketing for leads” program.
          M. H. “Mac” McIntosh
HOW TO BOOST
                YOUR COMPANY’S SALES
                   WITH MARKETING
                    A step-by-step guide to creating a successful
                business-to-business “marketing for leads” program.




                                             M. H. “Mac” McIntosh

                       M. H. “Mac” McIntosh is one of America’s leading
                     business-to-business marketing and sales consultants
                          and an expert on the subject of sales leads.



               T
                    he primary objective of a successful marketing program is to bring in new
                    business. Marketing programs include many elements, ranging from brand
                    building to market research. But no single part of a business-to-business
               marketing program is more important than generating qualified sales leads.

               “Marketing for leads” drives sales. Done correctly, it will increase the bottom line
               and help the company achieve its growth goals. Marketing programs that are bottom-
               line oriented focus on generating, nurturing and qualifying sales leads.

               In this guide, you will learn, step by step, how to create a successful business-to-
               business marketing for leads program.

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HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING

                DETERMINE GOALS                                 There is a straightforward way to determine
                                                                your company’s sales revenue goals.
              Step 1: Set goals at three levels.                Interview the senior executives at your
                                                                company, either serially or in a joint
              To succeed, your marketing for leads plan         meeting. The executives to interview include
              must reflect sales goals. Therefore, your first   the business and financial decision-makers
              step is to gather information needed to           (e.g., chief executive officer, chief operating
              determine your company’s goals for sales          officer, president, owner, partner, chief
              revenue in the coming year.                       financial officer, controller, head of
                                                                accounting) and the internal customers of
              Sales revenue goals need to be stated at          your marketing programs (e.g., vice
              three levels:                                     president of sales, director of channel sales,
                                                                sales manager).
                                  Minimum
 To succeed, your                 goal. What sales
                                  revenue do you
                                                                Remember, you are looking to determine
                                                                your minimum, target and stretch goals. If
   marketing-for-                 need to stay in               the executives describe the goal in terms of
  leads plan must                 business without              company growth rather than in dollars,
                                  layoffs? How                  convert it into a dollar figure. If the
reflect sales goals much revenue is                             executives say they want the company to be
                                  required to meet              the “biggest” in the industry, look at the
                                  payroll and cover             sales revenue of all your competitors and
         other costs of doing business? What will it            set your sales revenue goal above that of
         take to keep your company’s doors open?                the industry leader.

              Target goal. Where would senior                   If the various executives you interview state
              management like your company’s sales              different opinions about corporate goals,
              revenue to be? If you are at a current run        you will need to negotiate a consensus. This
              rate of $4 million, and they say they want to     may be as easy as pointing out the
              grow 25 percent, your new sales revenue           discrepancy to them. It is not uncommon
              goal is $5 million.                               for the executives to have different answers
                                                                about goals. It is a service to the leadership
              Stretch goal. If your management wants            of the organization when the marketing
              to get really aggressive, what revenue goals      executive is willing to go back and forth
              would they like to achieve? Perhaps               between them to arrive at a unified opinion.
              they would like to double—or even
              triple—your company’s business in the
              coming year.



www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                             Page 3
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING

                CONSIDER NEW BUSINESS

              Step 2: Determine the percentage
              of your company’s revenue that
              needs to come from new business.

              As you state your company’s sales revenue
              goals, consider not only the amount of new
              business you will need to grow to the
              desired level, but also the amount of new                                                                  Step 3: Determine the per-
              business required to replace business you                                                                  centage of your company’s new
              will lose during the targeted period.                                                                      business revenue that needs
                                                                                                                         to come from marketing-gen-
              If your goal is a 25 percent increase in sales                                                             erated leads.
              revenue, how much new business do you
              need to secure? Say your current sales                                                                     The next step focuses on determining
              revenue level is $4 million. At first, it                                                                  how many leads your marketing
              appears you need an additional $1 million                                                                  programs need to generate so that
              in sales to meet the goal. However, if you                                                                 the company can meet its sales
              really need $2 million in sales during the                                                                 revenue goals.
              forecast period just to replace lost business
              and stay even, you will actually need to add                                                               Some people may get involved in an old
              $3 million in new sales revenue to meet                                                                    argument, “Why do we need marketing?
              your goal.                                                                                                 We have a robust sales force that is

                                         How Much New Business Do I Need?
                The following calculation will help you to determine the amount of revenue from new business
                your company will need to generate from marketing leads to meet its revenue goals.

                Your company’s current year’s sales revenue                      ○       ○       ○       ○       ○        ○       ○       ○       ○   ○   ○   ○       ○       ○       ○       ○   ○    $

                The percentage of business you typically lose during the course of the year                                                                                       ○       ○       ○    x     %

                The sales revenue from new business your company must generate during
                the next year just to stay even          ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○       ○       ○       ○       ○       ○        ○       ○       ○   ○   ○   ○   ○       ○       ○       ○       ○   ○
                                                                                                                                                                                                      =$

                Additional sales revenue from new business needed to meet the new
                sales revenue goal   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○   ○       ○       ○       ○       ○       ○        ○       ○       ○   ○   ○   ○   ○       ○       ○       ○       ○   ○   +$

                Total revenue needed from new business to meet sales revenue goal                                                                                 ○       ○           ○       ○   ○   =$




www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                                                                                                                                 Page 4
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING

                        What is the Cost of a Business-to-Business Sales Call?
                   The average business-to-business sales call cost $329 in 2001, according to Cahners
                   Research. This figure is based on responses from 23,341 businesses. Additional key
                   findings of Cahners’ study include the following facts:

                   1. A typical business-to-business sale that exceeds $35,000 takes an average of 5.12 sales calls
                      to close.

                   2. Less than 20 percent of sales efforts focus on prospective new clients.

                   3. The average number of sales calls taken by customers over the phone is 4.61 per week.

                   4. On average, customers have only 1.81 in-person meetings per week with salespeople.

                   5. Seventy-five percent of the companies studied say that making a sale valued at more than $35,000
                             requires a combination of direct and indirect sales efforts.


          capable of bringing in sales. Why bother                      about 40 percent of the new business
          with a complicated marketing plan?” The                       opportunities needed to meet their
          fact is, even with a capable, motivated sales                 company’s sales revenue goal. They develop
          team—which includes a combination of                          sales opportunities through referrals,
                                     salespeople,                       additional projects from past customers,
                                     distributors,                      potential customers they meet at networking
                                     resellers and                      events and past customers who have moved
 We have a robust                    reps—you are                       to new companies.
  sales force that                   generating less
                                     sales revenue                      All of that works well for generating sales
    is capable of                    than you could be                  up to a point. Salespeople working on their
 bringing in sales.                  if you relied on                   own don’t generally reach the other 60
  Why bother with                    the efforts of the
                                     marketing team
                                                                        percent of sales potential for some very
                                                                        good reasons:
   a complicated                     to find new
 marketing plan?                     b u s i n e s s                    • Salespeople’s quotas and compensation
                                     opportunities. In                    programs reward them for bringing in
                                     addition, if you                     short-term sales—this week, this month,
          depend only on the sales team, your cost of                     this quarter. Therefore, they have little
          selling is probably higher than it                              incentive to work the longer-term
          needs to be.                                                    opportunities.

               In any business-to-business sales situation,             • Most people generally hate the rejection
               salespeople typically find, on their own,                  that results from cold calling. Salespeople


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                                            Page 5
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
                are no different. They prefer to spend time
                with prospects that are ready to buy now,
                even though in reality those buyers
                represent only a fraction of sales
                opportunities.

              • Salespeople tend to spend most of their
                time with current customers.

              So how can marketing for leads be used to
              identify the other 60 percent of sales op-          FOCUS ON LEADS
              portunities and make the sales team more
              efficient overall? Lead-generation tactics        Step 4: Determine the definition of
              such as direct mail, telemarketing and            a “qualified sales lead” with which
              events are ideal for finding qualified sales      marketing, sales and corporate
              leads so that salespeople can spend each          management agree.
              sales call where it is most likely to generate
              revenue. Online marketing via websites that       Your goal as a marketer is to help generate
              cater to your target audience is another          sales. Although there are some steps in
              cost-effective way to generate leads.             closing sales that are out of your control,
                                                                what you can do is identify qualified sales
              With the cost of a business-to-business sales     leads up front. If marketing, management
              call rising each year, companies cannot           and sales all agree from the start on what a
              ignore the price tag associated with calling      qualified lead is, there is a better chance
              on prospects. By using the most efficient         that you will generate leads that are valuable
              techniques to generate leads and investing        to the salespeople. It’s important to confirm
              in personal sales calls only when they have       the definition, in writing, with all parties.
              a greater potential to bring you closer to a      The definition of a qualified lead is different
              closed sale, you automatically lower the cost     for each company, and each must do the
              of sales. The role of marketing for leads is      work to define its own meaning of a
              to identify and nurture leads, moving them        qualified sales lead.
              along to a point where the cost of a personal
              sales call, or a series of sales calls, becomes   Typical definitions include criteria such as
              an investment in an actual sale.                  the following:

                                                                • Does the prospect have a need or an
                                                                  application for your product or service?
                                                                • What is the prospect’s role in the decision-
                                                                  making process?

