Why It Takes 7-13+ Touches to Generate a

Qualified B2B Sales Lead Today

Laurie Beasley, President

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Tom Judge, VP Strategy

Direct Marketing Partners, Inc.

Your Presenters

Laurie Beasley – President Beasley Direct Marketing

President DMA Northern California www.dmanc.org

Instructor UC Berkeley Extension www.extension.berkeley.edu

Instructor Online Marketing Institute www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org

Tom Judge – VP Strategy Direct Marketing Partners (DMP)

Vice President DMA Northern California

Contributor Sales Lead Management Association

www.salesleadmgmtassoc.org

Program Chair NorCal BMA Sales Lead Roundtable www.norcalbma.org

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Part 1:

Why So Many Touches?

Why So Many Touches?

Its not easy generating the “sales-ready” leads

The Goal of Demand Generation is Sales!

However there are some bumps in the road…

The CSO Insights annual survey uncovered problems

The average number of reps making quota was 63% for 2012

Only 42% of firms met or exceeded their 2012 revenue goals

CSO Insights indicated that 92% of firms are raising their

revenue goals this year

Over 40% of firms indicate the increases are 15% or more!

Source: CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Study, 2013 Key

Trend Analysis.

.

B2B Marketing

Challenges

Top 2 = our focus

Challenge: Quality Over Quantity

.

Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Benchmark report

explored what marketers are actually doing

Problem Uncovered:

73% of the leads distributed to sales ARE NOT Sales-Ready!

Solution Case Cited:

In the same report; Marketing Sherpa cited a case of a

firm that moved to higher quality “sales-ready” scored

leads (A B2B HR solutions company)

The lead volume dropped by 52%

While revenues increased 41%

8

1. Marketing generates a lead with basic interest, not ready to engage a sales rep

2. Sales teams reject unqualified leads, feels disconnected, requests “sales-ready” leads

3. Few actually convert and the numbers are unsustainable

Current marketing focus Current sales focus The B2B lead development gap

Issue 1: Marketing hands off Leads too early. Unqualified

Leads waste sales’ time.

Issue 2: Sales cherry picks leads, letting longer-time-frame leads leak out. Issue 3: Marketing spends

More $ to replace lost leads.

Reach Interest Desire Convert Enrich Retain

Warm leads leak out

Gap in The Middle of the Funnel is Costing Time & $ Money

Source: Forrester October 2006, Best Practices “Improving B2B Lead Mgmt”

Forrester: Low Quality Sales Leads Create

Sales Problems

Symptoms: Few conversions into customers

The increased reliance on higher sales lead quality from

the sales teams has changed the game for demand gen

marketers

You as a marketer are now on the hook to deliver

This is the new norm

Tension Between Sales & Marketing

Challenge: How Can We Improve Our

Lead-To-Sales Results?

Here are some best practices and multi-touch cases

that improve lead quality

Example of a 7-13+ Touch Sequence?

1: Initial email campaign

2: Initial direct mail campaign

3: Call, prospect not there, leave a message

4: Send email follow up

5: Call, prospect is not involved in any way, referred to correct contact

6: Start over, transfer the call into person you’re referred to, leave VM

7: Send email follow up: first email

8: Call, prospect not able to talk then, but did schedule another time

9: Send email follow up confirming call appt. day/time

10: Call held, prospect interested, however wants more information

before all the qualification questions on script are completed

11: Send personalized email follow up with relevant info.

12: Prospect now ready to talk about needs, access to budget,

purchase authority, level of urgency and timeframe= Qualified!

13: Email to confirm appt. scheduled with field sales rep, CC rep.

Value of Nurture Process

Contact # 1

Contact # 2

Contact # 3

Contact # 4

Contact # 5

Contact # 6

Contact # 7

Contact # 8

Contact # 9

Contact # 10

Contact # 11

Contact # 12

Prospect

Customer

50% of sales people have given up

65% of sales people have given up

89% of sales people have given up

Just now you are becoming a factor in your

prospect’s mind

Nurturing slowly, your prospect

gets to know you

You are probably the only

person to make 8 contacts

with this person

79% of sales people have given up You harvest

low hanging

fruit

You are

earning top of

mind

awareness

At this point when you

prospect is ready to

buy, you have a 90%

chance of being called

*Microsoft study

Reality: Wow, 13+ Touches is A LOT!

How do we shorten it?

We'll outline 11 ways to shorten the process and improve

results.

Then we'll share 2 use cases and their results.

