B to B Lead Generation

B to B Lead Generation

A combination of direct mail, e-mail and telephone marketing sequence works well in B to B sales lead generation.

While there are several ways to attract attention in B to B space, we recommend “Cream Method of Direct Marketing”. This time tested method is believed to be developed by direct marketing author Bob Stone back in 1965 time frame. We have revised the method to take advantage of today’s state of the art technology and new ways of communicating with prospects & respondents.

In this method, you use two step sale process with a very soft offer. Your offer could be a free report, book, e-book, sequence of instructional videos, access to a document library or even a free initial consultation.

The offer must be subject matter relevant and the information you are offering should be of value to someone who is likely to be in the market for your service.

Example Soft Offer

Offer from eLaunchers.Com is “a free marketing automation system” where you can store all your data and artwork in one place and plan your marketing campaigns on one dashboard that can be shared by you and your vendors.

This offer is important and relevant to marketers who have a list and who have a need to use the list for an upcoming project. This offer is perfect for prospects who do not know eLaunchers.Com. For about the cost of sending them persuasive marketing material, we are giving them a gift that they can actually use, and when they are using the gift they will consider reaching out to eLaunchers.Com to provide services.

Example Hard Offer

Another offer from eLaunchers.Com a $250 gift card that can be used to pay for covered services. The gift card can be used to pay for $250 off your first transaction. With the gift card you can waive the data cleansing fee of $250, buy a $349 list for $99 or buy a 1000 piece direct mail program for $299.

This offer is suitable for prospects who have been warmed up to eLaunchers.Com at a networking event, at a speaking engagement where we are speaking or a referral from a referral partner. This offer is designed to generate deals, not leads.

We suggest that you have a soft offer and a hard offer at your disposal so you can offer one or both at the same time depending on the dynamics of your campaign.

If you offer a really cool gift (like a baseball bat shaped pen) or a chance to win something, you will have a significantly higher response rate, but your lead to close ratio will be very low.

Our recommendation is to develop a good information product as an offer, develop a landing page that talks up the offer and invite the prospect to fill out the form on the web page. Once they complete the form your system should add them to a back end database and send out a sequence of emails asking them to take a next step.

Outrageous Direct Marketing 101:

My friend Jeff Dittmer came up with a really interesting marketing sequence. He starts with a small 4 x 6 pink post card that looks like a pink ‘while you were out’ slip. He continues the sequence with a larger, 6 x 11 self mailer with the exact same message few days later. He sends out a large 11 x 17 version of the same message again in a few days and at last a large tube shows up with a 3 feet x 2 feet poster with the exact same message.

We built a landing page to complement Jeff’s sequence. The prospect is invited to call a dedicated telephone number or click on a personalized URL landing page. If the prospect does not respond, the sequence continues. If the prospect responds, the sequence is stopped and your marketing material is shipped out to the prospect who is responding to your offer.

There are many other ways to get pass the gatekeeper and reach the decision maker. Several books are written on this subject. Bill Glazer’s book “Outrageous Advertising That is Outrageously Successful”  has 108 off the wall, outrageous direct marketing idea. You can request a copy of Bill’s book at www.elaunchers.com/freebook.