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All this, in an environment where people are not sitting around waiting for your marketing message to arrive. This is a tough space, let’s not delude ourselves, generating sales enquiries in a competitive B2B space is hard work and marketers need to prepare themselves for a bumpy ride.
Having undertaken hundreds of these types of campaigns, there are some things that I have learned, both from successful and unsuccessful efforts. Here are seven tips that may assist with your new campaign:
1. Be sure to include a cover letter whenever you are sending printed literature to prospects or customers. Where ever possible make sure that this letter is personalised and relevant to the target. Include a message that is specifically relevant to the recipient by addressing your product or service’s benefits speak directly to the recipients perceived needs. Use the cover letter to give a few bullets of feature/benefit copy and then specifically ask the reader to take the appropriate next action.
2. Always include “where to buy” information in your communications. If you sell through field sales people, independent representatives, resellers or distributors, then advise the reader who their contact person/company is and supply full contact details. Some options are a list, maps, and merging the appropriate information right into the cover letter. Be sure to include the sales contact’s name, title, company, address, phone, fax, and e-mail and website addresses. Another though is to include a secondary contact person, if the primary contact is not available.
3. If you are mailing multi-product brochures or catalogues to people who asked about a specific product, mention the appropriate page numbers in the cover letter, or use a post-it note or paper clip to mark the pages. It is these personal touches that make an impact on the recipient. Include a business card and a hand written note...the more personal and relevant you make it the better the response. Remember people buy from people.
4. If your company’s business to business sales are influenced by more than one contact at a prospect company, consider including a question on all reply forms asking for the names of others at their company who would like to receive information on your products or services. Then add these people to your mailing list or database for future mailings. Also use this information to build a “decision tree”. This is particularly relevant for people who sell high ticket value items; you need to know how buying decisions are made within the target organisation.
5. If you send a free newsletter or catalogue to prospects or customers, include a built in reply card or coupon on on-line response form that can be used by pass-along readers to request their own subscription. The more people within a target organisation that are reading about your organisation the better. This adds to your credibility and commences the process of breaking down the barriers to your organisation becoming a supplier to the target organisation.
6. Re-profile your newsletter or catalogue subscription list by periodically including a reply card or form requesting that readers confirm their details. Each time you do this, ask one or two new questions that add valuable information about the company to your database. Then use this information in making your communications even more relevant and targeted. Do NOT gather information that is of no commercial value to you, “good to know” is a time wasting exercise, just gather information that you absolutely need to make a sale. Be sure to ask readers to update their title, address, phone, fax, and e-mail address. Also include a few qualifying questions about their product interest, application, buying role, time
frame, etc.
7. Consider asking the people on your contact list which way they would prefer to receive future information and updates: Mail, fax or e-mail? If you are prepared to deliver information by e-mail or fax you can shorten the delivery time, and sometimes save on printing and postage.
Put these tips to work in your direct marketing campaigns, and you should see growth in your sales leads, responses and your bottom line. Remember, there are two things that are necessary to build sales leads in a B2B sales environment; the first is credibility - the target needs to believe in who you are and what you sell and the second thing is you need to be providing a needed solution.
Posted on 31st July 2006