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Lead Generation
September 19, 2007
Direct Mail and Email Lead Generation
 Erica Stritch, the General Manager at RainToday, had the following comments in today's Rainmaker Report.
I couldn't have said it better myself, so I won't. Here's what she wrote:
Direct Mail and E-Mail Make A Powerful 1-2 Punch
A recent article in DM News titled, Study: DM, e-mail blend ups spend, cites new research conducted by Royal Mail, a British postal service, that revealed nearly seven in ten people believe direct mail strongly support the success of online advertising.
The Royal Mail research found that:
- Direct mail and digital campaigns can increase spending by 25%.
- More than half of those surveyed prefer to be contacted by some combination of direct mail and online communications.
- Web users think direct mail is more personal, professional, and gives a better impression than online communications.
- Eight in ten people believe that e-mail is best for communicating brief messages.
While the research primarily focused on consumer spending, we can apply most of its lessons to B2B professional services.
First, in my experience, integrated communications work better than singular tactics. Prospects respond differently to different offers and media. Some delete all emails, others trash direct mail, and yet others need to see your offer several times before they act.
Second, professional services firms face long sales cycles. It often takes many touches, over time, to engage a prospect. By mixing up the media and continuously sending prospects value-based communications, you stay in front of your prospects and position yourself as a thought leader.
Third, as the research points out, direct mail and email give very different impressions of your brand. Direct mail is considered more professional and personal, while email works well to deliver brief messages. Professional services marketing and sales require a direct, one-to-one approach. Direct mail can provide a professional and personal touch, while email can reinforce your message.
Lastly, most professional services providers must connect with busy, high-level buyers bombarded with marketing messages. The combination of direct mail and email can get you through.
For your next campaign, follow in the footsteps of consumer marketers – consider pairing direct mail with email. You may see your response increase by 25% or more.
June 13, 2007
How Many Impressions Does It Take
How many marketing touches does it take to affect buying preferences and to increase your brand preference? I was going through some of my old files and ran across one of my all-time favorite pieces of advice. It goes like this:
- The first time people look at any given ad, they don't even see it.
- The second time, they don't notice it.
- The third time, they are aware that it is there.
- The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they've seen it somewhere before.
- The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
- The sixth time, they thumb their nose at it.
- The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
- The eighth time, they start to think, "Here's that confounded ad again."
- The ninth time, they start to wonder that they may be missing out on something.
- The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they've tried it.
- The eleventh time, they wonder how this company is paying for all those ads.
- The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
- The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
- The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
- The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can't afford to buy it.
- The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
- The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
- The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
- The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
- The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what it is offering.
I confess I read a reprint of this, not the original. Since Thomas Smith originally published it in 1885, that's probably not a bad thing.
As much as things change in 122 years, they stay the same as well.
June 01, 2007
In Defense of Capabilities Marketing
Professional services firms seem to fall into two camps when it comes to the nature of their marketing communications.
Camp 1 focuses on marketing their capabilities; telling world what they do (e.g. tax law, litigation, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, etc.)
Camp 2 focuses on marketing their value; telling the world how they make a difference for their clients (e.g. higher profts, lower costs, smoother operations, better marketing, mitigated liabilities, problems solved, etc.)
Capabilities focused marketers view benefits messages, value messages, and personality messages as "worthless pap." The folks in value camp just die when they see what the capabilities camp people say about themselves: "How can you think that putting a 17 item bulleted list of capabilities is at all helpful in your marketing? How boring and undifferentiated is that!"
To most marketers, the villians of this story are the capabilities folks (usually firm leaders and line managers, not marketers). Any marketing person worth their Fleur De Sel de Camargue believes that focusing on benefits and value is the way to go. We've been programmed that way.
Here's the problem with focusing on value only: people don't know what you do! I've spoken with many a bummed out services provider brooding about how a client or prospect has hired some other firm to deliver services that they offer.
Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't focus on value, benefits, or personality. You should. But you should do it in a way that helps clients and prospects to know when they should use you.
For example, picture a direct mail letter that focuses on "5 Questions Every Mid-Market Company CFO Needs to Answer." You pose the questions. You note how you help people answer them all the time. And you note the specific services that you offer that helps you answer them. At the end of the direct mail letter, you make an offer of value, "Visit www.websitehere.com/5questions to download our white paper that outlines how 7 CFOs at mid-market companies have tackled these questions, and the difference it's made in their financial results."
