The Value of a Lead

B2B, follow-up, lead generation, life time value, Marketing, Risks, Trust

Have you analysed the time it takes for someone who enquires something that you offer and eventually buys. And what is the Life Time Value of a client.

Not all leads will buy anything at all, some will buy, but not buy from you. But those who do buy from you, do you have an estimate of the amount of time it could take at an extreme for a lead to close.

About 10 – 12 years back, there was an MNC , who was into selling CPU chips, had come to us. Their sales team had a clear mandate from their management, if a lead was not closed in 3 months, it had to be pulled out of the funnel and dropped. Like us, they were also dealing in B2B.

Since we deal in considerably large value deals, it sometimes takes us even 24 months of effort to keep the lead live, to eventually come to us.

The timeline is an important aspect in deciding when a lead needs to be stopped from being targeted. One argument is never. To a certain degree, I agree with this argument. At the other extreme is an argument that if someone doesn’t buy in 3-6 months, then they will not buy. With companies running their sales and revenue targets from one quarter to another following a lead for more than 6 months is tough, because after 6 months the sales person may change.

Generating a lead is tough enough and losing it because you have an ad-hoc timeline to decide when to dump a lead can be devastating for the business. Depending on the kind of offerings you have, the more expensive the offering, the more people take time to think through their decision because, in the B2B segment, people can’t afford to Not Have Things Work. And because they still don’t trust you or the technology, they don’t want to take a decision. That’s where all the inertia and indecision comes-up.

You need to patiently nurture leads by educating them and motivating them to try you out (if they are engaging you for the first time) by doing POCs ( if its a complex technology) and eliminate all the possible risk from the buyer.

Once you have analysed the timeline of closing leads, then they will become an asset which will I’ve you annuity kind of business.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Messaging – how much is excess

B2B, education, education, follow-up, Marketing, messaging

“Won’t my prospect get irritated with me and unsubscribe” – this is one of the most common statements I hear when I tell people, that they should have a regular communication with their prospects and customers.

All your prospects and customers are in a state of a “moving parade”. So things keep changing for people all the time. And you don’t know when they may need what you sell. But when they need you, they should remember you first.

Now there will be somethings which are impulse purchases like a bottle of wine. Or small value items like a can of an aerated drink. Since the volume of transactions can be very high because of the spread of the decision making, you want to message more often. That’s the reason you see a Coke getting advertised multiple times a day. In the consumer space, you travel- international , less often, so you see airlines advertising less often.

In case of B2B, which is generally high value and less impulsive, you don’t advertise/message multiple times a day. But having said that, you need to keep messaging frequently – I generally recommend once a week. If not, at least twice a month. Anything less than this and chances are that you will float into oblivion.

The key in B2B is more about providing value. Finding ways to inform the customer, something new about what you offer – a new application, a new industry, a faster method, training for their employees. If you have segmented your market well, then you would typically know the kind of challenges that could take place, so providing education, value would be simpler. There can be a plethora of ways you can orient messages and multiple ways to get them delivered. Sometimes email, sometimes post cards, sometimes webinars.

If you keep adding value, then customers / prospects generally don’t mind receiving your mails and in a lot of cases may look forward to them. If some do unsubscribe, even after you are providing value / education, then its a good sign – because that person anyway would not have done business with you.

So don’t think in terms of excess, think in terms of value.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Follow-ups – how much is good?

B2B, follow-up, Marketing, persistence

One question that I get very often from my team is – “if we send so many follow-up emails, won’t the prospect get offended and unsubscribe”. We deal in B2B customers and therefore the general audience is never large, so they are scared that they may lose one prospect from the small set of prospects.

If your follow-up is – just wanted to check if there’s any update for me – then yes – its irritating and people will get offended and not bother to pick up your calls or unsubscribe from your mails in the future.

But if the mail or call has value then they will look forward to receiving your mails or calls. If on the other hand, if inspite of the fact that you are sending them something of value and they still unsubscribe to your mails or stop taking your calls, then it’s a good sign. They would not have become a good customer for you anyway.

Since our time is extremely valuable, it’s extremely important that we eliminate the people who anyway don’t value our services. You should look forward to delighting people who value your service not to people who don’t value it. That’s a wasted effort.

How do you create value in your communications – you share case studies of how you have helped others. You share challenges, that other customers had, that you helped solve. You could have created some new setups/solutions, found a new way to sanitise the rooms. With B2B prospects, there’s a lot of ways you can create messaging.

If not, you can share industry news that you found, or send them a book. But you have to be persistent in reminding them of your presence because, they shouldn’t miss out on talking to you when they actually have a need.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

P.S: If you are interested in getting a free copy of my 7 point checklist for B2B markets, you can ask for it, by filling in your details below.