photo-e1355497924390-225x300Category Archives: Nurturing

Closing the Loop

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After I wrote my post last week about the importance of putting the customer first, I decided to subject myself to the a place where I hoped for a great customer experience and was greeted with one of the worst.

OppSource Holiday Gifts

A better kind of holiday shopping – my “sleigh” filled with gifts for OppSource’s
Adopt-a-Family

To be fair, it is that magical time of year when store clerks are over-worked and on their very last nerves. I honestly don’t expect stellar customer service at the mall between Thanksgiving and the New Year but I was especially surprised during this recent visit. I was at a very large national department store that shall remain nameless and knew exactly what I needed. I walked up to three salespeople who were standing at a register, sorting through some inventory. When I asked for help, they all looked at each other and then one spoke up to tell me that they all really had to focus on this inventory project before the upcoming Friends and Family Sale and could not step away.

I asked, “So, due to a Friends and Family Sale I’m treated like neither and can’t get any help in completing a purchase?”

They all looked at me blankly before one of the clerks sighed and told me she “supposed” she could step away to help me locate the item. How very magnanimous. (Right after she helped me, another customer asked her a question (the nerve!) and she gave me a conspiratorial eye-roll that seemed to say, “Customers! Am I right?!”)

As I fumed out of the store I ranted to myself that this was unacceptable and would never fly in the B2B world. We have automation for that! Everyone always gets what they need in a timely manner! Inquiries are never ignored!

And then I thought twice…and realized this happens more than we’d like to admit. Even with the best of intentions, workflows, and automation platforms, more often than not, prospects do not get what they need, even when they explicitly ask for it. Part of this is a smarketing alignment problem between that critical hand-off from Marketing to Sales, but a lot of it happens long before a hand-off occurs and is due to not having the right content, resources, or processes in the right hands. Some things to consider:

  • Who is most likely to interface with basic inquiries? What training and resources does this person need? Access to a resource library? Advanced scripting?
  • How is an inquiry most likely to contact you? If you have a click-to-chat feature on your site, does it say during which hours it’s available (including time zone)? Do most inquiries come via phone, email, web, or social media? How are you staffing these entry points?
  • What do inquiries usually want to know? And what the heck do you do with someone who asks a tough question? Make sure your front lines are equipped to answer questions on the spot or know how to immediately escalate a question that cannot be easily answered.

This last thought is the most important. At the end of the day, it all comes back to supporting your brand. If interested prospects can’t meet their basic inquiry needs, why in the world would they want to but something from you? Personally, I told at least five friends, four colleagues and a handful of family members about my horrible experience at the unnamed department store–don’t open yourself up to this kind of negativity. Be ready to close the conversation loop with every inquiry that comes your way.

The Art of the Concierge Approach

Tokyo12

Deciding to try something new for Thanksgiving this year, my husband and I spent ten days in Tokyo visiting family. This was my first time in Asia and I was completely taken with the city and culture I found in Japan. One of the things that impressed me the most was the graciousness of the Japanese people. They were unfailingly courteous and attentive, especially in transactional situations. It’s not atypical for a clerk to escort you out of the building at the end of your purchase and carry your package to the door before thanking you profusely and sending you on your way. Truly, this is how service is done.

Tokyo by night

Tokyo by night

The more I experienced such exemplary service, the more I came to realize it’s exactly like the concierge approach that we talk about all the time here at OppSource: the idea of completely devoting yourself to a prospect’s moment-of-interest in order to guide him to the appropriate next step. It sounds obvious, but many companies do a poor job of this–they get someone on the hook (by phone, over email, even in person), and their instinct is to push the sale instead of taking the opportunity to really understand what the prospect is looking for or interested in. Sometimes, the prospect just has a simple question and if your answer is to send a product brochure instead of asking thoughtful follow-up questions (and actually listening to the response), you’re missing a potentially greater opportunity.

If you learn best by example, take it from the Japanese:

  • A smile goes a long way. I was constantly greeted with a smile in Tokyo and you know what it did? It made me smile right back.  Lesson: Good moods go a long way. Even over email or chat, cheerfulness counts.
  • Pet the ego. Between the bowing and the smiling and the attentive graciousness, I felt like nothing short of royalty in Japan. Lesson: While you don’t have to fawn all over your prospect, remember that you’re interacting because they have a need right now–keep the focus on who they are and what they need, not what you can sell them.
  • To the bitter end. As I glanced back at the Narita airport after our plane was backed out from the gate and onto the tarmac, I noticed that the ground crew had stopped what they were doing and were waving good-bye to the plane. Lesson: Always say good-bye. Whether it’s walking a prospect out the front door or ending a phone or email conversation with well wishes, don’t forget to finish the transaction memorably and warmly.

