Four Rules for Communicating with the “Crazy-Busy Prospect”

The title of a recent blog post by Brian Carroll, “Learn the New Rules for Selling to Crazy-Busy Prospects,” got my attention.

In this post he invites his readers to a complimentary Webinar on Thursday, June 24 at 2:00 PM CST (that’s tomorrow) featuring Jill Konrath, author of “SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers (May 2010).” I’m sure it will be a valuable and informative event.

The focus of Brian’s blog and expertise which he shares on B2B Lead Generation is B2B selling and the complex sale. It’s an important topic.

But the title of his post hit me for a different area of marketing.

For marketing to generate a lead — or nurture one — we need to “communicate” with prospects in writing. Whether it’s an email, a direct mail letter, a product brochure, Web site, data sheet or any other communication, we must remember that the folks reading our B2B communication are crazy-busy.

How do we communicate in writing with these folks? I follow these four tried-and-true rules:

1. Make sure the reader/prospect gets the entire message by reading only the headlines and subheads, without having to read a word of body copy. A quick scan of the message should communicate the topic, big benefit(s) and the call to action.

2. Never write any paragraph, anywhere, that is longer than four lines.

3. Communicate the message as quickly as possible. The crazy-busy don’t have time to read, and if the message looks long and wordy, they’ll stop reading it and move on. Email marketing messages should be 250 words or shorter. Direct mail letters should fit on one page.

4. Always include a strong, clear prominent call to action. All communication, including Web pages, must tell the reader/prospect exactly what they are to do and when they are to do it. Yes, adding the words “now” or “today” makes a difference.

The crazy-busy don’t have time to wade through complex messaging. To reach this group, marketers should always keep B2B communications short, clear and direct.

The dollars and sense of inbound vs. outbound marketing.

The economic downturn over the past few years has driven many talented yet unemployed people to start their own businesses. These folks take their years of experience and offer it to other businesses through their own specialty consulting or service firm — a firm that they must then market.

Just such an individual contacted me last week. He wanted to generate leads and business via outbound email marketing; however, after learning that he has a few clients, a relatively short buy cycle and a very limited budget, I recommended that he use inbound marketing and supplement it with personal outbound phone calls to his highly targeted B2B market.

OUTBOUND
Email marketing is relatively low cost when a company has built a pipeline of leads and handles its own email distribution via marketing automation. But for outbound marketing (that is going to a targeted B2B list) the costs add up fast.

Quality outbound email marketing lists (those that are made of real subscribers to an online publication and are therefore fully opt-in and have been profiled) cost from $400-$700 per thousand. Most of these top-quality lists require a 5000-name minimum, which raises the list cost to $2000 to $3500. Marketing professionals, including me, recommend testing more than one list at a time. Testing allows marketers to learn which list performs best and gives them the insight to improve the success of each subsequent marketing effort. Testing just two lists brings the cost up to $4000-$7000. If a marketer wants to maximize the success of the program, the message should be written and designed by professionals, which adds to the cost as well.

As a result of these higher upfront costs, many marketers avoid the outbound direct mail channel. Yet it is still one of the most powerful channels for B2B lead generation if done according to best practices. That means that, for lead generation, the mailing quantity must be large enough to deliver a response rate that is statistically valid so the results are repeatable on future mailings. In the B2B world this could be a minimum of 10,000 prospects at a typical cost of $1 each and up. For companies selling high-end enterprise systems, this approach is affordable and productive. But not for small start-ups.

INBOUND
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is very affordable for the small and start-up business. Good-quality Web site SEO can be obtained for as little as $250 per month. Pay-per-click ads — depending on the market, keywords, etc. — can range from as little as $250 to $1000 per month or more. The same general costs apply to content syndication. Social media costs little in dollars but can cost much in time for a one-person business if done properly. There are many other elements in a comprehensive inbound marketing program, but, for small start-ups, it’s a cost-effective option.

OUTBOUND AGAIN
In addition, however, I recommended that this new business owner not wait exclusively for inbound efforts to make his phone ring. I advised him to identify companies that meet his very targeted profile and pick up the phone and call them or send them individual letters.

As I’ve said many times before, no single marketing approach can stand on its own, B2B marketers. That’s why dollars and sense enter into our marketing decisions.

To increase B2B marketing response, increase response options.

Many of the best practices I promote for use in email nurturing campaigns, on Web sites, and in offer content come from my direct mail marketing experience. One such practice has been proven effective over and over and over — including a mail-back reply device.