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                             Page 6
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
               • What is the prospect’s timing for purchase     various parts of the country, but it has
                 or implementation?                             recently slashed its travel budget. It can’t
               • What is the status of the prospect’s budget?   afford to send the employees to meetings
               • What is the size of the opportunity?           that require air travel.
                                                                Solution: Your web-based conferencing
          A prospect is a contact at a company who              service would make it possible for the
          admits to a business problem, either latently         company’s employees to meet “virtually” in
          or directly, that could be solved by a product        cyberspace.
          and/or service that you are selling.
                                      Your role, as a           In addition to having a business problem
                                      marketer, is to           that you can solve, qualified leads
 If all agree from                    give the prospect
                                                                • Have an established project in play. This
the start on what a hope of solving   his/her com-                is apparent if a solution task force has
 qualified lead is,                   pany’s problem.             already been appointed or, for a small
                                                                  company, if the inquirer’s boss asked him/
 there is a better                    Here are a few
                                                                  her to find a solution or make a
                                      examples:
  chance that you                                                 recommendation.
will generate leads                      Problem: The           • Have the money to buy a solution, or are
                                                                  in the process of developing a budget.
                                         company’s
 that are valuable                       current disparate      • Plan to purchase within a reasonable
to the salespeople                       computer systems         amount of time.
                                         require employ-        • Have negotiated access to power. In other
                                         ees to perform           words, they can get you in front of the
               redundant data entry, thus wasting time and        appropriate final decision-maker(s)
               reducing efficiency.                               when the time is right.
               Solution: Your software product would
               enable single data entry.                        In addition to defining a qualified lead, you
                                                                should create a glossary of standard terms
               Problem: The company’s managers                  defining what your company considers to
               suspect its truck drivers are wasting time       be a “suspect,” a “prospect,” an “inquiry,”
               on their routes, but they don’t know             a “response,” a “qualified lead,” a
               for sure.                                        “qualified suspect,” a “qualified prospect”
               Solution: Your global positioning system         and so forth. Again, sales, marketing and
               would allow management to track the              management need to agree on the definition
               location of each truck at all times.             of each term. This will avoid confusion later.

               Problem: The company relies on face-to-          Lead scoring can be a valuable tool as you
               face meetings among employees located in         create your qualification definitions. To
                                                                score a lead, assign points based on how

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                            Page 7
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              well the prospect meets each of your lead-       number of leads you should strive for so
              qualification criteria. Consider the following   that you can meet your objectives.
              example:

              • Funding, ready to go             5 points
              • Budget in formulation            3 points
              • No budget for project            0 points
              • Is the decision-maker            5 points
              • Is the recommender               2 points
              • Is an influencer                 2 points
              • Has a clear need for product     5 points
              • Plans to buy within
                six months                       5 points
              • Plans to buy in one year
                or more                          1 point       The Marketing Lead Calculator will ask you
              • Plans to buy $50,000 of                        to answer the following questions:
                product                          5 points
              • Plans to buy less than                         • What is your company’s gross sales
                $100 of product                  0 points        revenue target for the fiscal year? (See
                                                                 Step 1.)
              To score the lead, add up all the points.        • What percentage of your sales should
              Then, for example, those with 20 or more           come from marketing leads? (See
              points are determined to be qualified leads;       Step 3.)
              you should send them to your sales force.        • What is your average sale size (or lifetime
                                                                 value of an average customer)?
                                                               • What is the percentage of sales
              Step 5: Determine how many
                                                                 opportunities your company will win?
              qualified sales leads are needed to
                                                               • What percentage of your inquiries will
              meet your revenue goals.
                                                                 become qualified leads?
                                                               • What response rate do you expect?
              Next, you should determine how
                                                               • What is your expected cost per contact?
              many qualified leads you need to
                                                               • How many salespeople need leads?
              meet your revenue goals. Go to www.sales-
              lead-experts.com/tips/tools to find a
                                                               Using the dollar figures and percentages you
              “Marketing Lead Calculator.” This
                                                               enter, the spreadsheet will automatically
              interactive spreadsheet automatically
                                                               calculate the following:
              performs a series of simple calculations
              based on information you provide about
                                                               • Revenue needed from marketing leads
              your sales goals, close rate, average sales
                                                                 this fiscal year
              price and so forth, to give you a realistic

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                          Page 8
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              • New customers needed this fiscal year          to close a sale. For example, if you have a
              • Qualified leads needed                         six-month sales cycle, you should aim for
              • Total inquiries needed                         twice as many leads as the calculator
              • Total contacts needed                          suggests. Why? Because if it takes six months
              • Contacts per quarter needed                    to close a sale to a lead, half the leads you
              • Contacts per month needed                      will get this year will close too late to affect
              • Lead-generation budget                         the current year’s sales goal.
              • Lead-generation budget as a percentage
                of sales                                       Step 6: Determine how many new
              • Average cost per inquiry                       inquiries are needed to identify
              • Average cost per qualified lead
                                                               enough qualified sales leads to meet
              • Average cost per sale
              • Inquiries needed per salesperson this          your goals.
                fiscal year
              • Qualified leads needed per salesperson         The Marketing Lead Calculator will help you
                this fiscal year                               determine how many new inquiries you
              • Qualified leads needed per salesperson         need to identify so that you will have enough
                per month                                      qualified sales leads to meet your goals.
                                                               (See Step 5.) Research conducted by Mac
              Notice that the Marketing Lead Calculator        McIntosh, Inc., and its clients on business-
              gives you not only the total number of           to-business buying across industries
              marketing contacts, or touches, you require      shows that
              to meet your sales goal, but it also gives
              you the number of contacts needed per            • One in four of those who buy do so within
              quarter and per month. Keep in mind that           six months.
              you can create a steady stream of leads by       • Another one in four buys within the next
              rolling out lead-generation programs every         six months.
              month rather than by launching one large         • Another one in four buys within the third
              program at the beginning or end of the year.       six months.
              In other words, you will be more effective       •The final one in four buys after eighteen
              if you make one-twelfth of your total annual       months.
              contacts per month rather than making the
              majority of contacts in one part of the year.    Simply said, three out of four sales are
              (Furthermore, “contact” and “prospect”           longer-term opportunities. Therefore,
              are not synonymous. You can, and should,         although it may be tempting to create an
              contact certain prospects multiple times         occasional, dramatic marketing program
              throughout the sales cycle. What’s important     that drums up a large number of new
              is how many contacts you make, not how           leads—so you can skim the ones that are
              many people you contact.)                        ready to buy now—you are actually better
                                                               off investing in an ongoing series of
              A final consideration about the Marketing        marketing-for-leads programs.
              Lead Calculator is the length of time it takes

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                             Page 9
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
                                                              business problems have you helped
                                                              customers with in the past? What kinds of
                                                              professional or educational credentials and
                                                              industry experience do your people have?
                                                              What licenses, certifications or approved-
                                                              vendor status does your company hold?

                                                              Step 8: Determine your company’s
                                                              competitive advantages and how
                                                              best to articulate them.
                STRATEGY:
                                                              You need to leverage your company’s
                BUSINESS PROBLEM
                                                              unique selling proposition to articulate for
                AND BUSINESS SOLUTION
                                                              prospects what is in it for them (the
                                                              solution) if they buy from you.
              Step 7: Determine the specific
              business problems your products/                For example, if you are an individual
              services address and the problems               consultant, you could articulate your
              your company is qualified to solve.             competitive advantage by explaining that
                                                              you will not be relegating the prospect’s
              The first step in developing your marketing     business to an inexperienced employee. You
              strategy is to identify the business problems   could also point out that, because you are
              your product or service will relieve. Why       a small company, the prospect’s business
              would somebody buy what you are selling?        will be very important to you—more
              What specific problems does it solve?           important than it would be to a larger
                                                              vendor.
              For example, if you sell filling-line
              equipment to bottling plants, you might         If yours is a large company, you could talk
              solve the problem caused by faulty              about the depth of expertise represented
              integration between the labeling and bar-       by your large staff. Or you could point out
              coding equipment. Or if you are selling tax-    that you wouldn’t have grown so large if
              consulting services, you might solve the        you didn’t provide the highest quality
              economic problem caused by paying too           products or services.
              much in taxes.
                                                              Pinpoint your company’s competitive
              In addition, you need to think about the        advantages by using a SWOT analysis. SWOT
              problems your company and its people are        stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,
              qualified to solve based on your experience     Opportunities and Threats. Start a list under
              and special credentials. What kinds of          each category.

