If you ever want a really simple definition for what business to business marketing is all about, it would be that marketing is the management of acquiring sales leads.
I realise I’ve just upset a whole lot of people with that statement. After all if you’ve ever studied marketing, you’ll happily agree that marketing is “putting the customer at the heart of your business”, or it’s “understanding your customers needs and wants and satisfying those profitably through the provision of goods and services”. Both statements of course also being true.
But in its simplest form, what most business owners really care about, is that marketing should be generating opportunities to sell a good or service i.e. a sales lead.
This is particularly important for organisations where budgets are tight and the idea of running a marketing campaign around changing perceptions of your business in the market place, or raising awareness of your green credentials, should perhaps play second fiddle.
Of course, marketing campaigns that generate sales leads need to feed a hungry and skilled sales force, whether that’s a team of ultra competitive sales managers, or the managing director of a small company that knows his product inside out.
What then are the typical types of marketing tactic you can employ as a tool for generating a sales lead?
Well here’s a list of three commonly used tactics for you to think about:
Telemarketing - I doubt this needs much introduction and most people have been on the end of a sales call, but planned and executed well telemarketing can reap rewards. Whether you want to build a pool of qualified sales leads, or set appointments for your sales stars to bring home the bacon. Telemarketing is certainly a tactic not to be sniffed at.
Exhibitions - again, nothing new here and I’m sure anyone working in B2B marketing has either attended or worked at an exhibition. There are many hundreds of exhibitions taking place all of the time on every conceivable subject and you can spend a ton of money on a show, with costs for a stand, floor space, staffing, collateral etc etc. The key is to ensure you carefully manage your pre, during and post event execution to ensure every inch of your involvement is geared towards collecting and following up on sales leads.
Content-led Marketing – this is perhaps a less commonly used term, but something to think hard about. Essentially it’s the idea of offering some content of value to entice a prospective customer to make contact with your company and enter your sales pipeline. This might be something as simple as offering a downloadable ebook guide, or a whitepaper, right up to running a series of expensive events / seminars.
You’ll have seen this a lot from companies selling large, complex big ticket items such as IT products, but you’re equally likely to find smaller operators putting on events such as those selling property investment clubs, or courses for how to sell contracts for difference.
How then do you use content based tactics effectively to generate sales leads?
I’ll eventually write about each of these tactics and more in detail, but I want to start by discussing the use of propriatery events. You can see below a slide deck I recently pulled together on the subject, which details some of the critical success factor to using event marketing for lead generation.
For me, the key to event marketing is providing something of value.
You’ll have seen in the slide deck a statement that the more value you add, the warmer the sales lead will be and I firmly believe this is the case. If you want to use events as a basis for generating leads, you had better ensure you achieve a good return on your investment, because to be sure, events will not be a cheap tactic, but they may potentially offer the greatest reward.
Great post full of very good points that should not be forgotten when marketing an event or campaign. Thanks for the refresher!
There is a bright future in event marketing, now a days lots of companies provide their projects and functions to be conducted by event managers.
thanks for the post
it will be useful even i take finance at my college
do you happen know about new wave marketing?
Event Marketing is a new term for our new generation but it is as older as the term Marketing. Event Marketing can increase the chances of your success but it all depends upon the way that term is used.
Another great method that could be done in correlation to Telemarketing would be marketing through emails and newsletters. People like easy access to information, and if an email is well organized, addressed to the target audience and accurately reflects the best that your market has to offer, it will likely be a great success.
Thanks Josiah, so I guess what you’re saying is as long as the communication provides easy access to information (that hopefuly adds value), that’s well organised and targeted whether it’s email or newsletter, telemarketing or event, it’s likely to be a success. I sort of agree with you there.
Thanks for posting.
Marketing will always thrive in this world i think.
Thanks Eric. I agree.
Andy
I’m looking forward to your details on how you use content based tactics to effectively generate sales leads. I’m new to the sales game and I can certainly use more lead generating tools.
Event marketing helps you keep customers and prospects coming back—by using attractive, professional-looking email communications to stay in regular touch with them and build strong customer relationships. It’s better and more effective than regular email.
Marketing will always thrive in this world i think.Event Marketing is a new term for our new generation but it is as older as the term Marketing. Event Marketing can increase the chances of your success but it all depends upon the way that term is used.
Any marketing tactics used must add value in terms of extra usefulness, savings benefits and quality improvement to the customers and users. The concept of branding one’s products and services are also important as it will be seen as distinct and unique from the others.
i appriciate what you have shared over here in your post. its really marketing is the back bone of every bussiness. if you are having a bussiness and to reach targeted customer marketing is the way that take you to your targeted customer. thanks for posting such great ideas.
Today marketing is the most important factor in any business. As we all know that marketing is the best way to introduce the public to the products. It is very important to do marketing in particular way so the public get impress with the product. I had read this whole article and it has been very informative for me.
Great post. I’ve been trying to work on some events myself. Need to nail down a location first. I’ll have to look into event marketing to see if that can help me get the job done.
it is true that not many people have a good knowledge of Content-led Marketing, but it creates wonder once a firm relationship is made with the customer.
I agree that what most business owners really care about, is that marketing should be generating opportunities to sell a good or service i.e. a sales lead.
People like easy access to information, and if an email is well organized, addressed to the target audience and accurately reflects the best that your market has to offer, it will likely be a great success
event marketing is the new way to promote and get more leads and more benefits form the business. so i appreciate really what you have shared over here, that is quite informative i got a lot from here, i will try to work on some event for my site, thanks
This is a great collection of marketing techniques that are often either overlooked or snuffed out. Another great method is getting into social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It will help lure in clients on a more personal level and will provide them with an easy method of getting information from the marketers from just about anywhere or with anything that can go on the internet.
Event Marketing is as old as the use of Marketing. Event Marketing can increase the chances of your success like all marketing but depends on how you implement it and structure it….good post.
Straight forward definition, no fluff – marketers should give this a read.
I agree that what most business owners really care about.i appriciate what you have shared over here in your post. its really marketing is the back bone of every bussiness
A few years ago, I did not know even what b2b means. Nowadays, as a business school graduate, I must say that I agree with you in everything you wrote.
Event marketing is going to really expand and fast. Interaction with guests is so important and whoever has the tools to do that will grow quickly.
Thanks to services like Facebook, all business owners want their next event to not only serve those attending but to add to the company brand with a lot of eyeballs seeing the event happening.
Hi Michael, yes I totally agree, event marketing is big business and is increasingly popular which brings about it’s own set of challenges, for example how do ensure your target customers attend your event and not your competitors. Also, once you get them there, how do you ensure the interaction is a positive one?
This is great collection of marketing techniques it will help clients on a more personal level and will provide them an easy method for online marketing.
I’m so glad you stress planning and proper execution for Telemarketing. People see positive statistics from those methods and then go about it all wrong making a big mess.
I’ll admit even a messy campaign can run some profit but doing it right will bring you better profit and maintain your company profile/image to those of us who are sensitive to telemarketing.