Lead Generation
When planning your tactics to generate leads, make certain the unique selling proposition for your company or product line has been well established. The best planned and well executed direct sales and marketing efforts will accomplish little for a “so what” product or service. Once your differentiation becomes clear and well written, move on to your target market
Lost opportunities and lost revenue result from a target market never articulated, or drawn too broadly. Don’t worry about a target market that is too narrow, because that is a problem much easier to fix. A net cast too wide will catch more fish. However, if the fish caught are too small or the wrong type, you waste valuable resources including potential big fish opportunities and your time
The best way to identify a focused niche comes from looking at your existing clients. Do all of your prospects offer equal opportunity in terms of reward? Some customers, often the large and unprofitable ones, may be more trouble than they are worth. Others with a respected brand may give you instant credibility.
Even when you launch a new product, you generally have at least one client already. What are the demographics or that one user? Use the BWise Find like companies tool to find other companies that share at least one of their demographic features.
Don’t shoot from the hip; complete this exercise before you begin your marketing campaign.
- Identify your clients. Depending on the numbers, use last month, last week or last year.
BWIse users simply create a list by matching external data (phone number, email address, etc.) against BWise and then marking individual members. If your numbers are very large you may want to eliminate clients that are not profitable, or that you would not want to clone if given the chance.
- Determine the demographics of your most profitable clients.
With BWIse you’ll see the demographic analysis instantly. Run a Query on your client list and click on the Analyze Tab. You will get an instant analysis in each of the following areas: zip code, city, county, metro area; SIC Code, employee size, sales volume, site type, building type, gender, and business or functional title.
The results may surprise you as they have our clients. Here’s an example.
Quick Case
One of our clients had customers in each of the four types of sites: single, branch, headquarters and regional. This CEO felt that site type was not a differentiator for his printing company. After running the analysis he learned that 25% of their customers were headquarters…not a shocking fact. The surprise came when they realized that only 5.2% of the entire Metro Atlanta market were headquarters locations.
One of our clients had customers in each of the four types of sites: single, branch, headquarters and regional. This CEO felt that site type was not a differentiator for his printing company. After running the analysis he learned that 25% of their customers were headquarters…not a shocking fact. The surprise came when they realized that only 5.2% of the entire Metro Atlanta market were headquarters locations.
That meant that they could focus their marketing efforts and dollars on a smaller target. The same budget applied to a narrower market allowed for more “touches” and greater results in both the number of new clients and the amount per sale.
Conclusion
Just because you may “sell” to anyone does not mean you can afford to market to anyone. Moreover, there are times when selling to everyone costs more than it does to be more selective in your client mix. The costs of B2B sales and marketing force most companies to discriminate and differentiate among the clients and prospects they want to target.
- The more you know about your current client profile the more successful your target marketing will be. For those who believe they sell to “everyone”, ask yourself these questions before target your market:
- Do you sell to your competitors?
- Do you market the same to existing clients?
- Do you market to gas stations, churches, grocery stores or bowling alleys?
- Do you target government entities?
- Do you treat every market the same? E.g. Do you target law firms with under 25 employees but not manufacturing firms with under 25?
- If credit worthiness counts, do firms with longer track records in business matter?
- All things being equal, in what zip code would you prefer to make your next call?
- Do branch locations ever send the decision up to corporate for an answer?
- Do you work with office workers and industrial workers equally?
- Do pending moves trigger sales for you?
- Who are the right decision makers by function and/or title at each company
- Consider the psychographics of your client base.
If you use BWise, add user defined fields to track the psychographics of your prospects as you or marketing gathers them. Psychographics may include: generation(Babyboomer, genX GenY etc.
- After your clients are profiled, use the same criteria to identify your target market. With BWise your list is merely a few clicks away.
With your target market ready to go, you need determine how, and how frequently you want to reach them: by phone, in person, by mail, email, etc.