BtoB Lead Generation That Works

Written By Ted Grigg

Most every direct marketing strategy becomes more sophisticated and effective with the advent of the Internet channel. And lead generation follows that same path.

The Internet is now a key resource

With the Internet, generating leads takes on the characteristics of Customer Relationship Management. But since the Internet contacts are not yet customers, perhaps we should call this Prospect Relationship Management.

Before the Internet, the primary lead generation processes included direct mail combined with telemarketing. The ability to manage leads from lukewarm interest to qualified leads was brief. The prospects accepted the appointment, or they disappeared into oblivion due to the high cost of maintaining relationships.

With the Internet, it is now possible to gradually evolve low quality to higher quality prospects by introducing them to the advertiser’s products and services. Once they click on the web site, the advertiser can follow any prospects’ visit activities and assess their interests.

For those prospects willing to complete surveys or other forms of feedback, the clues are clear that now is the best time for the advertiser’s sales person to call them.

But here’s the rub. How does the advertiser drive these business prospects to the company’s web site in the first place?

Direct mail remains a critical channel in the mix

Some of this is done internally within the web channel itself with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or paid search. But this is usually insufficient to keep the leads flowing in sufficient volumes to achieve the required sales goals.

Direct mail remains a core strategy for leading interested prospects to your web site. If done correctly, the direct mail package will increase web traffic AND immediate prospect calls to the advertiser’s company.

Prospect Lead Management requires CRM software

There is another challenge that advertisers must master to make their lead generation programs perform at peak performance. Just as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) requires powerful software to support to proper follow up of all customers over the long term to increase sales, Prospect Relationship Management also requires this same software to cultivate prospects into becoming customers.

Sales force compliance with the strategy critical to success

As always, the media channels selected to generate leads are not nearly as important as the close working relationships between the sales people and the software required to cultivate leads.

In the end, a new business generation machine relies more than ever on the sales force’s ability to integrate their activities to leverage the lead database.

What do you see as today’s biggest challenge in lead generation?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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