More than anything, the concierge approach is the most effective way to ensure a positive experience with your brand. Even if you never make a sale, making an impression can be just as valuable.

Moment-of-Interest Marketing – It’s not just about timing

We talk a lot about Moment-of-Interest (MOI) Marketing around here because we truly believe in its necessity. Piquing someone’s interest today doesn’t ensure they’ll remember who you are tomorrow–or even an hour from now–which is why pursuing prospects in the moment of their interest is crucial. I could go on and on about the whys and hows of following up as quickly as possible in order to maximize your message but I’d rather focus on something of equal–if not greater–importance: the follow-up content.

It dawned on me the other day that the phrase “moment-of-interest” can be seen as having two components to it, the moment and the interest, and each must be given its due. The moment is all about timing, connecting with the prospect right when he demonstrates a desire to know more about you. The interest is all about using what you know to elevate the discussion.

It’s not just enough to immediately engage, anyone can send an automated email or pick up the phone based on a triggering interaction; follow-up must be purposeful and  based on the triggering interaction. Showing the prospect you care enough to get in touch immediately is great, but showing the prospect you care enough to get in touch immediately and provide complementary collateral/messaging to the resonating message is much better.

For example, if you were researching exhaust clamps for your vehicle and downloaded an overview brochure to learn more about a specific model, would a follow-up email asking you to signup for a newsletter be the best way to keep engaging you? Or would a follow-up email with tips for installing exhaust products be a better way to keep your interest? It works in the B2B space as well. If you were researching accounting software and downloaded a whitepaper on the future of SOX compliance (a titillating read, I’m sure), would you be more likely to stay interested if you got an auto-generated email leading you to a generic ‘library’ of whitepaper content or an email that included a checklist of top SOX violations every company can easily avoid and links to the last five blog posts the company has featured about SOX compliance?

When you elevate the discussion by responding to the data the prospect has given you, not only does the prospect stay engaged longer, you’re also already on your way to creating credibility and authority in the prospect’s mind. Focusing on response time alone is only half the battle–make sure your moment-of-interest efforts are truly responsive.

Making Great Content Go Farther

One of the challenges that we constantly encounter in the executing the nurturing campaigns of the lead management programs that we manage for our customers is having enough compelling content.  ”Compelling” is the operative word — as you want to provide content in your nurturing campaigns that is contextually relevant to the prospect given where they are likely to be in their buying cycle.  One technique to address the compelling objective is to use 3rd Party research reports from known and trusted sources.  In the high technology marketplace, Gartner, Forrester, and Sirus are a few of the big-name trusted 3rd party research firms that have prolific content.  The challenge is that using this content is expensive and as such, most companies don’t have endless budget to spend for these great pieces of content.  How then can you make this great content go farther?

Ardath Albee recently provided some great suggestions in her blog post “Make 3rd Party Content an Opportunity not a Necessity” on how to make this kind of content more powerful and go further.  Her suggestion was to find the  ”big ideas” contained in each of these 3rd party reports and then tie back into the special things your company does with a complementary article, blog post, or white paper.  As Ardath says, it doesn’t have to be a lengthy article, just invest 800-1,000 words that will showcase how your company’s solution address the big ideas mentions by the 3rd party research report.  This not only positions your company’s key capabilities, it positions your company as a thought leader who has invested in bringing solutions to market to address these “big idea” issues.

Leads Need To Be Led

How many times have you heard a sales colleague say they need more leads?  It seems like a very familiar mantra, especially in this constrained market.  Funny thing about “leads”, they are not always ready to buy when we are ready to sell.  Some are not destined to be, others have possibilities, while a few are probably in the “red zone” and are in fact in the mood to buy.  But which ones are which?

This is particularly difficult to discern in the complex B2B buying cycle because of the wide range of roles that are involved in the typical purchasing decision.  A busy sales professional trying to meet quota for the quarter might not think speaking with a non-executive contact is worthy of their time investment.  On the other hand, this mid-level manager might actually be playing a significant role in the buying process with responsibility for researching and evaluating how his/her firm can solve a business problem or improve a languishing process.  But, because this “lead” doesn’t have the typical “executive level” title, it is assumed they don’t play a significant role in the buying process and are overlooked.