In a direct mail marketing communication, 20% of the replies ALWAYS come from the reply device if there is one. This is true even if the mailing is going to titles that spend their lives online such as CIOs and other top IT management.

Why does this work? Because every person likes to do things their own way. By giving prospects more ways to respond, marketers increase the chances that people will find the response avenue that meets their personal style.

What does this mean to B2B marketers?

Marketers conducting lead generation or nurturing campaigns by offering free informational content should include their phone number and an email address to give the prospect the option to interact with the company making the offer. This is important because prospects that are already researching solutions and are further along in the buying cycle may have other questions and may want to engage with someone at the same time the offer is accepted. That’s why phone numbers and email addresses must be prominent on Web sites, in Webinar invites, on trade show booth invites and all other marketing communications.

Many marketers may respond that the prospect can just go to the Web site to find the contact info. But why make it MORE difficult for a prospective customer to respond?

Putting phone numbers and email addresses on sites that mass market — or on many types of e-commerce sites — may not make sense. But for businesses selling complex, high-ticket items with a long buying cycle, it is a necessity if those businesses want to increase response to their marketing.

3 things B2B marketers can learn from retailers.

It has been said that for a retail business to be successful, it must focus on three things: location, location, and location. B2B marketers also have three important areas of focus to achieve success: target, target, and target.

Reaching the most qualified companies and titles is still the most important element in every outbound B2B marketing campaign. The best way to identify that target is to build a profile of best customers and apply that profile against the marketing lists (email or mail) selected for outbound campaigns.

Best customers are those who meet most of the following criteria:

1. Lifetime Value: Generated the greatest revenue.
2. Number of Products and Services Purchased: Purchased the most products and the most profitable products.
3. Loyalty: Remained customers the longest.
4. Service Effort: Do not require excessive levels of service or support.

Once the above customers are identified, the next step is to profile them by the following identifiable demographics, which can be applied to available mail and some email marketing lists:

• Industry
• Size by number of employees and/or annual sales
• Number of locations
• Title of decision-maker or main contact
• SIC (Standard Industrial Code) Current systems in place (if applicable to the product being sold)

If marketers do not have that kind of detail on their customers, firms such as Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) can append that data to the customer file for a fee.

Using a profile to define what markets, companies, titles and other criteria to pursue should result in attracting more qualified leads that might close faster and ultimately be more profitable customers. It’s an important step in building strategic B2B marketing plans.

One caveat, however: Marketers should remember that their profile of best customers could be a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” That is, the profile may show only those industries, titles, company sizes and other criteria that they have targeted in the past. It may or may not reflect the universe of opportunities.

If the marketing of a wheelchair lift has always been directed at schools, the profile will show a certain size or type of school as its best customer. In this case, marketing has no way of knowing if office building developers would not be a better “best customer,” since that market is not in the database from which the profile is built.

So, profiling a company’s best customers is a smart practice. But do it knowing that current best customers may or may not reflect the possible best customers.

The more B2B marketing changes, the more it stays the same.

Eric Gannon’s recap of the B2B University event in Washington DC was posted recently on the Business Marketing Institutes Tuesday Marketing Notes. It’s a great post. Without the cost of travel or attendance fees, BMI readers can partake of  “Six Lessons from B2B University“ that are detailed enough to provide real take-aways.

Here are the six points in his recap:

1. Your Prospects Are In Charge Now
2. Marcom 2.0: It’s All About the Content
3. Marketing Automation is Smart. It’s the People Who Do Dumb Things With It
4. In B2B, Social Marketing is Much More than Twitter or Facebook
5. If You’ve Wondered How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation, Here’s How…
6. To Make Your Marketing Program Indispensable, Link Your Marketing Results to Sales and New Business Generation

You’ll want to read his entire post for all the details he shares on each of these points. But it’s the first point that I take one small issue with. It’s not that the explanation is wrong. He notes that prospects can now “use Google, news and vendor Web sites, and social media to freely search and gather all of the information required for making their initial product and vendor selections, largely bypassing your company’s typical marketing program and ‘story’ as their sole source of their information about your product.”

My issue is the dramatic title of Point #1 that “Prospects are in Charge Now.” From my direct marketing point of view, prospects have always been in charge. Whether marketing is inbound or outbound, it’s the prospect who can take action to conduct product research on their own or respond to the outbound content offers sent out by the company.

