TAG: Fly Me to the Moon

Posted: 08/2002

Fly Me to the Moon
It's Not Rocket Science,but Generating Leads Requires a Flight Plan

By Tara Seals

LEAD GENERATION IS THE LAUNCHPAD for any sales strategy. Knowledge of the three prongs of success -- the homework, the list and the offer -- can propel a business into the revenue stratosphere, say sales trainers and marketing experts.

"The single greatest concern facing all salespeople is prospecting for new business," says John Boe, a sales trainer and motivational speaker. "As a commissioned salesperson, your livelihood is directly dependent on your ability to prospect effectively."

Pre-flight Check

A structured understanding of goals and resources underlies every successful lead-generation program, says Paul S. Goldner, founder of Sales & Performance Group LLC.

"If you want to be a good business developer you have to have a structured process, you can't just do your business development on an ad hoc basis," says Goldner. "Your prospecting needs a program associated with it ... if you consistently do certain things in sales you will sell, and that's through good economies and bad."

Salespeople should break down how many sales they need to achieve their quota, how many leads it takes on average to achieve each sale and how many contacts are necessary to achieve each lead. "After you have a conversion model done, you can understand where you go from there," says Susan Misukanis, president of Misukanis and Rodgers.

Another must is to understand the target profile and the buying/influencing circle for prospects. Misukanis says a common mistake is contacting only one prospect within the company when the buying circle often is quite larger. "They're missing an opportunity to target additional sales influencers and decision-makers as well as engaging a marketing effort they're involved in," she says.

A third understanding is the target's behaviors; where do people who purchase telecom services get information? "You need to go to those places to try to target and access them," says Misukanis.

To Boldly Go Where No Agent Has Gone Before

After determining the typical profile of your target, the next step is to compile a universe of companies to approach, then to narrow that universe to a galaxy of targeted prospects.

Goldner says finding this list can be a simple, structured process. "What I do is get a listing of all companies in my area and rank it by employee count," he explains. Such lists are available from sources such as Hoover's and Dun & Bradstreet, he explains. "I would go to the Internet and you can download it for roughly $1 a company."

The local library also has access to such information, says Misukanis. "For an independent sales rep it's expensive to go out and buy a list," she says. "But often if you go to local libraries the librarian will help you -- you can get local lists, separated by geo and by profile."

The beauty of this approach, says Goldner, is there are no other companies an agent should call. "All else being equal, the salesperson who knows more prospects will sell more than one who doesn't, so having that list is a big, big advantage over your competitor."

From Contacts to Commission
Source: Misukanis and Rodgers

We Have Liftoff

With a complete, targeted list, agents can set their sights on generating warm and hot leads, either via direct mail, telemarketing, online marketing, e-mail campaigns, advertising, trade show marketing or advocate, "viral" marketing.

For good old-fashioned canvassing, Goldner says agents should never stop calling the qualified companies, even if they say no the first time. "You've already gone through the analysis, so why would you want to stop calling on the already-qualified companies?" he asks. "Why would you stop calling your best prospects?"

Misukanis says segmenting the list by opportunity and monetary value, identifying the high and low opportunities, can help agents allocate more time and money to penetrating the higher opportunities, and reduce cost per lead in tactics or time for the lower opportunities.

This approach also helps in crafting creative offers. "The offer needs to be something of value above and beyond your product or service, and this comes back to your high-opportunity vs. low-opportunity prospects," she explains. As an example, for high-opportunity prospects an agent could purchase tickets to an industry event and then engage in an integrated campaign with e-mail and phone, where qualified respondents have a chance to win the tickets.

Another creative campaign idea is sending a prospect a high-end Nike shoe. "It does two things," says Misukanis. "One, it breaks through the gatekeeper, because typically that shoe won't get thrown away, but also, you can do a fun clever message like, I just wanted to get my foot in the door and I want to set up a meeting to give you the other shoe."

For a lower opportunity prospect, the offer could be industry information -- white papers or pertinent articles.

"So launch a campaign that is very information-giving, and maybe the offer is buy now and get a complimentary service," she says.

Building an advocate army that will spread the word to its business partners is a high-yield, "viral" approach. "An advocate is a person who will go out of their way to recommend you to their friends and associates," says Boe. "Obviously the more people who are saying good things about you and your company in the marketplace, the more sales you will make."

Warp Speed

When it comes down to it, cost per lead is the most important metric for many independent representatives, who should work to generate as many leads as possible for minimal investment. The Internet, in this case, is a clear choice of marketing medium and, aside from e-mail campaigns, allows agents to skip the list-making step.

David Rauschuber, a lead-generation specialist at Bottom Line Growth Inc., says the Internet delivers the biggest bang for the buck. "It doesn't matter what type of business you have, you are losing thousands of dollars over time if you are not using the Internet to capture prospects for your business."

When writing banner ad copy to generate click-through leads, marketers will want to take human nature into account. "Based on my experience good ad copy will generate leads and online sales if the ad copy is creating a feeling," he explains. "Most ad copy plays on two emotions, greed (undue desire, the promise of receiving something for free) and desperation."

Rauschuber also advocates determining the descriptive keywords that best describe the business, for search engine optimization. Misukanis agrees. "Engage in search engine optimization for the product or service, and the response can be phenomenal," she says.

The Internet also allows agents to craft a brand image via a Website. Mike Drohan, president of telemarketing company Lead Generation Solutions, says the perception of a company as a creative problem solver helps generate leads. "They're going to be a lot more receptive to listening to you -- spec sheets and infomercials don't work," he explains. "You have to get someone to stop and listen -- and that's by helping them do their job. That's really the bottom line."

However, Internet marketing can lead to nontargeted efforts that don't pay off. "You've seen online ads to get leads, offering say a DVD player," says Drohan. "They were getting a ton of responses but the leads were terrible, very few become sales."

Also, Misukanis cautions care when working search engine tactics. "There are all kinds of companies that do that, but I would stay away from the $29.99 will submit you to hundreds of search engines, because you can get blacklisted."

Mission Control

A final piece of a lead-generation campaign is assessment and follow-up. Did the campaign work? Was it worth it? And now that there are leads, the job is to convert them to sales.

"When you're all done, document your results so you can rinse and repeat," says Misukanis.

Doing the analytical work to assess lead generation can be "grueling for salespeople," says Drohan. "You can keep it easier and be conscious about it -- the main idea is, don't spend a lot of time doing something that's fruitless," he says. "Test things, do it, measure it, then move on and tweak it to make it better."

Drohan says understanding the success of a lead-generation campaign also means managing the pipeline of leads to exploit their full potential. "Salespeople are notorious for not being organized and maybe speaking to someone but not having a system, so they find a Post-it three weeks later with the person's name on it and go, 'oh yeah!'" he says. "You have to have a system to get back to people on a regular basis."

Rauschuber follows up on Internet leads via an autoresponder series, which collects first and last name and a telephone number for a follow-up phone call. "This method generates huge amounts of leads and qualifies the lead if done properly," he explains.