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                        Page 10
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
               Then determine which of those you can do     Competitive advantage: Your company
              something about. Are there threats you can    has a nationwide network of service centers.
              turn into opportunities? An example of a      Articulation: “We can support all your
              threat would be the downsizing occurring      installations, coast to coast, through our
              in prospect companies. You can turn that      nationwide network of technicians.”
              into an opportunity by articulating the
              operational efficiency provided by your       Step 9: Target the best companies
              product or service offering.                  and contacts with your lead-
                                                            generation efforts.
                                      To articulate your
                                      company’s com-        Determine who has the business problem
      Although                        petitive advant-      your products and services address, both
theoretically every                   age, tell custom-     at the level of companies and at the level of
                                                            contacts within those companies.
                                      ers why the ad-
 company in every                     vantage is relevant
   business may                       to them. Here are     Create three lists that rank your current
                                      some examples:        customers using three criteria:
 benefit from your
solution, you can’t                  Competitive            • Gross revenue. Place the largest
                                     advantage:               companies at the top of the list and the
  afford to try to                   Your company             smallest at the bottom.
   be everything                     has the capacity to    • Profitability. List from “most
                                     mass produce             profitable” to “least profitable.” Keep in
    to everyone                      silicon micro-           mind that the most profitable are not
                                     gizmos.                  necessarily those with the most gross
                                     Articulation:            revenue.
              “We can supply all your silicon micro-        • Fit. Which companies represent the best
              gizmos with minimal lead time, thanks to        fit for what you are selling? This ranking
              our annual production capability of             is more subjective than the first two. It
              4,000 tons.”                                    identifies the companies you know well,
                                                              those with business you understand, those
              Competitive advantage: Your company             that are fun to work with, those you
              is the only one in the industry                 understand best and those with which you
              headquartered in the Miami area.                have—or could have—a great working
              Articulation: “We can provide just-in-          relationship. Rank these companies in
              time service for Greater Miami-based            order, descending from the best fit.
              companies because we are headquartered
              in Coral Gables.”                             Your ideal customers are those that are at,
                                                            or near, the top of all three lists. While


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                      Page 11
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              reviewing your existing customers, consider       and buzzwords into your marketing-for-
              the following questions:                          leads materials. This will suggest that you
                                                                do understand the market and its needs.
              • What industries are they in?                    However, be prepared to answer the
              • Are they small, medium or large                 question, “Who else in my industry have you
                businesses?                                     served?” It is bound to come up.
              • Where are they located geographically?
              • What is their Standard Industrial               If you don’t believe you can successfully sell
                Classification (SIC) code?                      into vertical markets, consider horizontal
              • What are the titles or job functions of their   markets. These are markets that cross
                decision-makers?                                industry lines. To articulate a horizontal-
                                                                marketing strategy, you could say, for
              This information will help you find similar       example, “We are the inventory-control
              companies and decision-makers to target           experts for small- to medium-sized
              with your marketing efforts. Determine what       businesses.”
              is unique about them so that you can find
              more like them.                                   Geographic markets are another possibility.
                                                                You could combine horizontal and
              In addition to looking at your current            geographic marketing with a statement such
              customer base, review your company’s              as: “We are right here in Akron, Ohio, and
              internal expertise and credentials to             we are uniquely qualified to help you with
              determine likely prospects for your               your inventory-control needs.”
              solutions. If your company is a start-up and
              has no existing customers, you can leverage       Although theoretically every company in
              your own past experience and that of your         every business may benefit from your
              people. Think about the kinds of companies        solution, you can’t afford to try to be
              you and your team have had success with           everything to everyone. You must pick the
              in previous jobs.                                 companies with which you are likely to have
                                                                the best success and the individuals within
              You also can educate yourself on a vertical       those companies who are in the best
              market (i.e., a particular industry, such as      position to recommend or buy your
              residential or commercial construction,           products or services.
              banking, distribution or the retail clothing
              business), weaving the industry’s concerns




www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                           Page 12
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING

                 COMMUNICATE WITH                               Another way to find the best companies and
                 YOUR AUDIENCE                                  contacts is through their professional
                                                                advisors (e.g., accountant, insurance agent,
                                                                attorney, consultant). Often these advisors
               Step 10: Determine how to reach the
                                                                provide recommendations on purchases
               best companies and contacts.
                                                                relevant to their spheres of knowledge. In
                                                                other words, they influence buyers. For
         After you have identified the best companies
                                                                example, a decision-maker in search of a
         and contacts to target with your lead-
                                                                commercial printer might ask his/her
         generation efforts, you need to devise ways
                                                                graphic design firm for recommendations.
                                    to reach them.
                                                                Therefore, your marketing plan should have
                                    The first step is to
                                                                some provision for articulating your
  Determine who                     determine to what
                                                                competitive advantage to these influencers.
                                    media the target
 has the business                   audience is ex-
   problem your                     posed. For ex-
                                                                Step 11: Determine the marketing
                                    ample, what mag-
   products and                     azines do they
                                                                resources available to you
 services address                   read? This may
                                                                To determine the resources needed to
                                    include national
                                                                implement your marketing for leads
                                    business or trade
                                                                programs, you may need to think outside
         publications, regional magazines or the
                                                                of your present staff:
         regional editions of national publications.
                                                                • You may be able to take on an intern from
               In addition, you should think about the
                                                                  a local college to help with marketing
                                                                  coordination activities.
               • Professional associations to which your
                                                                • If you lack in-house resources, consider
                 target contacts belong.
                                                                  outsourcing to specialists:
               • Conferences and tradeshows they attend.
               • Newsletters to which they subscribe.
                                                                  • Marketing communications experts
               • Websites they visit for professional
                                                                  • Graphic designers
                 information.
                                                                  • Event coordinators
               • Radio and television programming that
                                                                  • Telemarketing companies
                 attracts them.
                                                                  • Temp firms
               Each of these, potentially, is the source of a
               mailing list, website, conference or
               publication that would be appropriate for
               reaching your target contacts.


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                         Page 13
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              Where do you find these outsourced               • Events to help move prospects toward
              resources? Ask your peers at other                 purchase
              companies. See the vendor lists in your          • Sales tools to help your sales team sell
              industry trade association directory. Or visit
              the following websites:                          Generally, it is best to start with these basics
                                                               and augment them with techniques such as
              • www.freeagent.com                              advertising and public relations after the
              • www.guru.com                                   basics are firmly in place. Whatever tactics
              • www.marketing-match.com                        you use, make sure the results will be
              • www.msquared.com                               measurable; you will need to evaluate the
                                                               program’s effectiveness later on so that you
              Step 12: Determine and prioritize                may better target your future efforts and
              how best to communicate with your                prove to senior management that marketing
              target companies and contacts.                   is getting results.

              There are a number of marketing vehicles
              available to you, ranging from newspaper
              advertising to putting your company logo
              on the Goodyear blimp. However, some
              marketing methods have proven to be more
              successful than others for business-to-
              business marketing. The tried-and-true
              basics of marketing for leads include
              the following:

              • A good marketing database
              • Direct marketing to generate inquiries           PRIORITIZE YOUR TACTICS
              • Online marketing to catch searchers (this
                includes strong offers, easy-to-use
                response forms and search engine               Step 13: Determine and prioritize
                optimization)                                  tactics for eliciting inquiries from
              • Websites to bridge the gap between             these companies and contacts.
                marketing and sales with more in-depth
                presales information                           To elicit inquiries from your marketing
              • Relationship marketing to nurture and          efforts, you must make strong offers.
                qualify prospects                              Consider educational offers such as how-
                                                               to guides, buying guides, live demos and
                                                               invitations to events.



www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                           Page 14
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
          Tailor your offers to appeal to people at            The availability of multiple offers gives
          different stages of the buying cycle. This           prospects at all stages of the buying cycle
          could mean a white paper or information              the chance to select the offer appropriate
          kit for a new prospect early in the buying           to their needs and the stage of their buying
                                   process versus a            decision process.
                                   seminar invitation
   ...you can use                  for the prospect            You should also make it easy for people to
                                   you have been               respond to your marketing. Include your
    the mail, fax,                 nurturing for six           website address (URL), email address, toll-
   email and the                   months who is               free phone number, regular phone number
                                   closer to being             (for your international callers) and fax
   phone to stay                   ready to buy.               number. Also consider including a coupon
    in touch with                                              or business reply cards they can mail or
                                        In addition, con-      fax back to you.
      customers                         sider self-quali-
                                        fying offers. Who      Step 14: Determine and prioritize
                                        could be more          tactics for identifying qualified
              interested in a white paper on selecting flat-   sales leads.
              screen monitors than someone who is
              thinking about buying this kind of product       This step gets back to how you define a
              in the first place?                              “qualified lead.” (See Step 4). Create your
                                                               response forms with questions that elicit the
              You should also use multiple offers. Here’s      information you need to determine whether
              an example from a direct-mail letter:            the respondent fits your definition of a
                                                               qualified lead.
                To request your free Energy-Efficient
                Lighting Selection Guide, sign up for the      Make sure all your response channels ask
                free webinar about the latest in energy-       the same qualifying questions. For example,
                efficient lighting or speak with a lighting    the people who answer your incoming
                consultant:                                    telemarketing calls should ask the same
                call (800) 555-1212 or (212) 555-1212,         questions that are on your website’s
                fax (800) 555-1213 or (212) 555-1213,          response form, and those should match
                email info@YourLightingCo.com,                 the questions on your post-paid
                or visit our website at                        response cards.
                www.YourLightingCo.com/EnergySaver.
                                                               Finally, remember that lead qualification is
                                                               not an interrogation. Minimize the number
                                                               of questions you ask and keep those
                                                               questions short, or you may scare
                                                               away prospects.

www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                         Page 15
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              Step 15: Develop and prioritize
              tactics for nurturing your “not-yet-
              qualified” leads until they are
              determined to be qualified.