Offering free informational content has always been the key to effective B2B outbound lead generation. The approach just gets more blog time now. My objection to the language is that marketers should NEVER think that their prospects are not in charge. With that attitude, marketers might give up actively generating leads and only nurture the leads that come their way through SEO, social media outreach and other inbound channels.

When done correctly, generating leads through email, direct mail, SEM, outbound telemarketing and trade shows still works. So marketers should not think that saying “Your Prospects are in Charge Now” is an excuse to give up proven, profitable marketing channels.

My “duh” moment on the vital need for both inbound AND outbound B2B marketing.

A colleague of mine who is a commission salesperson flew back East yesterday after an invitation from a prospective customer to make a presentation to his company. The prospect has a problem that my colleague’s company can solve.

This invitation didn’t follow a referral. There wasn’t a formal request for proposal (RFP). The prospect didn’t find my colleague’s company through social media. It wasn’t a B2B lead generated by SEO, SEM or a banner. In fact, it wasn’t even a lead generated by B2B email marketing, direct mail marketing, a trade show booth visit or an ad.

It was generated by a cold call that my colleague made to the company.

I’m not pooh-poohing the value of any of the above marketing channels. But this cold call — that led to an in-person presentation — was my “duh” moment on the difference between inbound and outbound B2B lead generation.

Companies have problems. There are so many aspects in the operation of a successful business, or even in a given department of that business, that the most painful problems are addressed first. Inbound marketing benefits when a company is pursuing a solution for its most painful problem. It is then that prospects actively research solutions on the Web, follow experts on social media, visit Web sites, read paid search ads, ask colleagues for referrals and send out RFPs.

But those companies that have problems they’ve pushed to the back burner because of more urgent ones are not actively pursuing a solution. Then, voila , an email or direct mail letter appears. Some are likely to think “here’s a white paper addressing that other problem we have. I think I’ll ask for it and see what it says.”

The company making the white paper offer will have then generated a lead that can be nurtured until that company says “this pain is big enough that we have to fix it now.” Low and behold, the company that sent the outbound marketing is already engaging with that prospect and has a huge edge.

In fact, the company my colleague is seeing was not seeking a solution. But his call alerted them to a smart way to solve a problem they knew they had. When a solution appeared, they jumped on it.

In rare occasions, perhaps, a B2B marketer knows about the pain a particular company is suffering from at that moment. Most of us in B2B marketing won’t. That’s why we have to reach out via outbound marketing AND make sure we’re reachable when the time is right.

All channels are vital. Cold calling works, too.

Want to be a B2B business-development pro? Start here.

This morning I read an excellent question in a B2B marketing group on LinkedIn. “If you had 30, 60 and 90 days to prove yourself as an effective business development professional…which of the following lead generation techniques would you implement and what percentage of your time would be dedicated towards each?”

• Phone Outreach
• Email Outreach
• Social Media
• Referrals
• Direct Marketing
• Events (Webinars, conferences, etc.)
• Other

If you’re a member of the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable on LinkedIn you can read the answers that follow. Of course I didn’t directly answer the question because I was so disappointed to see “Direct Marketing” on the list as if it were a channel.

As a B2B direct marketing advocate (read fanatic), I guess it’s pretty easy to set me off. But I suspect the person asking the question, Philip Reid of Winning Business Inc., meant to say Direct Mail Marketing, which is indeed a channel.

His oversight, however, got me thinking about how important it is for marketers to understand and use direct marketing if they intend to be effective B2B business-development professionals. I’m not Merriam-Webster, but here’s my definition of direct marketing:

Direct marketing is the marketing approach that is designed to change behavior. Unlike advertising, which is designed to change attitude, direct marketing must be created with the full intention of having the prospect “do something.”

If the primary intent of the communication is not to get a prospect to take a specified action, then the communication is not direct marketing, or as it’s also called — direct response marketing.

I can already hear protests such as “but what about PR and branding?” Those approaches are essential in providing the exposure, positioning and buzz necessary to bring attention and credibility to the company doing the marketing. But they do not directly generate leads in a planned, controlled manner. Social media can do both, but it qualifies as direct marketing only when it’s used to ask recipients to take a specific action.

So I recommend that marketers take a quick review of all their marketing efforts and see which ones fit the description and which ones do not. It’s the fastest path to being a successful business-development pro.

A sure recipe for B2B marketing success.

It’s 4:00, time to start thinking about what to fix for dinner. I have a closetful of recipe books to assure me that, if I follow them faithfully, I can create dishes that do what they are supposed to do — taste delicious and satisfy those at my dining table. Unlike gourmet cooks or professional chefs, I don’t have time to experiment with recipes and risk failure.

