Doing More with Less

In this time of economic challenge, the most commonly asked question we get is “how do I do more with less?” Less is relative – less marketing budget; less marketing staff; less sales team members; less confidence in the effectiveness of existing marketing programs. Regardless of which “less” you are dealing with, or all of the above, there are things you can do to optimize your marketing efforts. Here are a few places to start:

1. Centralize and clean up your data – most organizations have more data then they know what to do with. It comes in all shapes and sizes – trade show attendee lists, email newsletter recipients, webinar participants, purchased lists, targeting lists, etc. To be effective, centralize, purge, and de-dupe this data. It’s not a difficult task, but depending on the tools and support you have, it could be a tedious one. Just keep in mind the old rule of “garbage in, garbage out” – if you don’t start with valid information, you’ll end up just wasting dollars.
2. Rank your leads/contacts – not all leads are created equal. In fact, your sales team is potentially spending 25% of their time talking with people that will never buy from you – that’s one lost FTE for every four sales team members. Additionally, marketing may be providing sales with lots of names, but how many have been qualified enough to act on? Make your sales team more effective by providing only qualified leads – the definition of “qualified” will depend on your business, but try using a scoring program based on explicit information (like title, industry, company size) and implicit data, like visits to your Web site or receptiveness to your emails, to rank and order your leads. Send only those with high lead scores to the sales team to accept or decline.
3. Nurture, nurture, nurture – upwards of 50% of your leads may have high purchase potential, but just aren’t ready to connect with a sales person. Don’t dump them – nurture them. Use a series of various communication tactics, such as emails with whitepaper offers, webinars, and RSS feeds, to develop an ongoing dialogue with a prospect. Make it easy for them to “raise their hand” and contact a sales team member when they are ready. Don’t let all your hard work evaporate. Give your sales team all the information you know about prospects (implicit and explicit) and ensure that they are making personal contact and following up with the all those newly qualified leads.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll post some more ideas of nurturing, scoring and lead/customer development programs and approaches. Can’t wait? Fill out our Contact Us form or call our office at 763.355.1025.