              As mentioned earlier, the longer-term
              prospects represent three out of four of your
              sales opportunities. This step concentrates
              on moving those prospects through the
              sales cycle.

              To use an analogy, imagine that your
              marketplace is an orchard of fruit trees.
              Your marketing people are the orchard
              tenders. They plant, weed, feed and water
                                                                 ROLE OF SALES TOOLS
              the trees. When the fruit is ripe, they call in
              the fruit pickers—the salespeople,
              distributors, resellers and reps. If enough       Step 16: Determine and prioritize the
              trees were planted (marketing for leads)          sales tools.
              and the orchard was well tended
              (relationship marketing and follow up),           Since driving sales revenue is the primary
              there will be a bountiful crop of fruit to be     goal of your marketing program, your sales
              picked (sales) year round. If not, the            team is your most important internal
              pickings will be slim.                            customer. To truly understand what your
                                                                salespeople face every day, ride along with
              In your relationship marketing program,           them on some sales calls. This will give you
              you can use the mail, email and the phone         a better idea of what they are up against,
              to stay in touch with customers. You can          and what sales tools you need to provide to
              send newsletters, requested literature, new       help them demonstrate, propose and close
              literature, press releases, show invitations,     sales. If you give them tools that make them
              article reprints and case studies. You can        successful with prospects at all stages of the
              also host events to keep in touch with            sales cycle, you will develop a win-win
              prospects on a regular basis and help move        relationship.
              them along in their buying process.
                                                                Within the overall sales cycle are several
                                                                smaller sales cycles, or subcycles:

                                                                • The prospect comes to terms with having
                                                                  a need for your product or service.


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                           Page 16
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              • The prospect identifies the type of product   In addition to creating sales tools to help
                or service that could solve that business     your salespeople demonstrate, propose and
                problem.                                      close sales, be sure to communicate to the
              • The prospect selects a specific vendor.       sales team in advance about your lead-
              • The prospect makes the purchase.              generation campaigns, so that they can
                                                              participate in making the most out of the
              There are tools you can provide to help your    leads that start coming in. Provide your
              salespeople, distributors, brokers, resellers   sales team with details:
              or reps address each subcycle. These tools
              show the business solution offered by your      • The campaign’s offers
              company’s products and services—and             • How many leads you expect the campaign
              demonstrate the advantages of selecting           to generate
              yours instead of a competitor’s. Sales tools    • When the campaign will hit
              include the following:                          • Dates and times of events
                                                              • When they will need to follow up on the
              • PowerPoint® presentations                       leads
              • Online demonstrations                         • What codes to use when entering orders
              • Leave-behinds (brochures, advertising           so that you can track the return on
                specialties)                                    investment
              • Templates
              • Case studies
              • Reference stories                              MERTRICS:
                                                               MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS
              Templates may be in the form of thank-you
              or follow-up letters, emails and sales-         Step 17: Determine how best to
              proposal documents. For example, you can        measure the effectiveness of
              create a compelling sales-proposal template     marketing programs.
              using photographs and charts/graphs that
              favorably compare your company’s                There are many ways to measure
              products and services to those of the           marketing effectiveness, but in
              competition. An attractive sales-proposal       marketing for leads the key metrics are
              document demonstrates your company’s            the number of qualified leads your
              competence and professionalism. If you do       programs generate and the programs’
              not offer templates and other sales tools,      ROI. You need to be able to measure
              your sales team will create them on their       the effectiveness of programs designed
              own. You may not like the results, so take      to accomplish diverse goals:
              the initiative and give them tools to help
              them sell.                                      • Generate inquiries
                                                              • Identify qualified sales leads


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                       Page 17
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              • Nurture not-yet-qualified inquiries          a spreadsheet that shows all activities for
              • Provide sales tools for your sales team      which the marketing team is responsible,
                                                             both current and completed. Publicize what
              To be able to “close the loop” later, try to   you are doing and management will
              track the source of 100 percent of your        appreciate the contribution to sales that
              inquiries or leads. You can do this using      marketing is making.
              the following:
                                                               RESOURCES AND BUDGET
              • Special email addresses
              • Unique URLs
              • Codes on reply cards, coupons, labels,       Step 19: Determine the resources
                etc.                                         and budget needed to accomplish all
              • Unique product numbers in your catalogs      the previous steps.
              • Extension numbers in your phone
                numbers                                      There are three common approaches to
              • Department codes or mail stops in your       budgeting for marketing:
                company’s mailing addresses
                                                             a) Take last year’s budget and subjectively
              In addition, refer to reports from your CRM       add to it or cut it to arrive at a figure for
              or inquiry-handling software—or from              this year’s budget.
              your outsourced inquiry-handling
              service—for information about where the        b) Use a percentage of sales as the basis
              leads came from.                                  for the coming year’s budget. With this
                                                                approach, you look at what you plan to
              Step 18: Determine how best                       make in sales in the coming year and
              to communicate the results of                     multiply that figure by a percentage; the
              your marketing programs to                        result is your marketing budget for the
              management.                                       coming year. For business-to-business
                                                                marketers, four percent (excluding
              Ironically, the more efficient you and your       personnel costs) is a common
              team are, the more invisible your activities      multiplier. Note that you should avoid
              may be to senior management. In addition          using last year’s sales volume as the basis
              to reporting to senior management on the          for this calculation. If last year was a bad
              results of your marketing programs, make          year for your company, and you only
              sure your managers are aware of all the           budget for four percent of that amount,
              marketing tasks you are working on. Let           you won’t have a large enough marketing
              them know the many steps and activities you       budget to meet your growth goals in the
              perform to implement a single direct-mail         coming year.
              program or seminar. It can be useful to keep


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                         Page 18
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
         c) Use blank-page budgeting, which is the               will cost Z dollars. Typically, when
            best approach. With this technique, you              management is presented with proposed
            build the marketing budget from scratch,             budgets that show a relationship to the
            using your marketing plan and its                    company’s goals, they will pick the
            marketing communications tactics to                  budget linked to their goals for the
            create the budget. To assist with blank-             company rather than simply cutting the
            page budgeting, use the Marketing Lead               single budget number you otherwise may
            Calculator to determine how much                     have proposed.
                                  funding you will
                                  need, in general,           Step 20: Use your marketing plan to
  Emphasize the                   to meet the                 justify the budget.
                                  coming year’s
 cause-and-effect                 sales goals. (See           To fortify your budget proposal, be prepared
   relationship                   Step 5.) Then,              to explain to management, in general, how
                                  starting with a             you intend to allocate the funds. Your
     between                      blank page, list all        proposal should include a written
  your marketing                  the costs for the           marketing plan geared to each of the three
                                  marketing tactics           budget levels, including an executive
 plan/budget and                  identified in your          summary, a situation analysis, corporate
  the company’s                   marketing plan              goals, marketing strategies and tactics, the
                                  (e.g., rentals,             marketing calendar and the budget.
    sales goals                   postage, mater-             For a worksheet designed to help with
                                  ials, printing,             creating your marketing plan, go to
                                  design, photog-             mcintosh@sales-lead-experts.com to find
            raphy and writing services) and total             the “Marketing Plan that Drives Sales
            them up to determine the budget                   Worksheet.”
            you need.
                                                              Keep in mind that the executive summary
                  You can use blank-page budgeting to         is simply a summary of key points. Although
                 provide your management with three           it may appear at the beginning of the
                 budget options: minimum, target and          marketing plan, be sure to write it last.
                 stretch. These budget levels reflect how
                 much funding you will require to meet        Unless you are planning to use the
                 the minimum, target and stretch sales        marketing plan when raising money from
                 revenue goals you defined initially. (See    investors or getting a loan from the bank,
                 Step 1.) You can explain that meeting        don’t worry about making it fancy. A
                 the minimum sales goal will cost X           PowerPoint presentation along with some
                 dollars, meeting the target goal will cost   Excel® spreadsheets listing action items and
                 Y dollars and meeting the stretch goal       budgets is all you usually need.


