PowerPoint Presentation

Why It Takes 7-13+ Touches to Generate a Qualified B2B Sales Lead TodayLaurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.Tom Judge, VP Strategy and Business Development, Direct Marketing Partners, Inc.

Part 1:Why So Many Touches?

Why So Many Touches?Its not easy generating the sales-ready leads

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B2B Marketing Challenges

Top 2 = our focus

Source Marketing Sherpa, also concurs with the challenges of optimizing the lead-to-sales process. Ill focus on top 2.Other issues: Not enough of the qualified sales-ready leads that will close into dealsLengthening buy & sales cycle challengesFalling response rates to most all mediaHaving to market to multiple decision makersManaging multi-media touch points

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Top 3 Strategic B2B Marketing Objectives for 2013

Source: 2013 CSO Insights Lead Management Optimization Study, Key Trend Analysis

The Goal of Demand Generation is Sales!

HoweverThe 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

Source: CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Study, 2013 Key Trend Analysis.

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7Marketing generates a lead with basic interest, not ready to engage a sales repSales teams reject unqualified leads, feels disconnected, requests sales-ready leadsFew actually convert and the numbers are unsustainable

Current marketing focusCurrent sales focusThe B2B leaddevelopment gapIssue 1: Marketing hands offLeads too early. UnqualifiedLeads waste sales time.Issue 2: Sales cherry picks leads, lettinglonger-time-frame leads leak out.Issue 3: Marketing spendsMore $ to replace lost leads.ReachInterestDesireConvertEnrichRetainWarm leads leak out

Gap in The Middle of the Funnel is Costing Time & $ MoneySource: Forrester October 2006, Best Practices Improving B2B Lead Mgmt

Forrester: Low Quality Sales Leads Create Sales Problems

Symptoms: Few conversions into customers

10/5/137What are the ramifications of low quality sales leads?Forrester illustrates what often happens when low quality sales leads are fed to a sales team. Sales are negatively impacted over time, marketing costs go up.Sales teams dismiss the marketing teams lead flow contribution.Sales team sales rep frustration leads to rep turn over. Same for marketing staff.

Challenge: How Can We Improve OurMulti-touch Lead-To-Sales Results?Here are some best practices and multi-touch cases that improve lead quality

One and done are history, so just do it!Lead nurturing is quickly becoming the big leverage point for successful firms. If they do it rightHistory indicates people wont respond to a message until they have been exposed to it several times.Have a pre-sales focused lead nurturing group do this for you. Sales People will NOT do Pre-sales nurturing and qualification work as it does not pay commissions and they have poor data quality skills. To do it right, many firms are consider outsourcing this module. This can often improve speed and quality over limited in house resources.8

Start with the end in mind: Review historic sales dataSegment by customer typesReview profitability data

Assess your TAM: Review the resources it will take to acquire

Align sales and marketing AND managementSales team agreement down to rep levelSenior management agreementDocument the profilesObtain sales or channel rep SLA sign offs that they will engage1. Start With the End in Mind.Create a Perfect Prospect Profile

Heres why it takes 7-13+ touches, your creating a better quality prospect:Todays sales-ready lead profile has been expanded to help reduce the more expensive and time consumption of having the sales teams develop a prospect. This is now done for them, so they can focus on selling.So start with a Perfect Prospect Profile. This is the safest common denominator when agreed upon between sales and marketing.Have management buy in, also have each sales rep sign off their SLA for making sales calls and other efforts or they will return.

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Digital/Online: Digital profile, SegmentWeb content activityTrigger events

Non-Digital/Peer-to-peer:Needs, Plans & Business painsRole in the buying process, Compliance issuesAccess to fundingSize of opportunityTime frame and Urgency Willingness to move forward and engage with sales?

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

Heres why it takes 7-13+ touches, your creating a better quality prospect:Sales ready criteria is defined by the sales organization, not the marketing team. Nowadays, it goes well beyond basic web traffic digital scored leads. Be open minded to off line information gathering to meet your sales teams needs!Business pains, plans etc. Note, these often require a peer to peer level discussion to earn the right to ask such questions. Prospects give limited information on line. Do not stop at digital profile data only! Go off line too to accelerate the pre-sales qualification process.Stage in the buying process or the time frame to purchaseSize of opportunityWhether the purchase is budgeted or does a business case need to be built?Job title or buying roleWhether the respondent would like to see a sales rep or move forward in the sales process.1010/5/13

Advanced Lead Rating & Scoring Criteria11

Tip: Combine digital and off line BANT Plus data points into your scoring

Heres why it takes 7-13+ touches, your creating a better quality prospect:We suggest combining digital data points and non-digital data points into scoring to increase the progression into Sales-Ready condition.Note, BANT criteria will vary. Not all BANT items may be available and some will be more important than others. IE, Need and timeframe and next steps may lead to a higher sense of urgency. Likewise, budget may be too soon to gather in some cases. Adjust the importance with the score variable.11