Start with the end in mind: • Review historic sales data

• Segment by customer types

• Review profitability data

• Know the buying process

• Build buyer Personas & relevant messaging

for each

Assess your TAM:

• Review the resources it will take to acquire

1. Plan - Start With the End in Mind

Create a “Perfect Prospect Profile”

Digital/Online data points: • Digital profile, Segment

• Web content activity

• Trigger events

• Scoring & its limits

Non-Digital/Peer-to-peer data points AND relationship: • Needs, Plans & Business pains

• Role in the buying process

• Access to funding

• Size of opportunity

• Time frame and sense of urgency

• Willingness to move forward and engage with sale rep?

2. Clearly define the “Sales-Ready Qualified Lead” (which can blossom into your perfect customer)

Advanced Lead Rating & Scoring Criteria

16

Tip: Combine digital and BANT Plus

data points into your scoring

Sample of “BANT+ Sales-Ready” Lead Data

Detailed background information on the prospect and the selling opportunity helps drive more productive sales results

Multi-Touch Process Dispelling the Marketing Automation

“Solves it All” Myth

Sirius Decisions has now inserted Tele-qualification into this model to increase

the sales qualification information gathered to boost lead quality & conversions

Common Problems We See

With Overdependence on Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is dependent on lead forms

submissions

Lead form submit rates are declining

Difficult if not IMPOSSIBLE to get BANT+ criteria from

lead forms (even when using progressive profiling)

Result: “Sticky funnel conundrum”. Lots of unqualified leads

rattling around in the system

99% of your true prospects haven’t filled out a form or

come to your website. Many responders do not fit your

perfect prospect profile. You must monitor the profiles.

Action: You need to proactively outbound target the key account

contacts in your sweet spot with your value propositions

3. Quantify Your “Sales-Ready” Lead Quota

Sample Lead Requirements Calculator

Scenario Requirements

ANNUAL SALES REVENUE GOALS: $13,000,000

Sales Revenue Goals/Quarter $3,250,000

Revenue per sale $115,000

# Closed Sales Required/QTR 28.3 Or 9.3 Closes/mo.

Estimated Closed Rate on Pipeline Proposal Opportunities 25%

# Qual Leads That Must Convert to Pipeline Proposals/QTR 113

Est. forward conversion rate from sales-ready lead into Pipeline 40%

# Qualified Sales -Ready Leads Required per

Quarter (Prospects meeting sales-ready criteria) 283

# Qualified Sales-Ready Leads Required per

Month (Prospects meeting sales-ready criteria) 94

Tom Judge, All Rights Reserved, Copyright Protected

Gain agreements with

• Marketing’s lead quality and quantities

• Sales team follow up actions on each qualified lead

• Gain senior management agreement

Tip: Obtain sales or channel rep SLA sign offs that they will

engage sales-ready prospects and track in CRM

4. Align sales – marketing – and Management with

Your Plan

Sample of a basic

agreement between

sales and marketing

• Marketing agrees to

quality of leads

delivered

• Sales agrees to follow

up steps and CRM

tracking

5. Target Prospect Data

Tip: Create a process to improve prospect data

Forrester reports that 37% of firms indicate this is a

significant marketing problem at their firm

Action item: Fix and standardize the prospect database

Hint: This is a never ending task

6. Segment Your Target Markets

Tip: Segment your target markets into smaller

more manageable target sub segments.

Don’t boil the ocean

Action item: Compare campaign performance by segment to

identify better performing markets to focus resources better

Common Segmentation for B2B

Single Product Segmentation Example - Business services with multiple decision

makers/influencers

Customers

Prospects

Financial

Automotive

Non Profit

Non Profit

Small, Medium, Large

VP

Marketing

VP

Production CFO CEO

2x 3x 3x 4x = 72 Segments

Business Universe

Financial

Automotive

7. Story Tell With Your Content

Tip: Sync up relevant content with personalized

messaging to tell your compelling story, differentiate

and establish your brand as one they want to put on

their short list

Action item: Review and revise your content and messaging to help

you “earn the right” to ask the tough qualification questions you need

gathered to qualify prospects

8. Offers DO Matter

Tip: Use a compelling offer with staying power.

Content can be your best offer

Action item: ALWAYS OFFER something of perceived value

Business to Business Offers & Content

Offer Responsivenes

s (1-5) Qualified(1-5)

Optimum

Offers

ROI calculators 3 5 15

Whitepapers/ Guides 3 4 12

Case studies 4 3 12

“Relevant” giveaways 4 3 12

Video clips or demo 4 3 12

Webinars 2 5 10

Live events 1 5 5

Free giveaways 5 1 5

Tradeshows 2 2 4

9. Think B2B Relationships:

People Buy From People

Tip: To accelerate b2b prospect lead development,

include tele-qualification in the touch process

Action item: We suggest running a three-month A/B test using

email + tele-prospecting in the lead nurturing and qualification

process and measure the lift and ROI.