The letter is more interesting. It outines problems, the value of solving them, and with which services of yours you've solved them.
Key message: In your value-based marketing, make sure you communicate what you do as well.
April 02, 2007
What's Working in Lead Generation Podcast
Paul Dunay, Global Director of Field Marketing at BearingPoint, recently interviewed me for his Buzz Marketing for Technology Blog. We talked mostly about the results from our What's Working in Lead Generation study released from RainToday.com.
Enjoy the podcast below!
Based on the research findings from What's Working in Lead Generation, we created a 21 page executive summary of the report titled 6 Lead Generation Insights for 2007. Download the free 6 Lead Generation Insights for 2007 here.
I encourage you to visit Paul Dunay's Buzz Marketing for Technology Blog to read more of his insightful posts.
March 07, 2007
Does Cold Calling Work for Professional Services?
A number of folks read Business Week's interview with me about our What's Working in Lead Generation for Professional Services Benchmark Report. One question I've been asked since the interview was published is, "What did the leaders at professional services firms actually say about cold calling and what it's done for them?"
Here's the "evidence" that folks gave about cold calling working for them:
"Even though calls are frustrating at times...when they work, they really work well. We can get 2 to 4 new clients each year this way, that usually turn to repeat work clients...that is good."
-Chief Marketing Officer, AEC Services
"70% of correspondents are interested in our services."
-Principal / Partner, Law Firms / Legal Services
"Our biggest and most profitable customers have been acquired this way."
-CEO / President, Health Care Services
"75% of more than 250 meetings during the past 2 years have been generated this way."
-VP / Director of Marketing, Management Consulting
"30% response rate with a 10% first meeting rate. Acts like the newsletter, but gets to an audience blocked by spam filters."
-Principal / Partner, Human Resources / OD Consulting
"Roughly 25% of new business is brought in this way."
-Principal / Partner, Retained Executive Search Services
"Cold calling is so rare in UK professional services that it's quite a pleasant surprise to many recipients. We often get the comment, 'I'm glad you called. I / my colleague is dealing with just such a situation that you may be able to help with...'"
-Managing Director / Managing Partner, Marketing / PR / Advertising
"It is how we have secured business year after year and we're over $400 million in sales and in business over 50 years."
-Field Director, Human Resources / OD Consulting
Some professionals still hold the belief that cold calling does not work. In my opinion, cold calling works, most people just do it wrong.
What's your opinion?
February 04, 2007
Short-term and Long-term Leads
In our upcoming Future of Lead Generation for Professional Services benchmark research report (to be released in early February, 2007), we asked 726 leaders in professional service businesses a number of questions about their lead generation practices. Among them were these:
Question: Of all the leads that your company generates, what percentage is typically sales-ready?
Answer: 24.7% (mean average)
Question: Of all the leads that your company generates, what percentage typically requires further nurturing to be sales-ready?
Answer: 50.3%
Question: Of all the leads that your company generates, what percentage is typically disqualified from the sales process?
Answer: 24.9%
By industry mean, what percentage is typically sales-ready:
31.8% – Financial Services, Investments, and Real Estate
30.8% – Other Consultants and Professional Services
30.5% – Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
28.8% – Legal Services
27.6% – Accounting
24.6% – Marketing, Advertising, and PR
23.0% – Human Resources and Organizational Development
21.0% – Management Consulting
20.9% – Training and Executive Education
16.8% – IT Services and Consulting
By industry mean, what percentage typically requires further nurturing to be sales-ready:
58.4% – Training and Executive Education
53.1% – Human Resources and Organizational Development
53.1% – Marketing, Advertising, and PR
52.8% – Management Consulting
52.0% – Legal Services
49.0% – Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
49.0% – Other Consultants and Professional Services
47.2% – IT Services and Consulting
44.2% – Financial Services, Investments, and Real Estate
40.6% – Accounting
By industry mean, what percentage is typically disqualified from the sales process:
36.0% – IT Services and Consulting
31.8% – Accounting
26.2% – Management Consulting
24.0% – Financial Services, Investments, and Real Estate
23.9% – Human Resources and Organizational Development
22.4% – Legal Services
22.2% – Marketing, Advertising, and PR
20.8% – Training and Executive Education
20.5% – Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
20.2% – Other Consultants and Professional Services
Takeaway: Nurture the leads you have.
