M. H. "Mac" McIntosh is one of America's leading business-to-business sales and marketing consultants and an expert on sales leads. As president of Mac McIntosh Inc., a sales and marketing consulting firm, he can help your company become moneymaking machines with high-quality business-to-business marketing sales leads. Check out Sales Lead Insights: B2B Marketing Blog for more tips on turning your sales leads into actual sales.
Want to learn how capture and nurture three-quarters of the sales lead market through effective communication efforts?
Whoa, you must first learn to slow down. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? Well, the same lessons learned from this fable can be applied to your everyday business-to-business sales lead marketing efforts.
While business-to-business marketers race to snatch up the most promising and qualified short-term prospects that come in from any marketing-lead-generation initiative, nearly three-quarters of the sales leads that can convert to sales are being heavily ignored.
Why? Because salespeople are measured and paid for winning the race for short-term sales, usually causing them to focus on the easy sales opportunities and to ignore the longer term prospects. And because there usually is no process in place, the job of nurturing, managing and tracking the longer-term pipeline opportunities falls by the wayside.
This lack of a sales leads development process may be costing your organization big bucks in lost sales.
Do you have the patience to move slowly and steadily for the sales in those longer-term sales leads? Or have you, in essence, ended the race to win these latter-day sales?
Industry experts estimate that only one-quarter of those who are going to buy do so in the first six months. Yet, roughly another quarter buys within a seven- to 12-month period, another quarter buys in a 13 to 18-month period and the final quarter will purchase sometime after 18 months. If your organization's concentration is on the first quarter, for quick selling turnaround, you are leaving the remainder of those sales leads (three out of four sales opportunities) out there for your competition to pick up.
These longer-term sales leads must be nurtured with a series of communications efforts designed to move prospects along in their buying cycles. In other words, the philosophy to getting your share of those future sales is simple-stay in sight, stay in mind and stay in the race.
Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when designing your sales lead nurturing programs:
How do we best deliver messages to the people who will influence or make the final buying decisions?
How do we stay with them as they move through their consideration and buying process?
How can we communicate in a way that addresses the prospects' issues and reduces the perceived risk of buying from our company?
What can we offer that will cause the prospects to engage when they are ready to move forward with their buying process?
Want to engage prospects and start a sales-winning relationship with sales leads? Here's how:
Use a series of ongoing communications-by mail, e-mail or phone-designed to keep pace with the prospects' information needs to make decisions about your kinds of products or services. I've found that, as an added benefit, sales revenue per customer is usually significantly higher for those who are included in the prospect relationship-marketing program versus those who are not.
Be sure to include multiple offers that appeal to all stages of a prospect's buying process. For example, if prospective customers are still early in their buying process, they will be more receptive to offers for free information in the form of how-to guides, white papers or e-mail newsletters. As prospects move further along in their buying process, appropriate offers may include those that require a higher level of interest or commitment on the part of the prospect. These include webinar invitations, demonstrations and checklists, and other decision-making tools. As prospects approach the buying ready point, they will be more receptive to such offers as longer, in-depth seminars, needs assessments or meetings with and getting proposals or quotations from your sales and marketing department.
If you use effective and efficient relationship communication skills and not just focus your company's efforts on the easy or short-term sales leads, you can pick up the three out of four sales that others are leaving on the table. And that's how you win the business marketer's sales lead race.
- Related Videos
- Related Articles
- Ask / Related Q&A
- The Secret to Sales Marketing Success
- Simple Garage Sale Marketing Trick
- Sales Marketing: What You Need To Know
- Direct Sales Marketing Training: How to Sky Rocket Direct Sales Profits by 50% With Two Simple Words
- New York City Sales & Marketing Executive Jobs. Are you looking for a sales and marketing job in NYC?
- How to Do Effective Direct Sales Marketing
- Increase Your Short Sale Marketing Efforts
- Increase Your Short Sale Marketing Efforts
How to Target a Specific Audience with Promotional Items
By: Kris Ann | 31/12/2009One of the best marketing tools out there today is the use of promotional items to get your brand out there and enhance the visibility of your logo. Many companies have taken this on as an initiative and if you are going to be successful with this plan, you have to understand exactly how to do it.