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                       Page 19
HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING
              Step 21: Get the marketing budget               prospects who are already well along in the
              approved.                                       sales cycle. This kind of targeted marketing
                                                              will win more short-term sales than a larger
              Dramatic tactics can sometimes rally            mailing to a broader audience.
              management support. For example, obtain
              copies of all marketing materials from all      If your company has not done much
              your competitors and, before meeting with       marketing in the past, short-term results will
              management, wallpaper the conference            help assure senior management of the value
              room with these brochures, website              of marketing. By placing short-term
              printouts, ads and so forth. This has been      opportunities into the sales pipeline and
              known to evoke a strong emotional               helping the sales team close those sales, you
              response in favor of boosting the marketing     also buy time to put longer-term marketing
              budget.                                         programs in place.

              If your managers resist your budget             Step 23: Assign responsibilities.
              proposal, emphasize the cause-and-effect
              relationship between your marketing plan/       Having created a marketing schedule, you
              budget and the company’s sales goals. If they   can assign responsibilities to employees and
              talk about cutting the budget from the          outsourced workers. (See Step 11.) Be sure
              current level, ask them which sales they are    to list the people assigned to each task,
              willing to give up, because cutting the         along with a target due date. Try to set the
              budget will result in less sales revenue.       target due date a week or two early just in
                                                              case there are unexpected delays. Then
                IMPLEMENTATION                                politely remind the assigned people of their
                                                              tasks in advance of their due dates, offering
                                                              any assistance needed to help them
              Step 22: Determine the marketing                complete the tasks on time.
              schedule.

              After you gain management’s approval of         Step 24: Start implementing.
              the budget, you need to determine the best
              schedule of marketing activities to generate    If you have methodically performed each
              short-term results and to create a steady       of the preceding steps, you are ready to start
              stream of qualified sales opportunities.        implementing your marketing for leads
                                                              program.
              Some marketing activities take several
              months to bear fruit—you may be talking         To learn more about tactical
              to a prospect who won’t buy until next year.    implementation, please go to www.sales-
              Therefore, you need to focus some of your       lead-experts.com to find another how-to
              marketing programs on activities that will      guide entitled, Business-to-Business
              create sales sooner rather than later. For      Lead-Generation Tactics: A Recipe for
              example, you could do a direct mailing to       Success.


www.sales-lead-experts.com                                                                         Page 20
OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU:                                   OUR EXPERTISE INCLUDES:

• Generate more high-quality                                 • Demand generation
  sales leads                                                • Inquiry Handling & Sales Lead
                                                               Management
• Convert more sales leads
  into sales                                                 • Telemarketing
                                                             • Direct Marketing
• Track, measure and increase
  your ROI                                                   • Database Development & CRM
                                                             • Outsourcing of Marketing
                                                               Services




                          Mac McIntosh Incorporated
                                 601 Pendar Road
                       North Kingstown, RI 02852-6620 USA
                      Phone: 800-944-5553 or 401-294-7730
                       Fax: 800-944-5513 or 401-679-0176
                      Email: mcintosh@salesleadexperts.com
                       Website: www.sales-lead-experts.com




                             © 2006 M. H. McIntosh. All rights reserved.