Sample of BANT+ Sales-Ready Lead DataDetailed background information on the prospect and the selling opportunity helps drive more productive sales results

Each is a category of several background questions under each of the BANT that will provide more detail.Here is an example of those categories.This captures additional background to find out more on the actual opportunity. Sales teams value this data as it is in line with achieving quota.12

3. Create A Lead-To-Sales Requirements Calculator

Now you need to quantify how many youll need to hit the sales goals: Tom will provide some deep diveThere will be multiple models for multiple market segments or solution/product lines.Have management sign off on these models!Run the numbers both bottom up and top down and create several models in your plan: Start at the buying processHow do they buy? Why would they buy any solution? Where do they research? How do they know they are in pain or have problems?? What are their triggers??Are they even aware they may have problems??Map the sales steps and current conversion rates to a saleCreate the multi touch demand generation, nurturing and lead qualification plan to feed that funnel. Create touch quotas for each touch metric.You will Measure all demand gen activities and compare back to these quotasAcknowledge that it takes multiple contacts before they decide to buy in most cases.

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4. Create Your Lead Gen Plan to Fill the Funnel

Here we show the demand gen/lead generation planning modules on one graphic. Tom will provide some deep diveThis is a summary of the sales-ready lead flows from each of the lead generation touch streams. Here we have 3 lead gen tactics under one plan.This starts with the need for 94 sales-ready leads to feed the sales team to hit their sales numbers.Youll want to monitor these numbers daily and or at least weekly.14

5. Target Prospect Data Tip: Create a process to improve prospect data

Action item: Make the courageous move to fix and standardize the prospect databaseHint: This is a never ending task

Clean accurate prospect data is key. Significant gains will be made as a result.Rarely does an organization build a database from the ground up. More likely a new system is implemented on top of existing data. This is where the holes and gaps can develop, if different groups are collecting different data.Plug the gaps and inconsistencies in your marketing tools, database and CRM system.Create a formal data assessment and cleaning processHave all potential prospect records pass through it. Enable both small and large list submissions and one off inbound web inquiries.15

6. Segment Your Target MarketsTip: Segment your target markets into smaller more manageable target sub segments. Dont boil the ocean.

Action item: Compare campaign performance by segment to identify better performing markets to focus resources better

History indicates that smaller better focused solution campaigns outperform larger less focused campaigns.Messaging can be more focusedPenetrate the smaller numbers are easier and less costlyConversion rates are higherHint, filter inbound responses into your segments and monitor the touch quotas. Story of the 450,000 database but only a few thousand were in the target market segment.Web inquiries are hard to control and shortfalls often occur

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Common Segmentation for B2B Single Product Segmentation Example - Business services with multiple decision makers/influencers

CustomersProspectsFinancialAutomotiveNon ProfitNon ProfitSmall, Medium, LargeVP MarketingVP ProductionCFOCEO

2x3x3x4x= 72 SegmentsBusiness Universe

FinancialAutomotive

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7. Nurturing: Suspects Develop Into Prospects Over TimeTip : Prospect Nurturing is critical. B2B Prospects DO NOT provide full BANT needs and scoring information in 1 touch!

Lesson: You must earn the right to ask the important questions!

One and done are history, so just do it!Lead nurturing is quickly becoming the big leverage point for successful firms. If they do it rightHistory indicates people wont respond to a message until they have been exposed to it several times.Have a pre-sales focused lead nurturing group do this for you. Sales People will NOT do Pre-sales nurturing and qualification work as it does not pay commissions and they have poor data quality skills. To do it right, many firms are consider outsourcing this module. This can often improve speed and quality over limited in house resources.18

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 # 12ProspectCustomer50% 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 yourprospects mind

Nurturing slowly, your prospect gets to know you

You are probably the onlyperson to make 8 contactswith this person

79% of sales people have given up

You harvest low hanging fruit

You are earning top of mind awarenessAt this point when you prospect is ready to buy, you have a 90% chance of being called

*Microsoft study

1919Another study by Microsoft showed the reality of F2F touches with considered purchases.

When marketing does not own the front end of the sales cycle reps wont really own it either.

50% of the sales reps will make one attempt to contact a prospect. If they dont reach them half give up. By the 4th attempt only 11% reps are even focused on trying to reach this prospect. Marketing can more easily do that work on the front end so when its time to get a sales rep involved the prospect is far more interested in hearing what the rep has to offer.

