March 2011 Archives

Marketing and sales can have conflicting goals and agendas. That's not news. What's changing though, is the focus on getting rid of those petty differences and mini-battles inherent in the relationship by working together. Marketing and sales alignment is a popular concept these days: instead of working on their own, how can the two groups work collectively to gain efficiencies and ultimately deliver better leads and more closes?

The answer is, fairly easily. Alignment doesn't mean you need to buy fancy software or get more resources, it just means reconsidering the simple things:

• Develop shared goals: if both groups share similar goals, working together is natural.
• Sustain regular communication: communication between the groups should be regular and frank - and it's equally important to share what's working well instead of only what's not working.
• Use the same vocabulary: the definition of a lead might differ between marketing and sales so make sure everyone is on the same page for commonly used jargon.
  
• Encourage transparency: with CRM software widely used these days, marketing should have access to sales results themselves. Not to judge selling ability, of course, but to learn first hand what's working and what's not so they can further optimize.
  
• Commit to following up: true alignment will never be achieved if sales doesn't follow-up on every lead.
  

Try this at your organization. It just works.

Ever wonder about what your peers are saying about their sales calls?  Well we asked BuyerZone's Twitter followers and our own sales team about some of their experiences. Here is what they said:

What is your best opening line on the phone? And does it work? This question had mixed results. Some people opened the call with a question like, "Are you satisfied with your current XYZ provider?" or "What would it take to get you to upgrade your ABC system today?" However, these questions leave you susceptible to immediate rejection. They are open-ended and allow the prospect to deny your call immediately. But is it better to leave no room for rejection? Or will that tactic just illicit a negative response? From all of our responses, here was my personal favorite:

"I identify myself and my company and then I ask if this is a good time to speak- it gives them the opportunity to say no (which they always appreciate) and when they say yes it gives me permission to continue my pitch. And does it work? At the very least it shows the potential sale you're willing to listen to them even if they tell you they can't speak to you right then."

This strategy isn't too pushy and it gets the point across. If the prospect says that it's a bad time, you can either set up a better time to talk or make a note to call them back. CRM can be extremely helpful in tracking your progress from the initial call to the close.

When do you give up on a lead? The magic number here is three. Most responders identified that they would give up after three calls or three calls and an email. Some even said that they gave up after just three points of contact -so perhaps two calls and one email. Either way, the key was three.

I know we're well into 2011, but looking back on 2010, it was hard not to notice the massive success of daily deal sites - especially Groupon. Though popularized by sites like Woot, Groupon, and many sites like it, offer targeted, limited-time deals which become valid once enough people buy the offer. It's essentially a modern day version of group buying, harnessing the power of the Internet (and a good deal) to generate purchasing power. Deals ranging from restaurants, spas, teeth-whitening, helicopter tours and more have become the norm - flooding businesses with new customers. A lot of small businesses could never dream of launching a TV ad campaign or mastering SEO and SEM campaigns - but they can offer $30 of food and drink for $15 by leveraging the marketing prowess of these sites.

Though this model is not without its problems, it is unquestionably a growing lead generation tool for local, and increasingly national, businesses. According to research firm, eMarketer, consumer spending on deal-a-day sites is projected to grow to a nearly $4 billion by 2015. Today, we're seeing mostly B2C offers, but this model is primed to be used for B2B offers as well.

Do you sell phone systems? Are you a commercial cleaning company? Even if you offer consulting services, it would be wise to think about the type of offer you could run to stimulate near instant demand for your business.  Traditional online and offline isn't going away (despite what they tell you!) - but it's hard not to wonder how the daily deal space may continue to change traditional lead generation as we know it.

A drip campaign is a series of emails that are sent in a specific order at predefined intervals. The goal of the campaign may be to educate and nurture new leads or to cross-sell to existing customers. Drip campaigns are an effective marketing tool when executed properly. However, when you're knee deep in content creation, it's easy to lose site of the basics.

Below is a quick list of drip marketing do's and don'ts:

Do's
1. Do provide valuable content not simply promotional messages. Know what your prospects are interested in and offer ideas and solutions to their problems. Hint: they don't want to hear you talk about yourself all the time.

2. Do track results. Don't lose sight of your ultimate goal - delivering qualified leads to your sales team. To do so, you need to track responses, including opens, clicks and web page visits so you can notify your sales team about high scoring leads.

3. Do make your email mobile reader friendly. Reading emails on the run is becoming increasingly popular and chances are a percentage of your prospects are reading your emails on mobile devices. Optimizing your emails for mobile marketing will help you engage more of your recipients.

Last week wrapped another successful Leadscon in Las Vegas. It's always nice hearing from and meeting with people who know lead generation. Since BuyerZone is a lead generation company and this is a lead generation-focused blog, I wanted to share some highlights from the conference.

The conference kicked-off with a state of the industry panel featuring speakers from a few of the well-known lead generation companies, including ServiceMagic, Quinstreet and Bankrate. Like last year, much of the discussion centered around mobile and social media. In terms of mobile, more and more searches are being conducted away from the desktop and instead on smartphones and tablets. Is your site ready? 70% of sites aren't. For social media, the general consensus seemed to be that there isn't a proven playbook for using social media for lead gen - yet. For now, having a presence and offering resources and tools to potential prospects is the way to go.

As usual, Google was on the minds of many. We know they've entered the lead generation space with their mortgage comparison ads and Paul Franz, the director of mortgage comparison ads for Google, mentioned at Leadscon plans to move into other finance-related areas as well as an entirely new category which he would not divulge. Google also made news during the show for their recent algorithm change that affected many players in the industry, including a site acquired yesterday by Google itself. As always, it will be interesting to see how the dynamics of the industry change - especially with the growing presence of Google. 

The wake of LeadsCon makes me think about new trends of lead gen and b2b. There is so much stability to the traditional methodology of lead gen. Many universal truths, like the importance of follow-up, will likely never go out of style. According to a live LeadsCon tweet from BuyerZone's president, Mie-Yun Lee, "Speed of response and customization of response are the two keys to closing more leads says Glenn Houck #leadscon". But does that mean that we should never try out the newest trends? No, definitely not.

First off, can social media be used as a new lead gen tool? According to an interesting article from socialmediab2b.com, you can use B2B social media for efficient lead qualification. They assert that by investigating LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook you can find insights about the lead to help with scoring. They also explain that you can learn about new product lines or acquisitions by following the company pages -which could lead you to more insight to help in closing the sale. Recently, lead quality has moved to the forefront of importance, so this social information could prove to be extremely useful. But what about generating leads directly through Facebook? Read this other tweet from Mie-Yun Lee at LeadsCon to find the answer.

While closing a deal is the most fundamental challenge in sales, closing the right kind of deals can be another real struggle for many salespeople. Depending on the products or services you sell, low-end deals can almost seem like a waste of time and effort - but that doesn't have to be the case.

With a slight change in how you approach small deals, you can realize more value than you might expect. Here's what to keep in mind when you're tempted to ignore a small potential customer.