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Marketing Leads

  • 1. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING A step-by-step guide to creating a successful business-to-business “marketing for leads” program. M. H. “Mac” McIntosh
  • 2. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING A step-by-step guide to creating a successful business-to-business “marketing for leads” program. M. H. “Mac” McIntosh M. H. “Mac” McIntosh is one of America’s leading business-to-business marketing and sales consultants and an expert on the subject of sales leads. T he primary objective of a successful marketing program is to bring in new business. Marketing programs include many elements, ranging from brand building to market research. But no single part of a business-to-business marketing program is more important than generating qualified sales leads. “Marketing for leads” drives sales. Done correctly, it will increase the bottom line and help the company achieve its growth goals. Marketing programs that are bottom- line oriented focus on generating, nurturing and qualifying sales leads. In this guide, you will learn, step by step, how to create a successful business-to- business marketing for leads program. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 2
  • 3. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING DETERMINE GOALS There is a straightforward way to determine your company’s sales revenue goals. Step 1: Set goals at three levels. Interview the senior executives at your company, either serially or in a joint To succeed, your marketing for leads plan meeting. The executives to interview include must reflect sales goals. Therefore, your first the business and financial decision-makers step is to gather information needed to (e.g., chief executive officer, chief operating determine your company’s goals for sales officer, president, owner, partner, chief revenue in the coming year. financial officer, controller, head of accounting) and the internal customers of Sales revenue goals need to be stated at your marketing programs (e.g., vice three levels: president of sales, director of channel sales, sales manager). Minimum To succeed, your goal. What sales revenue do you Remember, you are looking to determine your minimum, target and stretch goals. If marketing-for- need to stay in the executives describe the goal in terms of leads plan must business without company growth rather than in dollars, layoffs? How convert it into a dollar figure. If the reflect sales goals much revenue is executives say they want the company to be required to meet the “biggest” in the industry, look at the payroll and cover sales revenue of all your competitors and other costs of doing business? What will it set your sales revenue goal above that of take to keep your company’s doors open? the industry leader. Target goal. Where would senior If the various executives you interview state management like your company’s sales different opinions about corporate goals, revenue to be? If you are at a current run you will need to negotiate a consensus. This rate of $4 million, and they say they want to may be as easy as pointing out the grow 25 percent, your new sales revenue discrepancy to them. It is not uncommon goal is $5 million. for the executives to have different answers about goals. It is a service to the leadership Stretch goal. If your management wants of the organization when the marketing to get really aggressive, what revenue goals executive is willing to go back and forth would they like to achieve? Perhaps between them to arrive at a unified opinion. they would like to double—or even triple—your company’s business in the coming year. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 3
  • 4. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING CONSIDER NEW BUSINESS Step 2: Determine the percentage of your company’s revenue that needs to come from new business. As you state your company’s sales revenue goals, consider not only the amount of new business you will need to grow to the desired level, but also the amount of new Step 3: Determine the per- business required to replace business you centage of your company’s new will lose during the targeted period. business revenue that needs to come from marketing-gen- If your goal is a 25 percent increase in sales erated leads. revenue, how much new business do you need to secure? Say your current sales The next step focuses on determining revenue level is $4 million. At first, it how many leads your marketing appears you need an additional $1 million programs need to generate so that in sales to meet the goal. However, if you the company can meet its sales really need $2 million in sales during the revenue goals. forecast period just to replace lost business and stay even, you will actually need to add Some people may get involved in an old $3 million in new sales revenue to meet argument, “Why do we need marketing? your goal. We have a robust sales force that is How Much New Business Do I Need? The following calculation will help you to determine the amount of revenue from new business your company will need to generate from marketing leads to meet its revenue goals. Your company’s current year’s sales revenue ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ $ The percentage of business you typically lose during the course of the year ○ ○ ○ x % The sales revenue from new business your company must generate during the next year just to stay even ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ =$ Additional sales revenue from new business needed to meet the new sales revenue goal ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ +$ Total revenue needed from new business to meet sales revenue goal ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ =$ www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 4
  • 5. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING What is the Cost of a Business-to-Business Sales Call? The average business-to-business sales call cost $329 in 2001, according to Cahners Research. This figure is based on responses from 23,341 businesses. Additional key findings of Cahners’ study include the following facts: 1. A typical business-to-business sale that exceeds $35,000 takes an average of 5.12 sales calls to close. 2. Less than 20 percent of sales efforts focus on prospective new clients. 3. The average number of sales calls taken by customers over the phone is 4.61 per week. 4. On average, customers have only 1.81 in-person meetings per week with salespeople. 5. Seventy-five percent of the companies studied say that making a sale valued at more than $35,000 requires a combination of direct and indirect sales efforts. capable of bringing in sales. Why bother about 40 percent of the new business with a complicated marketing plan?” The opportunities needed to meet their fact is, even with a capable, motivated sales company’s sales revenue goal. They develop team—which includes a combination of sales opportunities through referrals, salespeople, additional projects from past customers, distributors, potential customers they meet at networking resellers and events and past customers who have moved We have a robust reps—you are to new companies. sales force that generating less sales revenue All of that works well for generating sales is capable of than you could be up to a point. Salespeople working on their bringing in sales. if you relied on own don’t generally reach the other 60 Why bother with the efforts of the marketing team percent of sales potential for some very good reasons: a complicated to find new marketing plan? b u s i n e s s • Salespeople’s quotas and compensation opportunities. In programs reward them for bringing in addition, if you short-term sales—this week, this month, depend only on the sales team, your cost of this quarter. Therefore, they have little selling is probably higher than it incentive to work the longer-term needs to be. opportunities. In any business-to-business sales situation, • Most people generally hate the rejection salespeople typically find, on their own, that results from cold calling. Salespeople www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 5
  • 6. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING are no different. They prefer to spend time with prospects that are ready to buy now, even though in reality those buyers represent only a fraction of sales opportunities. • Salespeople tend to spend most of their time with current customers. So how can marketing for leads be used to identify the other 60 percent of sales op- FOCUS ON LEADS portunities and make the sales team more efficient overall? Lead-generation tactics Step 4: Determine the definition of such as direct mail, telemarketing and a “qualified sales lead” with which events are ideal for finding qualified sales marketing, sales and corporate leads so that salespeople can spend each management agree. sales call where it is most likely to generate revenue. Online marketing via websites that Your goal as a marketer is to help generate cater to your target audience is another sales. Although there are some steps in cost-effective way to generate leads. closing sales that are out of your control, what you can do is identify qualified sales With the cost of a business-to-business sales leads up front. If marketing, management call rising each year, companies cannot and sales all agree from the start on what a ignore the price tag associated with calling qualified lead is, there is a better chance on prospects. By using the most efficient that you will generate leads that are valuable techniques to generate leads and investing to the salespeople. It’s important to confirm in personal sales calls only when they have the definition, in writing, with all parties. a greater potential to bring you closer to a The definition of a qualified lead is different closed sale, you automatically lower the cost for each company, and each must do the of sales. The role of marketing for leads is work to define its own meaning of a to identify and nurture leads, moving them qualified sales lead. along to a point where the cost of a personal sales call, or a series of sales calls, becomes Typical definitions include criteria such as an investment in an actual sale. the following: • Does the prospect have a need or an application for your product or service? • What is the prospect’s role in the decision- making process? www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 6
  • 7. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING • What is the prospect’s timing for purchase various parts of the country, but it has or implementation? recently slashed its travel budget. It can’t • What is the status of the prospect’s budget? afford to send the employees to meetings • What is the size of the opportunity? that require air travel. Solution: Your web-based conferencing A prospect is a contact at a company who service would make it possible for the admits to a business problem, either latently company’s employees to meet “virtually” in or directly, that could be solved by a product cyberspace. and/or service that you are selling. Your role, as a In addition to having a business problem marketer, is to that you can solve, qualified leads If all agree from give the prospect • Have an established project in play. This the start on what a hope of solving his/her com- is apparent if a solution task force has qualified lead is, pany’s problem. already been appointed or, for a small company, if the inquirer’s boss asked him/ there is a better Here are a few her to find a solution or make a examples: chance that you recommendation. will generate leads Problem: The • Have the money to buy a solution, or are in the process of developing a budget. company’s that are valuable current disparate • Plan to purchase within a reasonable to the salespeople computer systems amount of time. require employ- • Have negotiated access to power. In other ees to perform words, they can get you in front of the redundant data entry, thus wasting time and appropriate final decision-maker(s) reducing efficiency. when the time is right. Solution: Your software product would enable single data entry. In addition to defining a qualified lead, you should create a glossary of standard terms Problem: The company’s managers defining what your company considers to suspect its truck drivers are wasting time be a “suspect,” a “prospect,” an “inquiry,” on their routes, but they don’t know a “response,” a “qualified lead,” a for sure. “qualified suspect,” a “qualified prospect” Solution: Your global positioning system and so forth. Again, sales, marketing and would allow management to track the management need to agree on the definition location of each truck at all times. of each term. This will avoid confusion later. Problem: The company relies on face-to- Lead scoring can be a valuable tool as you face meetings among employees located in create your qualification definitions. To score a lead, assign points based on how www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 7
  • 8. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING well the prospect meets each of your lead- number of leads you should strive for so qualification criteria. Consider the following that you can meet your objectives. example: • Funding, ready to go 5 points • Budget in formulation 3 points • No budget for project 0 points • Is the decision-maker 5 points • Is the recommender 2 points • Is an influencer 2 points • Has a clear need for product 5 points • Plans to buy within six months 5 points • Plans to buy in one year or more 1 point The Marketing Lead Calculator will ask you • Plans to buy $50,000 of to answer the following questions: product 5 points • Plans to buy less than • What is your company’s gross sales $100 of product 0 points revenue target for the fiscal year? (See Step 1.) To score the lead, add up all the points. • What percentage of your sales should Then, for example, those with 20 or more come from marketing leads? (See points are determined to be qualified leads; Step 3.) you should send them to your sales force. • What is your average sale size (or lifetime value of an average customer)? • What is the percentage of sales Step 5: Determine how many opportunities your company will win? qualified sales leads are needed to • What percentage of your inquiries will meet your revenue goals. become qualified leads? • What response rate do you expect? Next, you should determine how • What is your expected cost per contact? many qualified leads you need to • How many salespeople need leads? meet your revenue goals. Go to www.sales- lead-experts.com/tips/tools to find a Using the dollar figures and percentages you “Marketing Lead Calculator.” This enter, the spreadsheet will automatically interactive spreadsheet automatically calculate the following: performs a series of simple calculations based on information you provide about • Revenue needed from marketing leads your sales goals, close rate, average sales this fiscal year price and so forth, to give you a realistic www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 8