Many companies let the leads they work so hard to generate drop out of their pipeline. (A BtoB Magazine article April 14, 2003 cited a report by the Yankee Group that between 40% and 80% of new business leads are lost, not followed up upon, or otherwise mishandled due to poor company processes.)
In our experience, service businesses are better at staying on sales ready leads, and notoriously bad at staying on leads that need further nurturing.
If your company is one of the many that are poor at staying on leads that are not sales ready when they present themselves, you are likely missing out on 2/3 of your new business opportunities.
This is less a question of lead generation, and more a question of the systems and processes you have in place for lead nurturing: continuing to stay top of mind with prospects that will eventually look to solve their problems with someone’s help (e.g. your help, a competitor of yours, internal staff), and working to help get the issues you can help them with to the tops of their to-do lists.
January 15, 2007
Lead Generation Git 'R Done
Last week I started a blog post exploring the question of why, year after year, service businesses set lead generation plans and actions in place and then seem to have so much trouble implementing.
Next thing I know, it's an article not a blog post. Read Lead Generation Git 'R Done.
Any further thoughts on why service businesses don't implement their own marketing initiatives?
January 10, 2007
It's Getting Hot in Here
By Mike Schultz
I've spoken with a particular partner of a successful professional services firm at least once in each of the last three years about her frustrations with her partners: they won't get serious about marketing. The problem is, like many other firms, they do good work but the phone isn't ringing like it used to.
Each year she tries to kick off some kind of marketing and lead generation initiative so her firm can stay competitive with the other firms that seem so much more aggressive. Last year she couldn't even get her partners to agree they should "send a letter out" to introduce the firm to businesses in their area. All her partners seem to talk a good game of wanting to get the letter done. Then the letter dies a pocket-veto-like passive aggressive death as the partners never come back with a, "Yes...go ahead and get it done."
And so it goes. One year turns into the next, Sisyphus keeps pushing that rock up the hill, and the phone rings less and less.
Message to this partner, her partners, and the rest of the professional services world with their heads still in the sand: it's going to get worse.
In our upcoming Future of Lead Generation for Professional Services benchmark research report (to be released in early February, 2007), we asked 726 leaders in professional service businesses a number of questions about their lead generation practices.
One question we asked was, "In the next two years, how do you expect your lead generation efforts to change?" We gave them 5 choices of answers. Here's what they said.
41% said, "We'll significantly increase our lead generation efforts"
43% said, "We'll moderately increase our lead generation efforts"
13% said, "No change"
3% said, "We'll moderately decrease our lead generation efforts"
0% said, "We'll significantly decrease our lead generation efforts"
In other words, 84% are going after your prospects, your clients, and the market in general with more lead generation energy, resources, and rigor, and 3% are doing less.
In terms of industries, here are the percents that are going to either significantly or moderately increase:
91% – IT Services and Consulting
89% – Training and Executive Education
87% – Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
85% – Accounting and Financial Services
83% – Marketing, Advertising, and PR
82% – Other Professional Services
81% – Financial Services, Investments, and Real Estate
80% – Legal Services
77% – Management Consulting
The lead generation heat is turning up across the board.
How's that letter campaign coming?
January 08, 2007
15 Ways to Kill Your Lead Generation Effectiveness
By Mike Schultz
"We're often brought in to clean up after the mistakes that other people have made."
I hear this all the time from consultants and professionals, regardless of their service specialty. They tell me their clients either thought that they could do something themselves as effectively as a specialist in the area (and they couldn't), or their clients hired (and got burned) by a cheaper provider.
Well…count me in. My colleagues and I at my firm often go in to clean up the mistakes that other people made, especially when it comes to lead generation. I'm usually the positive type, and often write about the "DOs" of professional services marketing and lead generation. Today, take heed of some of the "DON'Ts". I like cleaning up, but I don't wish the mess on anyone.
In no particular order:
- Don't blow your budget on brand advertising.
