Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I think this is too broad a question, as lead generation and conversion processes will vary based on what you are selling, who your target is, etc. For example, if you are Boeing selling 747s, you will have a vastly different method than if you are Coca Cola selling fizzy drinks.

You may want to respond back (fill in the follow up box at the bottom and press submit) and provide some clarification.

Hi jcarlin,

One of my favorite subjects. The following describes our lead generation system that utilizes email and phone calls to generate leads and move the leads down the road to sales conversion. I use this system and it works great as long as I work the system --

The Relevant Reach™ Lead Generation System allows you to reach qualified prospects via personalized, relevant emails that contain valued content (e.g. ROI calculator, third-party article). With a unique recipient ID number embedded in each email, the Relevant Reach sender can track email openings and the actions a recipient takes in response to the email. The sender is sent an alert when the recipient opens the email. The alert includes any data the recipient entered into calculators along with specific tracking information showing which pages were visited.

Armed with this information (“warm lead”) the sender can begin to develop a one-to-one dialogue with the prospect. This dialogue, which will include phone conversations, subsequent Relevant Reach broadcast emails, other emails and in-person meetings, is “organic” in nature. Organic is the sense that what is learned from the data received throughout the programs duration will be used to make meaningful changes as the program evolves. This is often referred to as a closed-loop system.

After the recipient raises her hand, the sender will usually make a phone call. The caller, knowing the recipient has “clicked” on the email, confirms content relevance and discovers any immediate needs the company might have. If there is an immediate need, then it’s handled like a hot sales lead. If there is no immediate need, the recipient remains in queue for the next email broadcast. This process will repeat itself over months, even years, all the while gathering information and building rapport with the recipient. Assuming reasonable list quality, the vast majority of the prospects on the list will have a need for your products/services at some point in time and any time is the right time.

There are several significant benefits to the Relevant Reach approach. The predominate benefit is getting the most “bang for your buck” in the form of higher ROI numbers. The costs to develop and rollout this program is no higher than other forms of advertising campaigns (and often less). Relevant Reach programs produce both short and long-term results. The program will capture any low hanging fruit, in the form of immediate sales prospects, in a matter of days or weeks after initial email broadcasts. However, it’s the long-term results that will provide the lion’s share of ROI. Over the long-term, the program will subtly steadily build the elusive rapport with prospects that marketer’s dream about. The fact that this rapport is built slowly, near subliminally, adds to the depth and power of the brand building. Rapport building is brand building. It’s the program’s job to ensure your company has top mind awareness when that “right time” becomes real time.

Link to graphic view:
https://www.schraff.com/adv/services.php?page_id=28


Hope this helps,

- Steve

JC,

Your input does shed light on the issues. In a sense lead generation can be divided into two categories: Pull and Push.

Pull. If I understand your situation correctly, resellers of office products and supplies are calling your customer service department. Why? Are they responding to ads (online or offline), search engine results, referrals, industry news and product releases? It’s probably some combination of several ways in which a prospect would find you and then actually call the customer services dept. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you analyze where the leads coming from, where are the best leads (best lead-to-close ratios) coming from? What motivates the prospects to call you? You need to know.

After you have researched your current lead generation system and reduced it to a written document, you will have a better idea about how to make it work better. My guess is search engine optimization or SEO will be top of the list as a method for prospects finding you (see MP library for SEO info)

Push. The second method, an account manager hearing about reseller prospects can remain somewhat serendipity, but you can also add some structure to increase leads by pushing messaging out into the market. As discussed in my earlier post, email broadcasts can be very effect (you need a great opt-in list and a great offer) direct mail, telemarketing, news/product releases, tradeshows, trade ads, basically consider all the ways to send your message out to the target, pick which ones seem to be the best then confirm by testing. Again this site and Google offer many details for implementing a program. It bears repeating -- the success of any program is only going to be as good as your offer and your list, so keep testing against your winners and you will see a significant improvement over your current efforts.

Hope this helps, if you have further question, please click on my name for contact info.

Best of luck,

- Steve

It sounds to me as though one of your first steps should be to build a list of potential customers. Are you located in the US? If so, companies such as Dun & Bradstreet can provide very comprehensive lists of your target market, as well as demographic info. You can look at the demographics of your best customers (SIC code, number of employees, annual sales, etc.) and use this to quickly build a list of potential targets in your "sweet spot'. Now that you know who you should be targeting, you can assign leads to your regional managers, you can implement mail campaigns, you can do email campaigns, etc. Good luck.