  • 9. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING • New customers needed this fiscal year to close a sale. For example, if you have a • Qualified leads needed six-month sales cycle, you should aim for • Total inquiries needed twice as many leads as the calculator • Total contacts needed suggests. Why? Because if it takes six months • Contacts per quarter needed to close a sale to a lead, half the leads you • Contacts per month needed will get this year will close too late to affect • Lead-generation budget the current year’s sales goal. • Lead-generation budget as a percentage of sales Step 6: Determine how many new • Average cost per inquiry inquiries are needed to identify • Average cost per qualified lead enough qualified sales leads to meet • Average cost per sale • Inquiries needed per salesperson this your goals. fiscal year • Qualified leads needed per salesperson The Marketing Lead Calculator will help you this fiscal year determine how many new inquiries you • Qualified leads needed per salesperson need to identify so that you will have enough per month qualified sales leads to meet your goals. (See Step 5.) Research conducted by Mac Notice that the Marketing Lead Calculator McIntosh, Inc., and its clients on business- gives you not only the total number of to-business buying across industries marketing contacts, or touches, you require shows that to meet your sales goal, but it also gives you the number of contacts needed per • One in four of those who buy do so within quarter and per month. Keep in mind that six months. you can create a steady stream of leads by • Another one in four buys within the next rolling out lead-generation programs every six months. month rather than by launching one large • Another one in four buys within the third program at the beginning or end of the year. six months. In other words, you will be more effective •The final one in four buys after eighteen if you make one-twelfth of your total annual months. contacts per month rather than making the majority of contacts in one part of the year. Simply said, three out of four sales are (Furthermore, “contact” and “prospect” longer-term opportunities. Therefore, are not synonymous. You can, and should, although it may be tempting to create an contact certain prospects multiple times occasional, dramatic marketing program throughout the sales cycle. What’s important that drums up a large number of new is how many contacts you make, not how leads—so you can skim the ones that are many people you contact.) ready to buy now—you are actually better off investing in an ongoing series of A final consideration about the Marketing marketing-for-leads programs. Lead Calculator is the length of time it takes www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 9
  • 10. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING business problems have you helped customers with in the past? What kinds of professional or educational credentials and industry experience do your people have? What licenses, certifications or approved- vendor status does your company hold? Step 8: Determine your company’s competitive advantages and how best to articulate them. STRATEGY: You need to leverage your company’s BUSINESS PROBLEM unique selling proposition to articulate for AND BUSINESS SOLUTION prospects what is in it for them (the solution) if they buy from you. Step 7: Determine the specific business problems your products/ For example, if you are an individual services address and the problems consultant, you could articulate your your company is qualified to solve. competitive advantage by explaining that you will not be relegating the prospect’s The first step in developing your marketing business to an inexperienced employee. You strategy is to identify the business problems could also point out that, because you are your product or service will relieve. Why a small company, the prospect’s business would somebody buy what you are selling? will be very important to you—more What specific problems does it solve? important than it would be to a larger vendor. For example, if you sell filling-line equipment to bottling plants, you might If yours is a large company, you could talk solve the problem caused by faulty about the depth of expertise represented integration between the labeling and bar- by your large staff. Or you could point out coding equipment. Or if you are selling tax- that you wouldn’t have grown so large if consulting services, you might solve the you didn’t provide the highest quality economic problem caused by paying too products or services. much in taxes. Pinpoint your company’s competitive In addition, you need to think about the advantages by using a SWOT analysis. SWOT problems your company and its people are stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, qualified to solve based on your experience Opportunities and Threats. Start a list under and special credentials. What kinds of each category. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 10
  • 11. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING Then determine which of those you can do Competitive advantage: Your company something about. Are there threats you can has a nationwide network of service centers. turn into opportunities? An example of a Articulation: “We can support all your threat would be the downsizing occurring installations, coast to coast, through our in prospect companies. You can turn that nationwide network of technicians.” into an opportunity by articulating the operational efficiency provided by your Step 9: Target the best companies product or service offering. and contacts with your lead- generation efforts. To articulate your company’s com- Determine who has the business problem Although petitive advant- your products and services address, both theoretically every age, tell custom- at the level of companies and at the level of contacts within those companies. ers why the ad- company in every vantage is relevant business may to them. Here are Create three lists that rank your current some examples: customers using three criteria: benefit from your solution, you can’t Competitive • Gross revenue. Place the largest advantage: companies at the top of the list and the afford to try to Your company smallest at the bottom. be everything has the capacity to • Profitability. List from “most mass produce profitable” to “least profitable.” Keep in to everyone silicon micro- mind that the most profitable are not gizmos. necessarily those with the most gross Articulation: revenue. “We can supply all your silicon micro- • Fit. Which companies represent the best gizmos with minimal lead time, thanks to fit for what you are selling? This ranking our annual production capability of is more subjective than the first two. It 4,000 tons.” identifies the companies you know well, those with business you understand, those Competitive advantage: Your company that are fun to work with, those you is the only one in the industry understand best and those with which you headquartered in the Miami area. have—or could have—a great working Articulation: “We can provide just-in- relationship. Rank these companies in time service for Greater Miami-based order, descending from the best fit. companies because we are headquartered in Coral Gables.” Your ideal customers are those that are at, or near, the top of all three lists. While www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 11
  • 12. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING reviewing your existing customers, consider and buzzwords into your marketing-for- the following questions: leads materials. This will suggest that you do understand the market and its needs. • What industries are they in? However, be prepared to answer the • Are they small, medium or large question, “Who else in my industry have you businesses? served?” It is bound to come up. • Where are they located geographically? • What is their Standard Industrial If you don’t believe you can successfully sell Classification (SIC) code? into vertical markets, consider horizontal • What are the titles or job functions of their markets. These are markets that cross decision-makers? industry lines. To articulate a horizontal- marketing strategy, you could say, for This information will help you find similar example, “We are the inventory-control companies and decision-makers to target experts for small- to medium-sized with your marketing efforts. Determine what businesses.” is unique about them so that you can find more like them. Geographic markets are another possibility. You could combine horizontal and In addition to looking at your current geographic marketing with a statement such customer base, review your company’s as: “We are right here in Akron, Ohio, and internal expertise and credentials to we are uniquely qualified to help you with determine likely prospects for your your inventory-control needs.” solutions. If your company is a start-up and has no existing customers, you can leverage Although theoretically every company in your own past experience and that of your every business may benefit from your people. Think about the kinds of companies solution, you can’t afford to try to be you and your team have had success with everything to everyone. You must pick the in previous jobs. companies with which you are likely to have the best success and the individuals within You also can educate yourself on a vertical those companies who are in the best market (i.e., a particular industry, such as position to recommend or buy your residential or commercial construction, products or services. banking, distribution or the retail clothing business), weaving the industry’s concerns www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 12
  • 13. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING COMMUNICATE WITH Another way to find the best companies and YOUR AUDIENCE contacts is through their professional advisors (e.g., accountant, insurance agent, attorney, consultant). Often these advisors Step 10: Determine how to reach the provide recommendations on purchases best companies and contacts. relevant to their spheres of knowledge. In other words, they influence buyers. For After you have identified the best companies example, a decision-maker in search of a and contacts to target with your lead- commercial printer might ask his/her generation efforts, you need to devise ways graphic design firm for recommendations. to reach them. Therefore, your marketing plan should have The first step is to some provision for articulating your Determine who determine to what competitive advantage to these influencers. media the target has the business audience is ex- problem your posed. For ex- Step 11: Determine the marketing ample, what mag- products and azines do they resources available to you services address read? This may To determine the resources needed to include national implement your marketing for leads business or trade programs, you may need to think outside publications, regional magazines or the of your present staff: regional editions of national publications. • You may be able to take on an intern from In addition, you should think about the a local college to help with marketing coordination activities. • Professional associations to which your • If you lack in-house resources, consider target contacts belong. outsourcing to specialists: • Conferences and tradeshows they attend. • Newsletters to which they subscribe. • Marketing communications experts • Websites they visit for professional • Graphic designers information. • Event coordinators • Radio and television programming that • Telemarketing companies attracts them. • Temp firms Each of these, potentially, is the source of a mailing list, website, conference or publication that would be appropriate for reaching your target contacts. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 13
  • 14. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING Where do you find these outsourced • Events to help move prospects toward resources? Ask your peers at other purchase companies. See the vendor lists in your • Sales tools to help your sales team sell industry trade association directory. Or visit the following websites: Generally, it is best to start with these basics and augment them with techniques such as • www.freeagent.com advertising and public relations after the • www.guru.com basics are firmly in place. Whatever tactics • www.marketing-match.com you use, make sure the results will be • www.msquared.com measurable; you will need to evaluate the program’s effectiveness later on so that you Step 12: Determine and prioritize may better target your future efforts and how best to communicate with your prove to senior management that marketing target companies and contacts. is getting results. There are a number of marketing vehicles available to you, ranging from newspaper advertising to putting your company logo on the Goodyear blimp. However, some marketing methods have proven to be more successful than others for business-to- business marketing. The tried-and-true basics of marketing for leads include the following: • A good marketing database • Direct marketing to generate inquiries PRIORITIZE YOUR TACTICS • Online marketing to catch searchers (this includes strong offers, easy-to-use response forms and search engine Step 13: Determine and prioritize optimization) tactics for eliciting inquiries from • Websites to bridge the gap between these companies and contacts. marketing and sales with more in-depth presales information To elicit inquiries from your marketing • Relationship marketing to nurture and efforts, you must make strong offers. qualify prospects Consider educational offers such as how- to guides, buying guides, live demos and invitations to events. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 14