We clean up after this one pretty often. $60k... $160k…$600k…gone. We'll ask what the client was hoping to get from their advertising spend. "Get our name out there" is often an answer. (The effect is usually not measured.) "Competition is advertising" is another. (Mom to kids: "If all your friends were jumping off a bridge...") More often than not, brand advertising for the sake of brand advertising for all but the largest firms is a big fat waste of money.
- Don't expect a swallow to carry a coconut.
Guard 1: What?! A swallow, carryin' a coconut?!
Arthur: It could grip it by the husk!
Guard 1: It's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios! A five-ounce bird could not carry a one-pound coconut!
As this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail continues, the guard proceeds to tell Arthur that to maintain air speed velocity, a swallow has to beat its wings 43 times per second.
Arthur's response: I'm not interested.
Many professional service businesses – especially those who are just starting to make the transition from referrals-and-networking-only – believe that they can spend on a little bit of this and a little bit of that and, viola, they have more leads with top buyers looking to engage their services! Or they're looking to find the lowest-priced provider of whatever tactic they're looking to employ.
Getting through to high-level decision makers, getting your message of value seared into their heads, and getting them over the tipping point of becoming a serious lead for your services takes money, time, and marketing savvy. There's no secret trick. There's no cheap way about it. A swallow cannot carry a coconut.
- Don't send direct mail or email without a valuable offer.
Become a client and we'll clean your car…we'll bring you an iPod…we'll solve all your problems. If you make an offer (and you should), make it valuable. Research results. White papers. Seminars and webinars. Podcasts. Introductory services to test the waters and prove the case. It's junk mail if you fill it with junk. It's a value-based communication if you actually offer value.
- Don't be gimmicky.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I'm sliding on my belly across downtown Newark, New Jersey to generate awareness for my consulting practice." Gimmicks can work for products, amusement parks, charity fundraising, and other business-to-consumer services. Some business-to-business professionals have gone gimmicky, proud that they were thinking "out of the box" or were exceptionally clever. Usually they were neither.
- Don't rely on one tactic.
Example of one tactic: send direct mail to whoever is in your database. Note that you have been in business for 88 years, offer solutions to problems based on real need with your people, process, and technology, and you listen better than the next guy. Call if you want to become a client.
I get this one in the mail all the time. I wonder how many responses they get.
Example of multiple tactics: send direct mail (tactic 1) to a targeted, clean, well-researched list (smart) offering your new research results (offering value…improving your brand…see #3 above) in a free, well-written white paper (tactic 2). The prospects will go to your well designed website (tactic 3), preferably directly to an optimized landing page (tactic 4) so they can download the white paper. The download information goes into your CRM system directly (tactic 5) and a business developer or professional follows up within a day or so (tactic 6). From there, you set a meeting (tactic 7) and bring the complete research results to discuss.
Integrated marketing works better.
- Don't rely on one approach. Most one-trick-pony or specialty shops want more business for their service. So they sell it. It sounds compelling. But it's not always the right approach – not by a long shot. This is a particularly difficult challenge for professional services firms because there are so many decision makers at the firm, the firms often end up with something too simplistic becuase it's the easy thing to buy (ads, new website, cold calling, PR retainer, etc.). Some approaches will yield nothing (see #1 above) and without integration, they won't yield what they could (see #6).
Know what you're getting into, and what you can really get out of it, before you start spending. And don't take the easy way out.
- Don't do anything without taking your website into account. Think about this for a minute: if you're going to make a major purchase for your business, do you visit the websites of the providers you're considering? Do the websites influence you? If you're over 40 and you said, "No," go ask someone under 40.
- Don't drop the leads. Professional service providers are notorious for letting their leads and their networks go fallow if they don't buy right away. According to a Cahners Business Information study, 89% of business buyers took more than 90 days to purchase something. If you don't capture and nurture your leads, you're missing the boat.
- Don't attend trade shows because competition is there. Attend because you want to develop leads and business. Plan activities for before, during, and after the show as if that's your goal. Read Trade Show and Event Marketing by Ruth P. Stevens.
