People often tell me they’re disappointed with a marketing program they’ve run – a telemarketing campaign, an email blast, or a booth at a trade show, for example. They’ve launched a single activity and hoped for an inflow of fresh, new leads.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. To run a telemarketing program this month, host a webinar next, and invite prospects to a ball game sometime in the future is like jogging once a quarter and hoping to attain a high level of fitness. All you’re doing is expending a lot of energy, getting hot and bothered, and feeling sore the next day. Just like a well planned exercise regime, your marketing activities need to be regular, ongoing and use multiple tactics.
We’re working with a technology company that has a great set of products and services. Their past go-to-market activities were typical of many. They run a telemarketing program that might produce a lead or two. A few months later they’d try something else, like sponsor a seminar or some other type of prospect-facing lead generating event. Then they would engage in a short period of feverish blog publication. Lead generation was all over the place – little bursts here and there producing a trickle of new contacts that were passed to the sales team in the hope they could achieve a miracle.
Here’s not to say that such tactics don’t produce opportunities that turn into leads and leads that turn into sales – it just doesn’t happen in a predictable fashion. Let me ask you this: Have you ever run a marketing campaign and failed to be delighted by the results? Chances are the answer is, “Yes, more than a few times”.
Viewing a single activity as a marketing program in itself is courting disappointment. You need to stop thinking of marketing in terms of a series of unrelated programs. See it as an ongoing regimen where each tactic and activity is connected to build a picture about the business issues you solve and the unique value proposition you bring to the table.
In essence, you should never launch a single marketing tactic without understanding how it relates to the complete and overall marketing strategy. For example, the email campaign should be tied to well-crafted downloadable content. The message of the campaign should be reflected in well-timed blog publications. While the campaign is running, you should be reaching out to your target prospects through social media and LinkedIn groups. The website needs to be optimized for keyword phrases that your prospects are mostly likely to be using. A formal lead progression program needs to be running to catch the opportunities that are not yet in sales-ready status. And you need to be doing all this on a consistent and regular basis. This is a topic that’s extremely dear to me, and I could go on for some time, but I need to stop here. It’s time for the gym.
Learn more about Espresso’s B2B Lead Generation approach.
