Sales & Marketing Effectiveness

Getting New Business: Adapting to Current Market Conditions

Guest Author - Richard G. Melecki

 
In virtually every industry today, businesses have to do more with less.  This includes all of the marketing activities necessary to get new business in a challenging economy. 

In past recessions, marketers have concentrated their efforts on market segments, geographies, and customers which have proven profitable in the past.  But the current world economic situation is changing virtually every market.  Just doing what worked in the past to acquire new business risks wasting scarce marketing dollars and increasing your cost of new business acquisition.

To reduce your marketing costs and to increase your return on dollars spent to get new business, follow these steps:

1. Examine every current geographic market, market segment, and customer to determine if they are in fact viable prospects in the current economy.  Ask yourself how your products and services might sell in markets and in geographies you have not previously served.

2. Concentrate on no more than one to three profitable markets or market segments at any given time.  Like an army on the attack, your business must achieve strategic focus in order to maximize the use of scarce resources.

3. Fine tune your product/service design and your pricing strategy for each market in which you do business. 

4. Make sure you have identified the real buyers in each market segment.  Buyers are individuals who have the authority to make purchase decisions and who own the budgets used to make the purchase.  Concentrate your marketing and sales efforts on reaching these individuals.

5. Profile each buyer type for every one of your products.  At a minimum you should know their titles, their professional background, how they find out about products and services like yours, and how they make purchase decisions.

6. Use communication channels that have the best chance of reaching buyers for the least cost.  Active business acquisition methods, such as business-to-business referrals, direct mail/e-mail, and cold calling usually are the most cost effective.  Other less direct methods, including Internet and print advertising, can also prove effective if selected carefully to reach your targeted buyer

For more information, feel free to contact:
MPI Achieve, Ltd.
330-622-4038
info@mpiachieve.com
http://www.MPIAchieve.com

What Every Marketer Must Know About Their Best Customers

As a marketer, how much do you really know about your best customers?  How much more should you know in order to retain them and find more like them?

I’ve posted several times about the importance of complete current top customer knowledge, Too Many Marketers Have Too Little Customer Knowledge and What You Don't Know About Your Best Customers Equals What You Don't Know About Your Best Prospects .

I can’t stress this enough because without knowing your best customers, you and your sales reps are just floundering when it comes to effective lead generation and customer retention. It’s like trying to catch a fish without the right lures or equipment. You probably won’t catch what you want.   

Most sales & marketing experts will agree that defining your best prospects and retaining your best customers hinges on what you actually know about those current best customers. They are the key to a successful business future. If you don’t know them, you don’t know enough.

So, how much do you know about your best customers and how much more should you know? 

Here is a list of vital key customer knowledge that every marketer should be gathering and leveraging to keep their best customers and find more like them. 

• Correct Name (seems simple, but think of how many different ways the same company is spelled and entered into your systems)
• HQ address and other location addresses – plants, service points, etc. 
• Phone, Fax, Website, Email
• Primary SIC code, and secondary if applicable
• Industry Segment (your classification for analysis)
• Annual revenue
• Employee size
• Number of years in business
• Parent company (if any) and applicable information about them
• Company divisions or units, if any, how many and what products do each sell 
• Merger and acquisition history
• Partners and affiliations
• Major customers
• Primary products and other related products
• Product (s) they buy from you
• What other products might they use from you?  Which department/division/units might use your products, contact names, and will your current contact refer
• How often they buy from you
• Why they buy from you – price, quality, service, locations, effective communication, or other
• How much of their total last year revenue was influenced by your product
• How often you communicate with them and the method they prefer
• Their current market share
• Their major competitors and their competitors’ current market share
• What competitors do you sell to, what products, how much
• Your share of customer wallet, share of competitor wallet and potential for each
• Their current industry challenges
• Their latest press releases and newsletters, plus external news on them
• Trade publications the decision makers read/subscribe to
• Lead Source – what lead source did they originate from
• Outstanding proposals you have with them
• Decision maker/Contact for each key account/division/unit, the product sold to those, along with titles, email, phone extensions for each and personal interests
• Influencers to the decision makers, along with their contact information

I encourage everybody to comment and / or add to this list.  Perhaps, together, we can build a very effective type of “Vital Best Customer Knowledge List” for the benefit of all marketers. 

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Need Some Expert Advice on B2B Lead Generation, Tracking, Nurturing and Converting?

If you’re looking for some solid advice on effective B2B lead generation, then you must check out BtoB Magazine’s 2008 Lead Generation Guide.

