Highlights of an article by Russell Kern
It’s a painful truth. People simply don’t like to speak to sales representatives. They may be afraid that a salesperson is going to talk them into buying something they don’t want or need. It’s human nature. No wonder people are so reluctant to walk into a car dealer’s showroom.
But in B-to-B marketing, the problem is compounded. Businesspeople need to stay productive. They legitimately feel their time is precious and avoid investing time speaking with people who won’t be of service to them in the near term. In addition, at different levels of the corporate ladder—from an operating manager to a C-level executive—the particular interests of each decision maker change, so the conversation needs to change.
This is exactly why a lead generation campaign needs a great incentive offer. Follow these seven steps to identify and develop the right offer to meet your objective. Your offers should overcome businesspeople’s natural reluctance to speak to a salesperson, and should provide the prospect with relevant, meaningful assistance. Your offer should allow prospects to raise their hands and indicate they have interest in knowing more—all without having to make a commitment to speak to a salesperson.
Thus, to generate all the business you deserve, you need a way to overcome people’s fear and reluctance by helping them take an easy first step into the buying process. You need to generate desire and motivate potential buyers to take the action you are seeking, whether it’s clicking through, mailing back your reply form, visiting your URL or attending your event.
Follow these seven key, time-tested steps to developing a superb offer:
Step 1: Look at what others are doing
Some simple background research can save you time in offer development. The Direct Marketing Association, for example, publishes data on the tools found effective by marketers. Here are offer usage statistics from DMA members who rated the relative effectiveness of various offers based on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “very effective.”
Another way to stay abreast of trends is to check out your competition. Sign up at your competitors’ Web sites and get on their mailing lists so you can keep track of the offers they are using.
Steps 2 through 7 include:
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Generate a list of offer ideas
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Get inside the mind of your prospect
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Segment your audience
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Map your offer sequence to the buying process
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Craft an offer title that maximizes results
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Test and optimize your returns
For details on each of these ideas, read the full article.
