I've always been a fan of John Doerr's articles and recently came across Top 10 Lead Generation Mistakes Made By Professional Services Firms.

Apart from the fact I love any article that starts with a quote from Glengarry Glenn Ross, John's top 10 lead generation mistakes had me nodding all the way through.

Many of them echo my thoughts in my article 7 Critical Success Factors for New Business Development, and are equally valid for firms across the broad business services landscape.

"Relying on one tactic only" and "Not integrating various marketing tactics well" are both key ones for me; integrated lead generation across multiple channels is essential for today's B2B marketing.

Also, "Dropping leads and failing to nurture leads" is right up there for me too. It's what we call pipeline management and is key to maximising ROI for lead generation.

For me, multi-touch marketing is exactly what lead generation is all about for professional and business services firms. It enables you to build a relationship and trust with prospective clients before there's an opportunity.

Think about it, if the first time you contact a prospect is when they are looking "right now" then you're probably (at best) an also-ran for any significant piece of work.

Most clients typically only go out to firms that they already, know which means you had better already be on their radar beforehand.

We have a number of strategies to help our clients open doors and engage prospective clients in a way that clearly positions their firm.

When this is built into a lead nurturing process it becomes a powerful way to develop new business opportunities within potentially major accounts.

Labels: b2b lead generation, integrated b2b marketing, lead nurturing, new business development, pipeline management, professional services, prospect marketing

A key aspect of any lead generation or prospect marketing campaign is to determine who you are targeting.

The "buying circle" for every client proposition is different and, even within similar categories of products and services, different clients will target different influencers and decision makers.

The term "buying circle" refers to the group of individuals who are involved in the buying decision. Generally, buying circles become more complex for bigger ticket sales or for new product or service categories.

For low-value transactional sales there may be just one decision maker. For more complex product offerings there are likely to be numerous people involved at different stages, from specifying requirements, the vendor selection process, through to building the internal business case and getting it signed off.

And, whilst it's true that the higher up the food chain you are the better, it doesn't always follow that your best entry point to an opportunity is the top of the tree.

To many in sales this may seem like heresy; I grew up on "power-base selling" and "selling to the top" as well as scoring leads on BANT and MAN.

And, it is indeed true that you need get access to the top fast within any opportunity to gain influence, but that's not the same as starting at the top.

In very large organisations the reality is that you may have to start somewhere else. Perhaps with a key influencer or someone who is aware of a need within the organisation.

The important thing to to be aware of where they are within the buying circle and therefore how to handle them.

Here's an example:

Let's say that you sell a specific product or service that isn't an existing category for the prospect. By that I mean that they haven't bought it before from anyone so are unlikely to have incumbent suppliers and processes in place to procure the service.

You know there are a number of individuals who will be involved in the buying circle, from a senior executive who will sign-off a deal, through to individuals who are involved in the decision making process but do not wield huge influence (such as a user, perhaps). (When is comes to users they are more important later on in the sales process as, whilst they may not be able to say "yes" they can definitely say "no")

Of course, reaching the most senior decision maker may be ideal but it presents a number of challenges.

Firstly, access gets more restricted the higher you go, along with the amount of time you have to get their attention. Secondly, they are unlikely to respond to anything that doesn't address their key strategic issues.

In some cases you really do need to engage at this level, so be prepared to invest all your time in "thinking" about your approach before anyone attempts to reach out to them. A well thought out research pieces can be a good approach in this space.

At this level you spend more to get less results in return but the rewards can be far greater.

Below the rarefied atmosphere of the top you have a raft of middle managers and departmental heads who can be far more accessible. They are more likely to respond to a more tactical pitch that relates to their specific business mandate. However, they usually don't respond unless there is an identified need. Blue-sky thinking doesn't get much traction at this level.

The combination of better access and more immediate need can be very effective in getting prospects into the pipeline; you just need to have a clear game plan of how you will get to the top through them.

These are the deals that will stall most often. As long as you are aware of this and have a strong sales process to move them forward or drop them down to lower-cost lead nurturing activities then they are still worth pursuing.

Of course, these things are never an either/or situation.

I believe that it's best to invest some high-cost resource building relationships at the top, possibly through events, round-tables, etc and use lower costs resources, such as telemarketing, email and online demand generation tactics to find entry points lower down the pyramid.

You'll find that these tactics will yield bread and butter prospects where you have a high conversion track record and strong credentials.

Labels: demand generation, lead qualification, prospect marketing

I've been following a number of discussions recently on LinkedIn about the integration of telemarketing with email, online and direct mail campaigns.

When I compare these discussions with some recent articles I read around highly targeted DM campaigns aimed at senior decision makers and I'm starting to see a pattern emerging.

You see, all these sexy and highly creative B2B campaigns seem to rely on the rather un-loved tactic of telemarketing as part of their success.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't succeed entirely without the telemarketing element but I would say that it's a critical element seems to be hugely under-valued.

For example, in February's B2B Marketing Magazine there's an article about a highly targeted DM campaign aimed at 200 senior decision makers within a specific geographical area.

The DM piece was sent out, 3 days later an email followed up tied into the main theme of the campaign. Lots of sexy stuff about micro-sites, etc. Finally, 2 days later, an outbound telemarketing call was placed to those targets that hadn't responded.