This guide provides valuable studies, expert columns and interviews, and b-to-b market statistics.  With over 35 articles covering current topics, such as; email, direct mail, integration, events and more, you’ll find a treasure-trove of advice to help you get your lead generation processes into top notch shape. 

Like this excerpt from an interview with Laura Ramos, VP, principal analyst, Forrester Research , “Balancing lead generation with activity to build loyalty and adoption will let b-to-b marketers learn who their best customers are, how they became their best customers, how they journeyed through the buying process and how to find more like them.” 

This is one of my favorite pieces of advice because she mentions how learning about your best customers helps to find more like them.  I’ve covered this issue in my last 2 posts: What You Don’t Know About Your Best Customers Equals What You Don’t Know About Your Best Prospects  and Too Many Marketers Have Too Little Customer Knowledge

If your job entails any aspect of B2B lead generation, then this guide is something you can’t afford to miss.

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Too Many Marketers Have Too Little Customer Knowledge

A recently released study conducted by the CMO Council in the last quarter of 2007, based on an online survey of more than 450 global marketers, revealed some disappointing results regarding marketers’ efforts to retain current customers and gain new ones.   

BtoB Magazine cited the study with an article titled “Marketers Look to Boost Customer Retention, CMO Council Study Finds Maximizing Existing Relationships Takes a Back Seat to New Leads.”   In their print publication of this article, they posted the following results complete with a graph showing the percentages of respondents’ customer knowledge.

- 6.8% have excellent customer knowledge
- 40.4% have fair customer knowledge
- 45.6% have poor customer knowledge
- 7.2% was split between good and not sure customer knowledge

(I’m not sure how any marketer can’t be sure, can you?)

The bottom line, as I see it, is that in order for any company to become or remain competitive and boost their business performance, their marketers need to strive toward becoming part of the  companies that have excellent customer knowledge. 

They MUST find more effective ways to capture and leverage their precious customer information.  This is vital for optimizing their sales and marketing effectiveness, so they can retain their current customers and focus on gaining new customers who are most like their best customers. 

And, the study called, “Business Gain From How You Retain”, definitely addresses that challenge.  It is packed full of vital information for every marketer and I highly recommend that you download and review it.   

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What You Don’t Know About Your Best Customers Equals What You Don’t Know About Your Best Prospects

In relation to my last post, Driving Sales to Existing Customers Takes a Marketing Dive, I’d like to point out a great post by Brian Carroll, Should Lead Generation Ignore Current Customers, along with recent research by the CMO Council, Marketers Are Flying Blind When It Comes To Leveraging Customer Data And Analytics.

Brian begins with a shocking client statement, “We know more about our prospects (leads) than we know about our current customers.”  He goes on to describe a story shared with him by a Global 100 company marketing executive about their new CEO. 

The CEO asked 10 executive team members to write up a list of their top-10 customers.  Only 4 of the 10 executives got 5 or more of the customers correct. 

During the same meeting, the CEO also learned that their top-10 customers represented over 50% of their annual revenue.  The CEO immediately declared a customer focused initiative dubbed as “The Customer First Plan.”  The results of that plan showed a net revenue increase of 15% from current customers and a customer referral increase of over 100%.  Very impressive!

However, I don’t believe they truly knew more about their prospects, at least not their best prospects, without complete knowledge of their best customers. 

Without first knowing all you can about your best customers, there is no way a company can profile, understand and focus on your best prospects. 

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Getting Started with Market Analysis – Pulling it All Together

The market analysis process is dynamic and not completed in a vacuum.  Sales and marketing areas should be providing feedback throughout the process as you share the results learned at each step.  If sales teams are expected to implement and focus on more valuable prospects and customers then they need to understand why.  Marketing’s role is setting up the targets so sales can be effective.

The loop is closed by building loyalty and retaining the customers that you want to keep. Realizing that not all customers are equal, mean the same to you, and deserve the same level of attention, you will know which ones have potential and should receive your focused limited resources.  The others will need to raise their hand to get your attention while you invest in prospecting for new customers like your best ones.  Your benefit is that you reduce your cost of sales by building repeat business and creating cross-selling opportunities with these best customers. 

The key element in making the process work is organized information.  It is essential that you have the ability to collect and review customers and campaign information.  This continued monitoring thorough a database system feeds your understanding of where each customer is at in your cycle and how you are growing the relationship. A solid CRM system should permit you to not only collect and analyze the information but provide you with the ability to effectively take the next step in the continuing relationships with your best customers.

Please find attached a diagram summarizing the market analysis process.

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