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.

How B2B marketers can help overcome the “no budget” excuse

I just came across a great question posed by Elizabeth Zennadi of Direct Marketing Partners on LinkedIn‘s B2B Lead Generation Roundtable (which group members can access).

She asked, “How are you responding to the ‘budget excuse’?” The responses from other business development professionals come straight out of the real world where sales people live. They range from “Just kiss more frogs” to “No budget usually means ‘I do not see the value.’”

The answer by Keith Finger of Keith Finger Marketing is the one that prompted this post. His comment was, “I believe companies look to vendors to help them make money or save money. Given that, I discuss ROI up front so people understand there’s a benefit.”

Benefits, after all, are what B2B, or any, marketing is all about.

Now I ask — why wait until the lead is passed on to sales before establishing this benefit? Many B2B marketers may have been told, “Don’t talk about cost except in generic statements such as ‘great ROI’ or ‘competitive pricing’ or ‘affordable’ or even ‘low cost.’  But there is a way B2B content marketers can present the ROI story during the nurturing process and that could help move leads closer to being sales-ready.

It’s with an online, interactive ROI calculator. Not all business types can take advantage of this because of their pricing structures, but for those who can it’s a great tool. The online calculator lets the prospect fill in the parameters that fit his or her own company. These might be the number of users, staff involved in completing a task, number of projects or other costs. Once filled in, the calculator automatically reveals an ROI customized to the prospect’s business.

The more personalized a marketing message is, the more productive. By providing an ROI calculator that shows specific numbers to the prospect, marketers deliver much more than a passive message.

Prospects who have calculated their ROI won’t be as likely to use the “no budget” excuse once the lead is turned over to sales.

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.

Smart B2B marketing calls to action for 2010.

This morning, reviewing dozens of marketing blogs, I was overwhelmed with post after post about social media. I became worried that marketers were forgetting the channels that got us where we are today.

That’s why I was delighted to see Bill Gadless of B2B Web Strategy pass along advice from Jim Logan in “Try adding a call to action to the end of your white papers.”

Business buyers who are purchasing products and services do not want to be “sold” by high-pressure messages. That’s why social media is working. It’s also why today’s most consistently effective lead generation messaging identifies a challenge that prospects may be facing and offers a free white paper, checklist, guide, case study or other content that allows them to learn about ways to meet their challenge. But as soft as this approach may appear, once a lead is generated, every additional contact made should be followed by a new offer and a new call to action.

The suggestion in Bill’s blog is that the call to action could involve inviting leads to pass the content along to an associate or colleague, asking them to register for a newsletter or other subscription or inviting the reader to contact the business for a discussion.

These are all good suggestions. But to apply these calls to action randomly is not a good strategy. The fact is, there are specific stages in the buying cycle of a complex sale and the call to action or offer made should match the prospect’s place in the cycle.

As covered in Russell Kern’s guide “Direct Marketing’s Five Biggest Hurdles (And How to Get Over Them),” there are four stages in the buying cycle: Interest, Consideration, Evaluation, and Purchase.

As you can see, Mr. Kern’s examples — taken straight from his guide — involve matching the correct content offer to the prospect’s stage in the buying cycle. This approach is critical to enhancing the relationship with prospects and moving them forward to a purchase. Making mismatched call-to-action offers leads to email opt-outs.

There’s one thing that social media cannot do well and that is to “predictably” fill the sales pipeline and then — in a controlled manner — nurture leads until they are ready to be handed off to sales. Adding a call to action to every contact is a proven and effective marketing nurturing approach and businesses selling complex products can rarely succeed without it.

B2B Marketing Smarts now part of B2B Marketing Zone

Last July Tony Karrer at Browse My Stuff and Tom Pick at WebMarketCentral created and launched the B2B Marketing Zone, a community collecting and organizing the best information on the web about B2B marketing.

B2B Marketing Smarts is now please to be included in a long list of B2B marketing experts covering such focused topics as Content from Michele Linn and others at Savvy B2B Marketing, Sales from Mac McIntosh of Sales Lead Insights, Lead Generation from Brian Carroll of B2B Lead Generation, eMarketing Strategies from Ardath Albee at Marketing Interactions and many others.

Visitors can access specific info by keyword or by topic, so finding guidance on a specific B2B marketing subject is fast and easy.

Marketers who are looking for B2B marketing and sales insight can skip Google and go right to B2B Marketing Zone for all the guidance they’ll ever need.

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.

A B2B marketing message angle that could close sales.

In an earlier post, I talked about what motivates business buyers to buy. I listed the typical human wants and needs that drive all decisions, including those in the B2B world.

The problem is, whether I’m writing copy for collaboration software or safety gear or outsourced IT or leadership training, the benefits I present are all in the same categories. Here are the top 10 marketing motivators in the B2B world:

1. To make money
2. To save money
3. To save time
4. To avoid effort
5.  To be praised
6. To be in style
7. To emulate others
8. To take advantage of  opportunities
9. To avoid criticism
10. To avoid loss

I get excited about the products and services I’m asked to help market, but underneath it all, I’m making similar buying arguments for every one of them.

Then yesterday I was reminded of new angle on an old benefit. It came from Christine Durkin of MockVideo when she commented on a LinkedIn discussion asking “Is there a silver bullet answer to shortening the technology B2B sales cycle?”

Her comment was “One of the main reasons a B2B sale is lost is that the prospect isn’t truly aware of the cost of doing nothing.”

Her comment gave me a fresh marketing message angle.

Rather than inviting late buy-cycle prospects to attend a Webinar or download another white paper, my clients can give them a bottom-line incentive to make a decision. Providing a calculator or quantitative numbers on what it’s costing a prospect to NOT make a decision tells a powerful story that could close a sale.