Tip: Warm Prospects First by Sending

an Email or Direct Mail Before Calling

You CAN do cold calling alone without sending a

campaign in advance. Lots of people do it. However,

their productivity may not be optimal.

We have found sending out an email and/or direct mail

before a campaign can make it 30-40% more productive,

and save in tele-prospecting expenses.

Why? Several reasons:

You can triangulate from an email or direct mail to draw the

prospect into the conversation.

If they’ve read the email or direct mail before you call, they’re

much more informed and can more clearly define their needs

You appear to have a more comprehensive offering

You allow more channels for prospects to communicate through

10. Track All Touch Metrics

Tip: Analyze KPI metrics in light of the original touch

plan & make refinements during campaigns

Action item: Analyze results metrics from end to end. Adjust

tactics to improve each metric along the way to a better outcome.

11. Put in Place Comprehensive Lead

Management Resources

Tip: Implement a lead mgmt. system & team that gives

you end-to-end visibility into all of your campaigns

Action item: Have the right talent and executive dashboard reporting

tools to manage your lead funnels and make revisions. Mgmt. wants this!

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Part 2:

Multi-Touch Case Studies

Putting it into Practice

To summarize:

Marketing is being required to generate more sales ready leads.

This isn’t easy to do. Marketing automation can’t make it happen

alone.

You’re going to have to plan for multiple touches and multiple

channels.

To shorten the process: have a comprehensive plan, targeted

lists, segmented messaging, good offers, great creative (email,

direct mail, etc), plan for personal touches (teleprospecting) and

track the metrics.

Now let’s see some real-world scenarios.

Case 1: Glove Corp.

VP of Sales read the DMP/Beasley Direct case study in

first chapter of this book, and voila! he called me.

Superior Glove

• Leading industrial glove manufacturer

• Average value of new glove customer

account: $50,000/yr

• Target: safety/operations/purchasing

decision makers in metal manufacturing

industries

• Goal: $2.5 million in incremental sales for

this product line

• Tried everything: PPC, email, tradeshows

• Couldn’t get enough “qualified” sales

opportunities coming in to hit their numbers

• What to do next?

Sales Funnel Needs

$2.5 million in sales/$50,000 per sale =

50 closed sales (@ 20% close rate)

You’d need 250 qualified sales

opportunities at proposal stage (25%

convert to proposal)

You’d need 1,000 “Qualified A” leads in

the sales team pipeline (10% convert

into “qualified A leads” and go to sales)

You’d need 10,000 marketing level leads

in the demand generation process

Could Email Alone Get Him There?

Let’s give him a hand…

• Let’s assume available list universe of

safety/operations people = 7,500. If he

emailed all 7,500 and got 1% inbound

response = 75 and 50% of those fill out form =

35 marketing level leads.

• He’d have to mail this list at least 285 times to

get the 10,000 marketing level leads in the

pipeline. (Probably more because he wouldn’t

get 1% inbound response each time.)

• No, email alone will not achieve sales goals

Solution: Multi-Touch & Multi-Channel

Email + tele-prospecting sequences

Lead nurturing until qualified & put a voice and

personality with the relationship

People buy from people they like and this differentiates them

This also yields a better conversion rate

Test two offers: Book vs.. free glove

Test two lists: House vs.. rental list

Tested Free Glove Offer vs.. Book Offer

Glove Campaign Touch Count Per

Qualified Lead Superior Glove Leads Touches Program through December 7th

A Leads

List Total Leads Dials Per Lead Emails Per Lead

TTL Touches

per Lead

Average Touches Per

LeadHouse List Glove Offer 8 3,5,2,2,1,1,5,1 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2 29 3.63

House List Book Offer 9 4,5,1,2,3,4,1,4,1 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 34 3.78

Metal Stamping Glove Offer 1 5 1 6 6.00

Metal Stamping Book Offer 8 1,1,6,1,3,1,2,2 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2 26 3.25

Communications Unknown 28 2,3,3,1,1,1,1,1,1,4,4,5 2,2,2,2,2,2,1,1,1,2,2 131 4.68

Communication Tier 1 15 7,3,1,3,2,2,2,4,3,2,1,2,3,3,8 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,12,2,2,2, 66 4.40

ISHN 2 8 0 8 4.00

ISHN_11_7_12 16 3,1,1,9,1,1,2,1,5,4,2,1,5,4,2,1,5,1,1,2,1 1,1,1,1,2,2,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,2,2,1, 72 4.50

87 187 91 372 4.28

Four to Five Touch Points Required

4 to 5 touches, to be exact

This involves:

1. Initial email campaign

2. Initial call (Left voice message or directed to proper contact)

3. Call to engage new contact in the value prop and offers

4. Email to contact

5. Call to complete qualification script, and if qualified then

close on Superior Glove sales rep appointment

Case 2: WAN Software Company

• WAN (wide area network)

optimization

• Entrenched competitor: Riverbed

• Very complex sale to over-

busy IT

• “Pain” is felt when applications

run too slowly on IT network.

