stop leads vanishing

8/3/2019 Stop Leads Vanishing

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The one thing every organization can do right

now

to stop 80% of its Leads from vanishing!!

Breakthrough Business Solutions



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Table of contents

1. Executive Summary 3

2. A day in the life of lead attraction 4

3. Timing is everything 5

4. Education , repetition & variety 6

5. Buyer Roles, Buying Stages, Content & Timing 7

6. Campaign Matrix 9

7. Conclusion 10

8. About Breakthrough Business Solutions 11



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Executive Summary

1. Any lead attraction campaign brings three types of leads : Hot – 10% ; Warm –

80% ; Cold -10%

2. Sales teams concentrate on the hot leads which bring in immediate sales. And

that is natural. They have a monthly target to meet.

3. Sales executives neither have the time, patience, knowledge or skill to nurture

the warm leads. As a result the warm leads get neglected, are not nurturedsystematically, and they slip through the cracks. For every one sale that comes

through the hot lead, another 2 to 3 sales will come through the warm leads.

But they are lost because of lack of lead nurturing.

4. The reason is, people buy when they’re ready to buy , not when you’re ready

to sell. There’s a huge gap between “getting the lead” and “closing the sale”. If

this gap is closed, the sales process shifts from hunting mode to harvesting mode.

5. This gap is closed by maintaining an ongoing conversation with warm leads. The

conversation is carried out by “dripping” relevant content to prospects over time,

helping to educate them, building trust with them and building credibility withthem. As a result, when they are ready to move to the next step, they will

contact you.

6. The content should be educative and should have variety. It should generate

valuable insight on issues that customers and prospects care most about. It

should change people’s minds and incite action.

7. These content pieces range from education pieces and industry oriented pieces

to consultive pieces and product related pieces. They should come as, monthly

newsletters, case studies, whitepapers, testimonials, micro sites, e-books, podcasts, web casts , websites . They should be delivered through email, direct mail,

fax, phone, CDs, internet & in person presentations.

8. By creating 30 to 50 pieces of different types, in different formats and

delivering through different mediums in a sequential drip, you will have the

client in a vice like grip. So, when he is ready to buy, not only will your company

be on the top of his mind, he would have formed such a strong trust and

credibility for your company that he would buy only from you.



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A day in the life of Lead attraction

Step 1: Attract leads with a direct mailer, emailer, telecalling, direct response

advertising or some other campaign

Step 2: Distribute leads to sales executives

Step 3: Sales Executives call on the leads

Step 4: Sales Executives work with hot leads to close sales

Step 5: Throw away, postpone or neglect the leads that aren’t “hot”

Step 6: Repeat the process

Just about every business does this. And it’s not bad... until one realizes how much

money is being left on the table. The fact is, for every deal that is closed, another 3 deals

could be closed, if a lead nurturing process was followed. Every time a marketing

campaign is run, the leads can be divided into three categories:

• Leads that are ready NOW (HOT): 10%

• Leads that aren’t ready now but will be ready soon (Warm – these leads are critical to

success): 80%• Leads that may never be ready (cold or bad leads): 10%

Every smart sales person goes for the low hanging fruit – leads that are ready now. This

is natural because sales executives have monthly, quarterly targets to meet and the fact

is they don’t have the time, skill, knowledge or patience to constantly follow up.

There’s nothing wrong with spending time with hot leads. The problem is of all those

warm leads that get neglected. Of course, everyone says they’re going to follow up with

the other leads “one of these days,” but the fact is, it never happens. And even if it is

done, it is not done systematically because it is tedius grunt work.

In the meantime, the warm leads get cold and they slip through the cracks. What is

needed is a system to follow up like clockwork.



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Timing Is Everything

“People will buy when they’re ready to buy, not when you’re ready to sell”. In other

words, follow-up with them... consistently! Because if you don’t, someone else will land

that business.

That “someone else” who lands the business will be the competitor, who either:

• Followed up religiously; or

• (more likely) got lucky enough to cross paths with the prospect at the right time.

