|
In B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation, Work Backwards
|
By Alan Sharpe
[Hits: 21132]
|
|
Business-to-business lead generation is one of the few times inlife when you should start at the end and work backwards.
Before you write a single line of copy or design a singleelement of your direct mail package, sit down with the salespeople who close the sales. Find out when and how they getprospects to sign on the line that is dotted, and work backwardsfrom there to discover what you need to do to capture theattention of these prospects in the first place and get theminto your sales funnel.
Here are some questions to ask the sales team:
- What makes a prospect buy? (Is it price? terms?guarantee? after-sales service? quality?)
- What customerobjections will endanger a sale?
How do salespeopleovercome these objections? - Do prospects need a lot ofinformation before making a decision?
I am assumingthat your clients' B2B buying process (and your sales process)consists of more than a few steps. Usually, it looks somethinglike this:
- Identify need
- Gather information on solutions
- Establish specifications
- Request proposalsor quotations
- Interview top suppliers
- Makeshort list of suppliers
- Check references
- Test sample or demo product
- Select supplier
- Negotiate terms and price
- Sign contract
- Make first purchase
- Evaluate performance
- Make repeat purchases
- Remain loyal to valued,long-term supplier
- Drop supplier and start overagain
Your goal with every direct mail leadgeneration mailing is to figure out where prospects are in theirbuying cycle and to target them there. The thing to remember inall of this is that your goal in a multi- step, complex buyingprocess is not to close the sale but to move the prospect to thenext stage. Here are some ideas:
If prospects are at the needs-identification stage, offer them awhite paper or similar document that describes the customerproblem that your product or service solves.
If prospects are gathering information on solutions, offer thema series of case studies or success stories that demonstrate whyyour solution is superior.
If your sale involves many stakeholders, consider mailing adifferent direct mail package to each person who influences thebuying decision. In complex high- tech sales, for example, youcan target the CIO (offer ROI benefits), the CFO (offercost-cutting benefits) and the IT manager (offer scalability andease of integration benefits).
In many B2B lead generation efforts, you will need to mail orcontact leads more than once before you generate a response andhave a chance to qualify them. That's why starting at the endmakes such good sense. You'll know how many steps you need totake to reach the sale, and how many times you need to mail eachprospect (and what to mail) to turn them into a customer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