Unfortunately, whilst the article gives an overall conversion of 20%, it doesn't give any specifics about responses at each stage of the campaign.

To me, this is typical how today's integrated campaigns are reported.

Whether it's following up a DM piece or responding to an online trigger, telemarketing is always seen as the final bit tagged on the end. All the clever work is done up front and, oh well, let's hand it over to telemarketing to wrap it all up.

Having worked on these integrated campaigns before, and followed up some very clever creative work which clearly had no impact, you'll forgive me if I'm a little cynical.

We've been involved in large integrated campaigns where it's been down to the telemarketing effort to literally pull it back from the brink. When no-one's biting suddenly it's "get on the phones and make it happen".

Because, after all the creative messaging and output is sent out you're into the rather messy world of dealing with diary clashes, PA's, firewalls and over zealous post-rooms.

I agree 100% that a smarter, more integrated approach is the way to go for all B2B marketing campaigns. But I'd suggest that telemarketing plays a larger part of the process than most marketing agencies will admit.

Perhaps it's because you don't win many awards for telemarketing :-)

Labels: b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, integrated b2b marketing, prospect marketing

I had an interesting discussion the other day about the merits of so-called "black book" organisations who (claim to) use their networks to introduce prospects.

On one level my thoughts were "whatever works"... but then again, I wondered whether these models really are effective?

Certainly the concept is nothing new and it's used in a number of different ways by many businesses. But, I've yet to see the "gun for hire" model of referrals really work in any sustained way.

Let me explain.

Actively getting referrals into businesses is used by companies all the time.

Whether it's through partnering with another business or even assembling an advisory board, there are many different ways you can leverage existing relationships.

To me, a fundamental part of all these models is the building of trust and the alignment of both parties.

If you hire a key industry influencer to back your business (such as bringing them into a non-executive position or perhaps as an investor) then they have publicly aligned themselves with your business. They wouldn't do this unless they shared your vision and had build trust in your business.

Once they've got to that position, it's natural that they'll follow through by using their personal contacts.

But, I'm not convinced that people will use (or should I say abuse) their contacts on a "paid for" or "gun for hire" basis.

For a start, all contacts have a finite appetite for referrals. Call them too often and they'll just stop taking your calls. It's a balancing act.

Also, how persistent will someone be if there's no initial traction? Not very I bet.

I've seen these models come and go.

There were some great sounding online versions a few years ago which I thought would really take off. The proposition was simple: you post up who you want to meet and the 1000's of registered "introducers" put you in contact with people. The pitch to the introducers was "make money out of your contacts".

You know what... all those sites are now dead.

Equally, there are some businesses out there that aim to be intermediaries. Often this model falls down when you ask "who pays".

If the person being introduced pays (which is quite common) then the question is, who are they really acting in the best interests of?

In some industries, such as recruitment, it's clear who pays and who is the "client". In others, such as talent agents, there's an established business model and everyone knows who does what and who pays who.

The trouble is that, in more generic markets, these models don't really stack up.

If you want to get infront of prospects then someone has to "go out to bat" on your behalf. Sure, they're going to take some rejection along the way, plus they're going to have to be politely persistent to get through.

But that's all part of the process.

Of course, if you are trying to influence C-level executives for extremely large, high-risk pieces of work then you're in a different league. This is where having influence on the inside is critical and relationships such as advisory boards are essential.

And, in that case, you need a solid relationship, not someone who will simply "pimp" their trust to the highest bidder.

Labels: networking, prospect marketing

This is one of my favourite sayings from Bill Good (read his book "Hot Prospects").

Even though the book's been updated (it includes a chapter on Google) Bill's an old school trainer on prospecting systems. I first read one of his books when I ran a sales team back in the early 90's and his pragmatic style and no-nonsense approach influenced me greatly.

"Prospects are located not created" is a fundamental fact of prospect marketing.

And when you think about it, prospect marketing is basically the opposite to search marketing. It's the Yang to Google's Ying, if you will.

Search has undoubtedly changed the face of business-to-business marketing. Compared with just 10 years ago; it's now easier for prospects to find you.

Or should I say, it's now easier for prospects to find enough vendors to give them what they want.

Because there's the rub.

Searching Google (and let's face it, in the UK that's 90% of searches) will give you some alternatives, but it'll not show you everything.

If you're not in the handful of suppliers a prospect looks at (either through organic or paid search) then you're not in the game. And, of course, the term search implies that prospects know what they're looking for.

Many times, when we open doors for clients, the prospect is aware of a need but hasn't yet decided how they were going to fulfil that need.

They were looking for ideas.

Are they busy searching Google to find get new ideas? Sometimes.

But they're also going to conferences, chatting with their peers and meeting new and interesting suppliers.

When someone actively seeks them out and engages them in a conversation about these issues it's a welcomed call. And typically leads to new business with little competition (compared with a prospect that found you on google along with the other usual suspects).

Another reason I like the "located not created" phrase is that is implies a search, which is what prospect marketing is.

Our campaigns always start with sourcing data and names and then scoring and segmenting the data-set; we're searching before we pick up the phone or send an email.

And when we speak with a prospect we're asking questions to qualify their interest.

Sometimes we strike gold and the timing is perfect. More often, we identify a future need which requires nurturing.

Either way, our focus is not about creating a need; it's about finding a qualified opportunity.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, direct marketing, prospect marketing, search marketing