Improve Your Brand With Search Engine Optimization
By: Warren Miller | 31/12/2009Traditional methods of marketing have been known to be quite expensive at times and not always as efficient as you would like them to be. As a result, many businesses have turned to internet marketing to fulfill their strategies. The Internet possesses so many features that marketers can take advantage...
It’s a New Year! You Need a New Approach to Providing Healthcare!
By: Marlee Ward | 31/12/2009Don’t allow your practice, clinic or hospital to enter 2010 without sound strategies for building a profitable medical practice. More than ever, marketing is going to play an essential role in your success for 2010.
Three Reasons to Fall in Love With Internet Affiliate Marketing
By: Rok Pisek | 31/12/2009Internet affiliate marketing has become really big business where everybody is making money. Making money with internet affiliate marketing is not hard when you think about it. There is seller who wants a customer for his product and there is promoter who will find a customer for the seller and...
Work From Home - Start Affiliate Marketing Now
By: Rok Pisek | 31/12/2009Do you want from work from home, but you have no time or skills to do this? You are not the only one because numerous people have the same dream, to work from home. You can save much time and decide your own schedule to work so it is understandable...
Getting Started Fast With Affiliate Marketing - Earn Huge Profits in Your First Month
By: Rok Pisek | 31/12/2009So you have come to the point where you are interested in how getting started in affiliate marketing business. It is a good decision and this article should be helpful for you to explain how you are getting started in affiliate marketing. At first you need motivation and apparently you have...
Four Cautions Regarding a Foreign-Sounding (or Foreign-Looking) New Business Name
By: Marcia Yudkin | 31/12/2009In 1915, California farmers banded together to rename the ahuacate, a pear-shaped fruit with pebbly skin and an oversized pit inside. They knew this Aztec word was hard for Americans to pronounce, and the Spanish version of the name, aguacate, was just as difficult for them. The new made-up name...
Offshore Oil and Gas Industry market Report
By: Bharat Book Bureau | 31/12/2009Bharatbook.com added a new report on "Offshore Oil and Gas Industry - Market Report" which gives information on consumption and production of Oil and Gas Industry.
Sales Lead Generation: 8 Powerful B2b Sales Lead Generation Techniques to Help you Reach your Sales Prospects
By: Mac Mcintosh | 25/02/2007 | SalesMost of the fastest growing B2B companies do not rely solely on just one sales lead generation method. They have a complete arsenal of sales lead generation tools at their fingertips, that they can use at ay given time.
It Marketing: Should Blogging be on your B2b Marketing To-do List?
By: Mac Mcintosh | 25/02/2007 | MarketingFor the past few years, you've heard so much about blogging that you're reluctantly concluding that now might be the time to join the parade. Yes, blogs do have a place in the IT marketers’ arsenal, but only under the right circumstances.
B2b Sales Leads Success Checklist
By: Mac Mcintosh | 17/10/2006 | SalesYou've spent a great deal of time, effort and money putting together your business-to-business sales lead generation programs. How you handle B2B sales leads once you get them makes the difference between a happy sales team and new customers or an unhappy sales team and lost sales.
B2b Marketing Accountability: 5 Ways to Prove your B2b Marketing Efforts Are Paying Off
By: Mac Mcintosh | 17/10/2006 | MarketingHow to show that the money and resources invested in the company's business-to-business marketing activities are really paying off? It is surprisingly easy to prove that B2B marketing is contributing to your company's bottom line. Here's how.
B-to-b Direct Mail: Don't Get Lost in the Details
By: Mac Mcintosh | 20/08/2006 | SalesWhile choosing a list for B-to-B direct marketing, focus on the important things—such as results. Stop worrying about the unimportant details. Also be sure to determine the objective of your direct marketing with your list and offers supporting your objective.
Targeting Your B2B Lead Generation Efforts
By: Mac Mcintosh | 24/06/2006 | MarketingWhen searching for prospects to buy your products or services, you want to find those companies who have a problem for which you have the solution. The methods you use in finding and contacting those companies will determine if your business-to-business lead generation efforts will be a success or a failure.
Sales Leads: Maximize Your Sales With Longer-Term Sales Leads
By: Mac Mcintosh | 11/03/2006 | MarketingYour business-to-business sales lead development process may be costing your organization big bucks. Learn how to transform your business into a profitable, moneymaking machine. Discover how to capture and nurture three quarters of the sales lead market.