8. 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: Create a relevant content to earn the right to ask the tough qualification questions you need gathered to qualify

I will not speak too much on the topic of content as others here at the show are on that. Do invest here.However, use clear relevant content and messaging as you will receive minimal mind share otherwise.Then use messaging across all the lead gen touch point media. Tie it all together as you may only have one chance to break through.Leverage the content to earn the right to gather the qualification information.Make your messaging relevant through the buyer's eyes and sequence it with the buyers journey.Your identity needs to be memorable. I loved an exhibitor at a recent DMA conference who themed their marketing around cupcakes with bright orange icing. The company offered hard-to-explain cloud computing solutions. They repeated the theme in collateral and web site and afterward tele-qualification reps called saying were the folks with the orange icing, remember...

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9. Offers DO MatterTip: Use a compelling offer with staying power.

Action item: ALWAYS OFFER something of perceived value

This is direct marketing: you want people to DO SOMETHING rather than simply absorb your message.Use the offer to differentiate your company.Make a tangible offer such as an ROI calculator, webinars, white papers, and fact kits that they can use AND that indicates your company is an industry leader, capable of solving their issues.

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Business to Business Offers & ContentOfferResponsiveness (1-5)Qualified(1-5)Optimum OffersROI calculators3515Whitepapers/ Guides3412Case studies4312Relevant giveaways4312Video clips or demo4312 Webinars2510Live events155Free giveaways515Tradeshows224

2222Sample of offers that work well

Tip : Make the offers consistent across media

10. Urgent Calls to Action Tip: Make your call-to-action progressively more urgent as the campaign proceeds.

Action item: Emphasize urgency as an upcoming compliance or deadlines approach. You can also use discounts with limited time offers as your deadline.

Classic marketing will start with an introduction, expand into specifics, then qualify harder as a sense of urgency increases.

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11. Dispelling the Marketing Automation Solves it All Myth

Sirius Decisions has now inserted Tele-qualification to increase the sales qualification information gathered & to boost lead quality & conversions

Common Problems We See With Marketing AutomationMarketing automation is dependent on lead forms being filled out. Lead form submit rates are declining. Difficult if not IMPOSSIBLE to get BANT criteria from lead forms (even when using progressive profiling)Lots of unqualified leads rattling around with no one doing anything with them.99% of your true prospects havent filled out a form or come to your website. You need to target key decision makers with your value proposition.

12. Relationships: People Buy From PeopleTip: 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 + telemarketing in the lead nurturing and qualification process and measure the ROI.

The DMA Reports that the telephone medium, (AKA telemarketing) when used properly, has the highest response rate of all the direct marketing media.Fact: People are busy and distracted and discontinue their online activity. Trying to get them to engage with you online all the way through the qualification cycle is getting harder and harder. Email response rates are falling and this is a major stall point in for many firms. This is the root problem that the CMO pointed out in our problem slide.In many business cases, not all, a telemarketing personalized touch is very effective at qualifying inbound responders to gather the remaining qualification questions.But more importantly, it is very effective at engaging the non-responders to engage them, listen and reply and convert more overall qualified leads out of a target list. The number one advantage of the personalized call is that you can listen to the prospect. Listen to prospects and exchange information that they require BEFORE they answer the qualification questions. We see significant volumes of prospects stuck in marketing automation. The human touch can be an accelerator.If a target market is segmented, and the response rate is several percent (i.e. 2%), then there are a great deal of non-responders (i.e. 98%) that you dont know about. This is a major stumbling block for many marketers. Some marketers drop their inbound responders into a drip and forget campaign. For some, this works, however reports now show that many get stuck there.By not engaging in a tele-nurturing process, firms often can not earn the right to have the personalized conversations that allows you to ask the tough qualification questions.

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13. Track All Touch MetricsTip: 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.

This is continuous improvement 101.Many times marketers are going at such a fast pace, they dont stop to measure, learn and adjust from their efforts. They wait till someone tells them they are in trouble.Think of this as a financial retirement model.Set up your campaigns with the idea of testing, benchmark campaign result metrics, then make tactical changes where needed to hit your funnel lead quotas.Constantly monitor prospect lead conversion rates and the sales conversion numbers compared to the master plan and sales goals. Test the important things: offer, lists, creative, messaging, content and touch sequence conversions.

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14. Put in Place Comprehensive Lead Management ResourcesTip: 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. .

This is a critical inflection point for many companies. Get the manual process working first before you automate. Some firms reported that they purchased the software tools before establishing their processes, only to later find that they did not buy the package that could best fit their needs and they did not know their process.Multi-channel touch marketing is complex and some prospects will be touched dozens of times by multiple touch media vehicles. Track them all.Note, some marketing automation tools are limited to online activities only and do not track the critical off line touches. Plan for this.Lead management is critical to staying on your touch plan and metrics quota.Use a skilled team along with the right tools to do your lead management. Monitor the touch stream quotas closely and fix any stalls or under quota scenariosID Which go to market methods worked? What should be repeated? You dont know what to budget for if its not being tracked and reported.