But isolating the speed issue

difficult, and often trumped by

other priorities

WAN Software Company

Have been doing email, webinars, PPC, trade shows.

Top of funnel demand gen focused

Large buckets of unqualified leads in Salesforce account.

Lead management issues

No formal process in place for tele-qualifying inbound

leads or generating qualified sales opportunities

Mid funnel problem similar to Forrester example

Solution Pilot Program

Clearly defined sales ready criteria

Multi-touch approach implemented + nurturing

to develop prospects until they qualify

Test two offers: Gartner Magic Quadrant

report vs.. on-demand webinar featuring

Gartner analyst

Test three lists: House lead file vs.. Rental file

of Riverbed sites vs.. webinar/seminar

attendee file

As program rolled out, webinar

registrants/attendees & inbound responders

were also nurtured until qualified

Which Offer Worked?

Both

It was nearly a 50/50 split

Which Lists Worked?

All of them!!!

But some worked better than others. How do we

know? Metrics… We tracked the number of contact

attempts required to reach IT titles from each list.

Campaign Touch Count Per Qualified Lead

Observation: Range of 2 to 9 Touches

• Program wide, it required an average of 7.51 touches (via

telephone and email) per contact to convert to a sales-

ready defined quality lead.

• Webinar and live seminar lists representing the low end

of the spectrum at 2.50 touches (Best)

• House file and Riverbed rental file at the higher end at

9.46 touches per lead.

• It is also worth noting that this average does not account

for the pre campaign calls required to identify and

validate the correct contact, or the webinar touches.

• For example, it might require a phone call or two to gain a referral

identifying the appropriate contact. This is critical as many lists

have outdated or bad data problems.

Patience, patience, patience

• Did this program show immediate results? Not exactly.

• 1 qualified lead was generated during the first 75 hours of the program

• During the initial 50 hour development and roll out phase, several challenges were identified, including low initial response rates to the message when contacting non-responders, difficulties in gaining contact referrals and minimal receptivity to initial messaging • Refinements to messaging and follow up calls to engage prospects

were needed because the IT targets were busy and had a different way of perceiving the messaging and value props. These prospects were only concerned about their own schedules, so setting call back times and sending a relevant email proved critical to engaging, establishing a trusted relationship and discussing their needs. Then BINGO!

How we fixed it… Listening and Revising!

• More product training for callers was scheduled and completed to improve call dialogue and overcome objections that stonewalled conversations.

• Competitive comparisons with Riverbed were re-positioned. Client was presented as a solution to system issues encountered by Riverbed users, rather than as a competitor of Riverbed.

• Emails were sent by members of the Calling Team that included White Papers, and Case Studies as well as On-Demand Webinars designed to refine sequential touch points, improving the quantity and quality of program dialogues. This helped establish a nurture sequence designed to educate prospects on the viability of client offerings.

Q&A

Laurie Beasley lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Direct: 408-782-0046 x21

www.beasleydirect.com

@BeasleyDirect

Blog: www.BeasleyDirect-blog.com

Tom Judge tjudge@dirmkt.com

Direct: 510-368-7527

www.directmarketingpartners.com

Blog: http://www.directmarketingpartners.com/blog.html

About Beasley Direct Marketing

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. provides copywriting, design, programming, and consulting services for the following direct marketing channels:

Search (PPC and SEO) Email Creative, Design, Deliverability Audits, and Broadcast Direct mail (with and without PURLs) Landing Page Design (with and without PURLs) Mobile Video Social Website Design Catalog/eCommerce Brochure, White Paper, and Guide copy and design List Building and CRM Database Management Telemarketing Translation for all of the above Executive Dashboard Tracking, Reporting, and Lead

Assignment

About Direct Marketing Partners (DMP)

DMP is a lead management and lead funnel qualification

services provider for B2B selling firms

DMP provides customized lead-to-sales service bundles.

DMP teams are an extension of our clients’ demand gen teams.

Clients receive dedicated trained teams to execute multi-touch email,

direct mail and peer to peer tele-prospecting campaigns with marketing

automation and funnel metrics to optimize lead to sale conversions.