  • 15. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING Tailor your offers to appeal to people at The availability of multiple offers gives different stages of the buying cycle. This prospects at all stages of the buying cycle could mean a white paper or information the chance to select the offer appropriate kit for a new prospect early in the buying to their needs and the stage of their buying process versus a decision process. seminar invitation ...you can use for the prospect You should also make it easy for people to you have been respond to your marketing. Include your the mail, fax, nurturing for six website address (URL), email address, toll- email and the months who is free phone number, regular phone number closer to being (for your international callers) and fax phone to stay ready to buy. number. Also consider including a coupon in touch with or business reply cards they can mail or In addition, con- fax back to you. customers sider self-quali- fying offers. Who Step 14: Determine and prioritize could be more tactics for identifying qualified interested in a white paper on selecting flat- sales leads. screen monitors than someone who is thinking about buying this kind of product This step gets back to how you define a in the first place? “qualified lead.” (See Step 4). Create your response forms with questions that elicit the You should also use multiple offers. Here’s information you need to determine whether an example from a direct-mail letter: the respondent fits your definition of a qualified lead. To request your free Energy-Efficient Lighting Selection Guide, sign up for the Make sure all your response channels ask free webinar about the latest in energy- the same qualifying questions. For example, efficient lighting or speak with a lighting the people who answer your incoming consultant: telemarketing calls should ask the same call (800) 555-1212 or (212) 555-1212, questions that are on your website’s fax (800) 555-1213 or (212) 555-1213, response form, and those should match email info@YourLightingCo.com, the questions on your post-paid or visit our website at response cards. www.YourLightingCo.com/EnergySaver. Finally, remember that lead qualification is not an interrogation. Minimize the number of questions you ask and keep those questions short, or you may scare away prospects. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 15
  • 16. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING Step 15: Develop and prioritize tactics for nurturing your “not-yet- qualified” leads until they are determined to be qualified. As mentioned earlier, the longer-term prospects represent three out of four of your sales opportunities. This step concentrates on moving those prospects through the sales cycle. To use an analogy, imagine that your marketplace is an orchard of fruit trees. Your marketing people are the orchard tenders. They plant, weed, feed and water ROLE OF SALES TOOLS the trees. When the fruit is ripe, they call in the fruit pickers—the salespeople, distributors, resellers and reps. If enough Step 16: Determine and prioritize the trees were planted (marketing for leads) sales tools. and the orchard was well tended (relationship marketing and follow up), Since driving sales revenue is the primary there will be a bountiful crop of fruit to be goal of your marketing program, your sales picked (sales) year round. If not, the team is your most important internal pickings will be slim. customer. To truly understand what your salespeople face every day, ride along with In your relationship marketing program, them on some sales calls. This will give you you can use the mail, email and the phone a better idea of what they are up against, to stay in touch with customers. You can and what sales tools you need to provide to send newsletters, requested literature, new help them demonstrate, propose and close literature, press releases, show invitations, sales. If you give them tools that make them article reprints and case studies. You can successful with prospects at all stages of the also host events to keep in touch with sales cycle, you will develop a win-win prospects on a regular basis and help move relationship. them along in their buying process. Within the overall sales cycle are several smaller sales cycles, or subcycles: • The prospect comes to terms with having a need for your product or service. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 16
  • 17. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING • The prospect identifies the type of product In addition to creating sales tools to help or service that could solve that business your salespeople demonstrate, propose and problem. close sales, be sure to communicate to the • The prospect selects a specific vendor. sales team in advance about your lead- • The prospect makes the purchase. generation campaigns, so that they can participate in making the most out of the There are tools you can provide to help your leads that start coming in. Provide your salespeople, distributors, brokers, resellers sales team with details: or reps address each subcycle. These tools show the business solution offered by your • The campaign’s offers company’s products and services—and • How many leads you expect the campaign demonstrate the advantages of selecting to generate yours instead of a competitor’s. Sales tools • When the campaign will hit include the following: • Dates and times of events • When they will need to follow up on the • PowerPoint® presentations leads • Online demonstrations • What codes to use when entering orders • Leave-behinds (brochures, advertising so that you can track the return on specialties) investment • Templates • Case studies • Reference stories MERTRICS: MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS Templates may be in the form of thank-you or follow-up letters, emails and sales- Step 17: Determine how best to proposal documents. For example, you can measure the effectiveness of create a compelling sales-proposal template marketing programs. using photographs and charts/graphs that favorably compare your company’s There are many ways to measure products and services to those of the marketing effectiveness, but in competition. An attractive sales-proposal marketing for leads the key metrics are document demonstrates your company’s the number of qualified leads your competence and professionalism. If you do programs generate and the programs’ not offer templates and other sales tools, ROI. You need to be able to measure your sales team will create them on their the effectiveness of programs designed own. You may not like the results, so take to accomplish diverse goals: the initiative and give them tools to help them sell. • Generate inquiries • Identify qualified sales leads www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 17
  • 18. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING • Nurture not-yet-qualified inquiries a spreadsheet that shows all activities for • Provide sales tools for your sales team which the marketing team is responsible, both current and completed. Publicize what To be able to “close the loop” later, try to you are doing and management will track the source of 100 percent of your appreciate the contribution to sales that inquiries or leads. You can do this using marketing is making. the following: RESOURCES AND BUDGET • Special email addresses • Unique URLs • Codes on reply cards, coupons, labels, Step 19: Determine the resources etc. and budget needed to accomplish all • Unique product numbers in your catalogs the previous steps. • Extension numbers in your phone numbers There are three common approaches to • Department codes or mail stops in your budgeting for marketing: company’s mailing addresses a) Take last year’s budget and subjectively In addition, refer to reports from your CRM add to it or cut it to arrive at a figure for or inquiry-handling software—or from this year’s budget. your outsourced inquiry-handling service—for information about where the b) Use a percentage of sales as the basis leads came from. for the coming year’s budget. With this approach, you look at what you plan to Step 18: Determine how best make in sales in the coming year and to communicate the results of multiply that figure by a percentage; the your marketing programs to result is your marketing budget for the management. coming year. For business-to-business marketers, four percent (excluding Ironically, the more efficient you and your personnel costs) is a common team are, the more invisible your activities multiplier. Note that you should avoid may be to senior management. In addition using last year’s sales volume as the basis to reporting to senior management on the for this calculation. If last year was a bad results of your marketing programs, make year for your company, and you only sure your managers are aware of all the budget for four percent of that amount, marketing tasks you are working on. Let you won’t have a large enough marketing them know the many steps and activities you budget to meet your growth goals in the perform to implement a single direct-mail coming year. program or seminar. It can be useful to keep www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 18
  • 19. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING c) Use blank-page budgeting, which is the will cost Z dollars. Typically, when best approach. With this technique, you management is presented with proposed build the marketing budget from scratch, budgets that show a relationship to the using your marketing plan and its company’s goals, they will pick the marketing communications tactics to budget linked to their goals for the create the budget. To assist with blank- company rather than simply cutting the page budgeting, use the Marketing Lead single budget number you otherwise may Calculator to determine how much have proposed. funding you will need, in general, Step 20: Use your marketing plan to Emphasize the to meet the justify the budget. coming year’s cause-and-effect sales goals. (See To fortify your budget proposal, be prepared relationship Step 5.) Then, to explain to management, in general, how starting with a you intend to allocate the funds. Your between blank page, list all proposal should include a written your marketing the costs for the marketing plan geared to each of the three marketing tactics budget levels, including an executive plan/budget and identified in your summary, a situation analysis, corporate the company’s marketing plan goals, marketing strategies and tactics, the (e.g., rentals, marketing calendar and the budget. sales goals postage, mater- For a worksheet designed to help with ials, printing, creating your marketing plan, go to design, photog- mcintosh@sales-lead-experts.com to find raphy and writing services) and total the “Marketing Plan that Drives Sales them up to determine the budget Worksheet.” you need. Keep in mind that the executive summary You can use blank-page budgeting to is simply a summary of key points. Although provide your management with three it may appear at the beginning of the budget options: minimum, target and marketing plan, be sure to write it last. stretch. These budget levels reflect how much funding you will require to meet Unless you are planning to use the the minimum, target and stretch sales marketing plan when raising money from revenue goals you defined initially. (See investors or getting a loan from the bank, Step 1.) You can explain that meeting don’t worry about making it fancy. A the minimum sales goal will cost X PowerPoint presentation along with some dollars, meeting the target goal will cost Excel® spreadsheets listing action items and Y dollars and meeting the stretch goal budgets is all you usually need. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 19
  • 20. HOW TO BOOST YOUR COMPANY’S SALES WITH MARKETING Step 21: Get the marketing budget prospects who are already well along in the approved. sales cycle. This kind of targeted marketing will win more short-term sales than a larger Dramatic tactics can sometimes rally mailing to a broader audience. management support. For example, obtain copies of all marketing materials from all If your company has not done much your competitors and, before meeting with marketing in the past, short-term results will management, wallpaper the conference help assure senior management of the value room with these brochures, website of marketing. By placing short-term printouts, ads and so forth. This has been opportunities into the sales pipeline and known to evoke a strong emotional helping the sales team close those sales, you response in favor of boosting the marketing also buy time to put longer-term marketing budget. programs in place. If your managers resist your budget Step 23: Assign responsibilities. proposal, emphasize the cause-and-effect relationship between your marketing plan/ Having created a marketing schedule, you budget and the company’s sales goals. If they can assign responsibilities to employees and talk about cutting the budget from the outsourced workers. (See Step 11.) Be sure current level, ask them which sales they are to list the people assigned to each task, willing to give up, because cutting the along with a target due date. Try to set the budget will result in less sales revenue. target due date a week or two early just in case there are unexpected delays. Then IMPLEMENTATION politely remind the assigned people of their tasks in advance of their due dates, offering any assistance needed to help them Step 22: Determine the marketing complete the tasks on time. schedule. After you gain management’s approval of Step 24: Start implementing. the budget, you need to determine the best schedule of marketing activities to generate If you have methodically performed each short-term results and to create a steady of the preceding steps, you are ready to start stream of qualified sales opportunities. implementing your marketing for leads program. Some marketing activities take several months to bear fruit—you may be talking To learn more about tactical to a prospect who won’t buy until next year. implementation, please go to www.sales- Therefore, you need to focus some of your lead-experts.com to find another how-to marketing programs on activities that will guide entitled, Business-to-Business create sales sooner rather than later. For Lead-Generation Tactics: A Recipe for example, you could do a direct mailing to Success. www.sales-lead-experts.com Page 20
  • 21. OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU: OUR EXPERTISE INCLUDES: • Generate more high-quality • Demand generation sales leads • Inquiry Handling & Sales Lead Management • Convert more sales leads into sales • Telemarketing • Direct Marketing • Track, measure and increase your ROI • Database Development & CRM • Outsourcing of Marketing Services Mac McIntosh Incorporated 601 Pendar Road North Kingstown, RI 02852-6620 USA Phone: 800-944-5553 or 401-294-7730 Fax: 800-944-5513 or 401-679-0176 Email: mcintosh@salesleadexperts.com Website: www.sales-lead-experts.com © 2006 M. H. McIntosh. All rights reserved.