No one wants to leave new business to chance. But the one thing you can control in this

situation – staying in front of the prospect – is probably the single greatest challenge in

business. In between “getting the lead” and “closing the sale” there’s a huge gap.

• Marketing’s job doesn’t end when the lead is acquired;

• The sales job doesn’t begin and end with a meeting and checking the lead status.

• Someone has to be in charge of “warming the leads” that aren’t hot right now, but

will be hot down the road.

How does one do that?

1. Send relevant, valuable information to every prospect on a scheduled, recurring basis.

2. Communicate to prospects efficiently, aside from the normal, time-consuming, one-

on-one meetings.

3. Log all communications in an organized fashion.



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Education, repetition and variety

1. EDUCATION. Follow-ups must provide valuable information. Prospects must believe

that you are on their side and should be trusted. You’ll accomplish this if you provide

them with accurate, insightful information. The sales process is confusing and

intimidating for customers. They want to trust you. Give them the information theyneed and earn their trust.

2. REPETITION. It’s a proven fact that human beings have to hear the same thing over

and over before it sinks in. You know your products and services like the back of your

hand, but your customers don’t “get it” the first time they hear the message. Don’t

make the mistake of thinking that if a prospect heard the pitch once, they understood

it. Chances are, they didn’t. Tell them again, and again and again.

3. VARIETY. You need to consistently tell your message. But follow-up message as well

as delivery needs variety. To maximize sales, use multi-step follow-up sequences that

incorporate direct mail, phone, email, fax, pod cast, web cast, and other media! Some

prospects will respond to your call, others to your email or letters and others to your fax.

There is serious power that comes when you contact your prospects using multiple

methods.



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Buyer Roles, Buying Stages, Content & Timing

“Dripping” out relevant content to prospects over time, helping to educate them and

building trust and credibility with them, forms the backbone of lead nurturing

program. By touching prospects regularly, helps you keep your company on top of the

mind, so that the prospect will contact you when they are ready to move to the next

step.

To develop effective Stay in Touch campaigns, marketers should focus on four aspects:

• Buyer Roles • Buying Stages • Content • Timing

• Buyer rolesDifferent people in the organization have different buyer roles. It is necessary to know

what those roles are, what their focus is and therefore what kind of information that

needs to be provided to them.

Economic Buyer – He is the person who gives final approval to buy. His focus is always

‘return on investment’. How will it impact the organization?

User Buyer – He is the person who will actually use or supervise the use of the product/service being purchased. His focus is always about the impact of the product/service on

the job to be done. There is a direct link between the user buyer success and success of

the product/service

Technical buyer / influencer – He is the person whose role is to screen out. He may not

decide who will win, but will definitely decide who can play. Their main focus is on

whether the product/ service meets the desired specifications.

• Buying Stages There are four main stages: Awareness: Identify a business need; Consideration:

Determine possible solutions; Research: Evaluate different solutions; Purchase: Select

a solution and negotiate purchase.

The buying process is not a simple, logical, rational and linear process where a prospect

moves neatly from one stage to the next; rather, prospects move chaotically forward

and backwards through the process as they balance rational decision making with the

emotional impacts of fear and risk.



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The buyer may or may not be rewarded for making a good purchase, but a bad

purchase can damage the buyer’s reputation and job security. As a result, fear and risk

play large roles in B2B buying decisions. Organizational risk can be dealt with rationally,

but personal risk is usually unstated and hidden from the rational process. Yet personal

risk remains a huge factor in B2B buying.

The most important attribute for a B2B vendor is often credibility and trust and the

best way to build credibility and trust is by sharing useful information. If you can help

frame the discussion, your company will be seen as a trusted advisor. If buyers believe

that your company understands their problems and knows how to solve them, this helps

reduce the feelings of fear and can make a big difference in being selected for

consideration and purchase.

• ContentBuyer roles and buying stages come together with content. Content plays a tremendous

role in lead nurturing, as it often acts as a stand-in, when a person is not yet sales ready.