- Don't pitch, pitch, pitch. Nobody wants to hear it. In the RainToday.com research How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Report on Professional Services Marketing and Selling, 200 buyers of professional services stated that the top attributes for service providers were "Service provider understood my situation and needs" (88%), and "Service provider understood my business" (86%). At the same time, the most frequently reported problem was "Service provider didn't listen to me" (41%). Pitch, pitch, pitch too soon or too much and you'll be sad, sad, sad with the results.
- Don't evaluate lead generation too quickly. It takes a good strategy, multiple- touches, and time for lead generation efforts to truly take hold. Many professional services firms dig the seeds up after two weeks to see if they're growing. That's not a good way to grow trees.
- Don't skip the measurement. Everyone talks a good game about measurement, but few do it well. If you're going to spend even $50k on lead generation, you should be testing, evaluating, and improving.
- Don't over-rely on your junior people. When you say to a junior marketing person at your firm, "find me a marketing firm that does lead generation, get some quotes, and tell me what we should do," you may get yourself in trouble. Many end up with one tactic (#5 above), one approach (#6 above), and approaches that don't work well (there are so many).
If you're really looking for quality leads based on strong growth strategy and the true value of your firm in the market, your leaders and partners will need to not only make the decisions on lead generation, they have to be involved in the process from the start. If you over-rely on junior people – team members that aren't ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with senior leaders and get them on the same page – you'll be shooting yourself in the foot, and taking a long time to do it.
- Don't listen to marketing "rules of thumb." "You have to be a market share leader so generate enough clients to do that." Not true. "Direct mail responses are 1%." (Not true). "Someone from every speech you give will buy from you." Maybe, maybe not. "Everyone should blog." Please, don't. "Let's metatag our site and submit to search engines, and that will get us good rankings in Google." Maybe that would work for Altavista…in 1997. But even then you had to do more.
- Don't expect to hire a "big-gun business developer" or a sales team and have it just work. Most small firms that try to bring in a "rainmaker" or a big-gun sales person end up kicking themselves when the person either doesn't sell, or just doesn't work out. Then the firm often tries again. It usually adds up to 6 figures or more in spend, not that much return, and sometimes years wasted trying. If you really know how to manage a business development team, then go for it. But if managing a sales team isn't your idea of a dream job, be afraid…be very afraid.
Avoid these fifteen messy lead generation tactics, and not only will you save yourself time, money, and frustration, but you will also generate more and better leads for your business.
January 03, 2007
Combination to Lead Generation Success
This article from DM News tells the story of a 74% response direct marketing campaign using dimensional mail. From the article:
In an attempt to open the U.S. catalog market, Canadian printer Transcontinental mailed a lockbox to catalog executives as part of a campaign that yielded a 74 percent response rate. 
Transcontinental, Montreal, aims to position itself as a thought leader in the U.S. catalog industry, and one way it hopes to accomplish this is with an annual survey of catalogers. A dimensional mail campaign was built around the survey both last year and this year in order to produce at least 100 responses, the minimum Transcontinental needed to publish a credible survey.
74% response is pretty good by any measure of direct marketing. Even for dimensional mail it's high. According to the company, they had previously mailed a traditional paper survey in an envelope and historically got a 1% response rate.
While sending a lockbox to prospects won't land you immediate clients, if the messages you put in the lockbox and the offer you make as a part of the mailing campaign are strong, it will:
- Get opened and remembered by your prospects
- Get opened and remembered by your clients, should they be a part of the campaign
- Generate an audience and a robust conversations about whatever you want to talk about
In our upcoming Future of Lead Generation in Professional Services research report, generating introductory meetings with prospects is rated as one of the top most successful lead generation tactics.
Think about the possible lead generation campaigns you could use for your firm just with the lockbox. The permutations of, "Unlock the hidden value in your supply chain...marketing process...human capital...financial structure," are a few ideas for part of the message of the campaign. Target your list well, insert a worthwhile reason for them to want to speak with you (not always so easy for some people to come up with), and you're in the door.
Of course, it's not all just about the lockbox. There are many ways professional services firms can use direct mail and dimensional mail in lead generation to, as they say, cut through the noise and get someone's attention. Why more firms don't employ the tactic, I don't know.
How do you think professional services firm can employ dimensional mail in marketing and lead generation?
Have you seen any examples of how dimensional mail has been employed well by professional services firms or any other kind of company? I see them all the time, but always curious to see more.
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