Think about an alternative scenario for a moment.  What if this mid-level manager contact were treated with significance.  They were actually asked a lot of thoughtful and insightful questions about their particular scenario.  They were treated as though they might be a significant player in their firm’s evolving buying process.  What if we not only made several attempts to connect with this mid-level manager, but after we had an initial conversation, we followed up with helpful information that will actually help set us apart from other “vendors” and instead set us up as an “expert” in the mind of this influential contact.

Leads need to be led.  Don’t They?

The Power of Lead Management and Account Optimization

What is account optimization? Put simply, it is taking the time, energy and focus to add valuable contacts to your account database once that company begins interacting with your digital marketing efforts. Why do this? Not only does it deepen the pool of contacts receiving and responding to your email nurturing offers, but when it is time to connect on the phone, there are many more individuals to try. Every sales person knows that the complex sales process requires involving many decision-makers and influencers to get the deal signed.

An enlightening statistic comes from one of OppSource’s long tenured customers. They have very good response rates to their ongoing email lead nurturing program – often over 1% of the database per message step. However, nearly 80% of the qualified sales opportunities have come from either a referral or with a person who was first ‘optimized’ as part of OppSource’s process. Imagine the amount of opportunities that would have been missed if the rigor hadn’t been in place to proactively identify these executives!

Lead Management, Lead Nurturing and Marketing Automation will never be automatic. It will always require the human touch and relationship building. The statistic above helps prove it. This is in no way to say email nurturing does work – quite the contrary – but it does underscore how important having the deepest and widest view into your prospect accounts is for your overall success.

For Marketing, a Lead is NEVER Disqualified – Unless…

Why does marketing code leads as “disqualified”? It is easy to see why a sales person would do that – this prospect isn’t going to help me retire quota today, therefore they are not a “qualified sales pursuit.” Marketing professionals must add a word to the end of the last statement, “not a qualified sales pursuit TODAY.” Marketers should never mark a lead as “disqualified. Here’s the big “unless” – if an account does not have the characteristics to buy from us, meaning they’re not in our market space at all, then not only should they be disqualified, they should be purged from the CRM system with only a residual category of “do not remarket – not a fit based on size, business model, markets served, etc. A lead in our sweet spot must never have a “disqualified” status attached to it from a marketing perspective. After all, the “disqualified” phase is often akin to a landfill – where leads go to be forgotten and decay. Marketers in general must bring  a new level of sophistication to their database and status management. It’s a buyers world, and we need to be there when they are ready to buy.

Good marketing and good selling all!

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Digital Lead Nurturing Creates More Sales Converts

We recently did a deep dive analysis of conversation convert rates to qualified sales opportunities, comparing pure cold calling versus calling prospects on the back end of Digital Lead Nurturing. The first striking element was that it is no easier to get the prospect on the phone no matter what other marketing you have done – you still have to make the needed dials to connect and the success ratios here were not dramatically different between cold calling and lead nurturing follow-up.

The astounding statistic was the convert ratio on nurtured leads to sales opportunities versus cold calling. On average 6% of cold call conversations converted to a sales opportunity (after doing all that work to get in touch with them). Conversations with those that have been nurtured converted to sales opportunities as many as 35.29% of the time (in one month in Q1) and 25% of the time throughout the quarter on average. This is as high as 583% efficiency gain and 416% on average.

I know the demand creation process I would choose!

Good selling.

Social Media and Sales

There is a lot of information about how companies and executives should use social media to get more sales. Some large companies are confused as to how to use tools like Twitter to drive revenue – after all, will someone buy $100K in software because you are Tweeting? Probably not. The real value in social networking is to identify and connect with the people who have the problems you can solve or to engage with others in the community to understand new pressures and issues. This one to one marketing approach, in conjunction with excellent lead nurturing is the real way to get more business. Social media can show you where the people are hanging out – you still have to proactively hang with them.

Marketing Automation Tool Administration

It is interesting out there in the marketplace … People want to buy a marketing automation tool and the leads will come. One factor often lost in the shuffle is the expertise and experience with the tool itself. This can either be built over time with in house staff (often though the time and intensity required doesn’t deliver the desired sophistication or results) or with your next hire you can consider grabbing someone with lead nurturing and experience with the tool. I have been doing some research on the cost to acquire these personnel gems, and what I am finding is a range between $80K and $140K salary – in a down market. As demand grows for these tools, demand will grow for these experts. Can you afford one?

Good selling.