To ensure relevance, it is critical to focus content on both the ‘buyer role’ and the

‘buying stage’.

The content someone would find relevant changes as they move through the process.

For example:

• Educational pieces work well during the early awareness stages. With these pieces,

you are simply educating people and sharing best practices.

• Industry-oriented pieces work well during consideration stage. Examples can beindustry overviews, analyst reports, buyer’s guides, case studies etc.

• Solution-oriented and company-focused materials are appropriate for research and

purchase stage

• Timing Successful lead nurturing depends on getting the frequency of communication right. The

timing of lead nurturing campaigns will be different for every company. As a very

general guideline, contacting prospects more than once a week is too much and less

than once a month is not enough.

The timing of your lead nurturing programs are impacted by both the length of average

buying cycle as well as the approaches used for lead nurturing (email, direct mail,

phone, etc.). Direct mail and email could be considered less intrusive than a phone call,

especially if the content of communication is more educational than sales-oriented.

Creating 30 to 50 pieces of nurturing content spread across the roles and stages, so that

the typical prospect will receive a piece every two to three weeks, and slightly more

frequently later in the buying cycle is extremely important.



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Campaign Matrix

The goal of this matrix is to provide at-a-glance resource for determining the structure

of Stay in Touch campaigns. By completing this matrix, you’ll ensure that all of your

campaign components — buyer roles, buying stages, content and timing — are

effectively aligned with each other so that you can communicate in the most relevant

way with your prospects according to their buying stage.

Each intersection of the matrix, should map out the content to drip out, according tobuyer profile and stage — ideally each grid box should have multiple pieces of content

over time.

Buying

stage

Buyer Role

Awareness

(Identify a

business

need)

Consideration( Deter

mine possible

solutions)

Research( Evalu

ate different

solutions)

Purchase( Sele

ct a solution

and negotiate

purchase)

EconomicBuyer

User Buyer

Technical

Buyer/Influ

encer



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Conclusion

Create 30 to 50 information content pieces, (keeping in view the buyer

roles and buying stages in mind), in various formats for delivery through

various modes.

These pieces create trust and credibility because they are informational and

educational in nature, rather than being sales oriented. Their delivery to

target prospects is also extremely cost effective compared to traditional

advertising, which is expensive and cannot be repeated regularly. As a

result you and your organisation develop huge authority and are always on

top of the mind of the prospects.

Since People will buy when they’re ready to buy, not when you’re ready to

sell, a well thought out, well structured, sequential drip lead nurturingcampaign, will lead to increased sales, better sales and repeat sales.

* * * * * * * * * * *



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Marketing Solutions from

Breakthrough Business SolutionsHelping Companies Grow their Business

P-205, Sector-21, Noida

Mob – 9811417742

Email: [email protected]

Blog: makeyourmarketingsweat.com/blog

Sales Force

training

Sales force

outsourcing

Lead

Conversion

Lead

Nurturing

Lead

Attraction

Breakthrough

Business

Solutions



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1 Lead Attraction : We use an accurate database of the target market and

combine it with telemarketing , email marketing , direct mailing and

increasingly certain aspects of online marketing, where relevant , to

attract necessary number of leads .

2 Lead Nurturing: Using the concept of ‘Education based Marketing’ we

ensure systematic proper follow up of all the leads so that the buyer

becomes predisposed to buy only from you. This includes a variety of

methods including white papers, position papers, pod casts and webinars.When the prospect is ready , he calls up

3 Lead conversion: We identify the various gaps in the marketing and sales

process, and plug those gaps, so that the sales team is able to close more

business.

4 Sales force Outsourcing : For a launch of a new product/ service or sales

expansion of existing product / service , sales force can be recruited

/provided and trained to achieve the client’s objectives

5 Sales Force Training: Everything being equal, a trained sales force will bring

in more business than an untrained sales force. We help in studying the

gaps and providing the relevant sales training to the sales force, to make it

more productive.

To know more how we can work together, please call at 9811417742 or

email at [email protected]

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