B2B marketing is a lot like cooking. Most B2B marketers don’t have the time, the budget or a large enough universe of prospects to test new marketing ideas.

Testing is, of course, the most essential element in direct marketing — that is, marketing that’s designed to generate a response.

Offline marketers can test such things as offers, packages, mailing lists or print media. However, the typical B2B prospect universe is small, often under 10,000 companies. This small universe makes it difficult to get the response quantities large enough for statistically valid response rates.

Online testing is much easier to do. As Bob Frady of DM Central nicely explains in “Why Aren’t You Testing?” it’s critical and easier in today’s digital marketing to test such things as subject lines, landing pages, SEM ad messages and more.

Big companies with large budgets can test fresh, new marketing approaches for the opportunity to achieve breakthrough results. That’s where marketing innovation comes from. Most B2B marketers, however, are not big. They don’t have huge budgets or the time to test everything they do.

What should they do? Follow the recipe. All B2B marketers have to do is to learn what’s working by reading case studies, white papers, industry surveys, even blogs like this one. Best practices are based on measured results from marketing approaches that have been tested by the big guys and proven to work time and time again.

Following B2B marketing best practices is the most assured and least risky path to success. After all, people care only how the food tastes, not whether it was cooked by following a recipe.

How are you ending your first date with B2B prospects?

It’s been a long time since I had to go on a date (thank heavens). But what I do remember is not the dates themselves. What I remember are the endless days after the date wondering if I would hear from the guy again. The guys could have prevented my pain by inviting me to go out again at the end of the first date. That would be something like “Now that you’ve discovered what a fun and charming guy I am, how about trying dinner and a movie?”

In marketing, we call this the secondary offer. Secondary offers are included in the thank-you communication sent after the acceptance of the first offer. If a prospect has downloaded a white paper, an auto email goes out saying thank-you and making the secondary offer at the same time.

In the email, prospects are thanked for their download and then invited to learn more with a secondary offer, which could be a Webinar, a checklist, a demo, a guide or any other appropriate content that would expand on the information provided in the first offer.

Some cursory research turned up a blog post from January 2007 by Anne Holland at MarketingSherpa. She talks about how MarketingSherpa measures the response to secondary offers and reports that response had been 40% but was updated to 39%. The number could be falling still. Yet if the response rate is only 10% these days, I wouldn’t want to miss those 10% who are ready to be further engaged with what my company offers.

It’s likely that the majority of respondents to a lead acquisition offer will be in the earliest stages of the buying cycle. They are just discovering that they have a problem and are just beginning to be interested in learning about the options available to solve that problem. Making secondary offers with the thank-you for acceptance of each previous offer is a solid nurturing process that slowly moves those prospects forward to the next stage of the buy-cycle and eventually to direct engagement with sales.

So when marketers acquire a lead, they should skip the good-night kiss and instead extend the invitation for the next date.

Want more qualified B2B leads? Say “show me the money.”

In the short post last week “Some people are better than others,” Seth Godin talked about the value of certain prospective customers over others. He makes a great argument, for instance, that book buyers are more likely to be good prospects for buying a Kindle, not because they read more but because the have “bought” books. What makes these prospects better is the commitment of money to a particular interest.

His example is a consumer one. But his point applies in B2B marketing just as well. Prospects willing to “pay money” or “invest time” to learn something are better than those who just opt in or register to gain free information. Here are three examples of prospects who show the money.

 Subscribers: Prospects who fall into this category are far easier to find as there a number of rental lists available based on buying behavior. A list of subscribers paying to receive an industry publication, for example, is far more valuable than names rented from a controlled circulation publication that is free to readers offline or online.

 Trade Shows: In good times, companies freely pay to send employees to trade shows for learning. In this slowed economy, not as many businesses are participating in or attending industry trade shows because of the cost. Those who do send attendees are seriously in the market for solutions.

 Live Seminars: B2B marketers have long known that offering targeted content generates qualified leads of individuals who have an interest in a subject related to their product or service. Offering a live seminar, however, requires an investment of time on the part of the attendee. Time is money after all. This approach will significantly reduce response over an online Webinar, but those attending should be far more qualified.

 Prospects who are actively researching and evaluating something are closer to making a buying decision. Attracting this type of lead should not be a substitute for filling the pipeline, but businesses that want qualified leads who could close faster, should look for the money.