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Part 2:Multi-Touch Case Studies

What Are the 7-13 Touches?1: Initial email campaign2: Initial direct mail campaign3: Prospect not there, leave a message4: Send email follow up5: Prospect not decision maker, referred to another6: Start over calling to person youre referred to7: Send email follow up8: Prospect not able to talk then, schedule another time9: Send email follow up10: Prospect interested, but wants more information before a call is completed11: Send email follow up 12: Prospect ready to talk about their needs, and discusses budget, purchase authority, need, and timeframe.13: Follow up call to schedule appt. with sales rep

Wow, 13 Touches is A LOT! How do we shorten it? The 3 ways to Shorten the Lead Development Timeline:

Better list Better offerBetter creative (attracts busy persons attention). BTWDirect mail is good for this!

Why its Important to Send an Email or Direct Mail Before CallingYou CAN do cold calling alone without sending a campaign in advance. Lots of people do it. However, their productivity may be low.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? Two reasons:You can triangulate from an email or direct mail to draw the prospect into the conversation.If theyve read the email or direct mail before you call, theyre much more informed and can more clearly define their needs

Case 1: Superior Glove Corp.VP of Sales read the DMP/Beasley Direct case study in first chapter of this book, and voila! he called me.

Superior GloveLeading industrial glove manufacturerAverage value of new glove customer account: $50,000/yrTarget: safety/operations/purchasing decision makers in metal manufacturing industriesGoal: $2.5 million in incremental sales for this product lineTried everything: PPC, email, tradeshowsCouldnt get enough qualified sales opportunities coming in to hit their numbersWhat to do next?

Sales Funnel Needs$2.5 million in sales/$50,000 per sale = 50 closed sales (@ 20% close rate)Youd need 250 qualified sales opportunities at proposal stage (25% convert to proposal) Youd need 1,000 Qualified A leads in the sales team pipeline (10% convert into qualified A leads and go to sales)Youd need 10,000 marketing level leads in the demand generation process

Could Email Alone Get Him There?Lets give him a handLets 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.

Hed have to mail this list at least 285 times to get the 10,000 marketing level leads in the pipeline. (Probably more because he wouldnt get 1% inbound response each time.)

No, email alone will not achieve sales goals

Solution: Multi-Touch & Multi-ChannelEmail + tele-prospecting sequencesLead nurturing until qualified & put a voice and personality with the relationshipPeople buy from people they like and this differentiates themThis also yields a better conversion rate

Test two offers: Book vs. free gloveTest two lists: House vs. rental list

Tested Free Glove Offer vs. Book Offer

Superior Glove Campaign Touch Count Per Qualified Lead

Four to Five Touch Points Required

4 to 5 touches, to be exactThis involves: 1. Initial email campaign2. Initial call (Left voice message or directed to proper contact)3. Call to engage new contact in the value prop and offers4. Email to contact5. Call to complete qualification script, and if qualified then close on Superior Glove sales rep appointment

Case 2: Silver PeakWAN (wide area network) optimization Entrenched competitor: RiverbedVery complex sale to over-busy ITPain is felt when applications run too slowly on network. But isolating the speed issue difficult, and often trumped by other priorities

Silver PeakHave been doing email, webinars, PPC, trade shows.Top of funnel demand gen focused Large buckets of unqualified leads in Salesforce account.Lead management issuesNo formal process in place for tele-qualifying inbound leads or generating qualified sales opportunitiesMid funnel problem similar to Forrester example

Silver Peak Solution Pilot ProgramClearly defined sales ready criteriaMulti-touch approach implemented + nurturing to develop prospects until they qualifyTest two offers: Gartner Magic Quadrant report vs. on-demand webinar featuring Gartner analystTest three lists: House lead file vs. Rental file of Riverbed sites vs. webinar/seminar attendee fileAs program rolled out, webinar registrants/attendees & inbound responders were also nurtured until qualified

Which Offer Worked?BothIt 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.

Silver Peak Campaign Touch Count Per Qualified Lead

Observation: Average Range of 2 to 9 TouchesProgram wide, it required an average of 7.51 touches (via telephone and email) per contact to convert to a sales-ready defined quality lead. Silver Peak webinar and live seminar lists representing the low end of the spectrum at 2.50 touches (Best)Silver Peak 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 calls required to identify and validate a contact prior to becoming a prospect. 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 the outdated record problems mentioned.

Patience, patience, patienceDid this program show immediate results? Not exactly.1 qualified lead was generated during the first 75 hours of the programDuring 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 messagingRefinements 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. Silver Peak 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 Silver Peaks offerings.

Q&A

Laurie Beasleylbeasley@beasleydirect.comDirect: 408-782-0046 x21www.beasleydirect.com@BeasleyDirectBlog: www.BeasleyDirect-blog.com

Tom Judgetjudge@dirmkt.comDirect: 510-368-7527www.directmarketingpartners.com

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