Why do so many so-called sales & marketing companies pitch a Magic Wand solution which may look great on paper but actually stand little chance of really delivering in practice? Good business is about providing service where everyone benefits while the above approach is really about signing the deal, and not worrying too much about whether it really delivers. OK, these companies will have case studies where their approach has worked for a client but how often is this about luck where they hit the right person at the right time? Sure, it does happen – it may even have happened for you – but we all know it is not a reliable way of growing your business. I received the following email last month and I thought you might find it interesting to take off the rose-tinted glasses and look at the offer with a real-world perspective based on my 20 years experience of Business to Business email marketing and telemarketing: Please bear in mind I am talking B2B. First, the original email (identities have been removed!):
From: XXXXX XXXXX <xxxxxx@moresalesco.net> Sent: 05 January 2016 09:21 To: David Wright Subject: Happy New Sales Hi David 2016 is now here. Do you want a plan to grow your sales by 28%? Here it is: >> Email 10,000 Contacts and get 100 clicking on your great knowledge >> Call 100 contacts – about 2 days work – and get 10 good prospects to pass to sales >> Convert 2 or 3 of these >> Repeat in 2 weeks Suddenly from a standing start you have a stream of new prospects turning into customers. And most importantly, these are predictable sales that you can increase by simply putting more in. You can do with your in house resources, or if you want help with any part of the process, we’ve been doing this for clients for over 9 years so can help you get it running – or do it for you. You can see how we have helped businesses like yours here, alternatively, reply to this email or call us on 01234 567890. Best wishes for a happy & prosperous New Year,
I’m not quite sure where the 28% comes from but let’s take the guts of the ‘Plan’ and break it down:
- Email 10,000 contacts; I guess you won’t have a qualified list of 10,000 contacts so here’s a first opportunity for them to sell you something, and here’s the first problem, whatever people say, volume lists like this are, at best, not very well qualified. I would never say don’t buy one but please do it with your eyes open…
- Get 100 clicking; 100 clicks out of 10,000 might sound achievable but, in our experience, a cold list is likely to only get around 10% ‘open-rate’ so really we are looking at 100 clicks in 1,000 (10%) which is pushing it. 2-3% is probably more realistic – and of those, some will just be curious, not really interested. 20 clicks is probably closer than 100…
- Your great knowledge; It’s down to you to come up with the offer to attract the interest so if the numbers don’t work out, guess where the problem will be!…
- Call 100 contacts – about 2 days work; if you actually get 100 clicks you have had exceptional response – enjoy it! Back to the ‘Plan’; telemarketing a ‘qualified’ list of 100 will take more than 2 days (people have a habit of being ‘out’!), and at best, you are more likely to speak to only around 50-60% of the list – not bad but not 100%…
- Get 10 good prospects to pass to sales; 10% conversion from contact to lead on qualified telemarketing is realistic but as you are probably only contacting 50-60 your 10 good prospects is more likely to be 5 from an initial telemarketing list of 100 and on this ‘plan’ your inital telemarketing list is probably more like 20 so your ‘Good Prospects’ are probably 1 or 2 rather than 10…
- Convert 2 or 3 of these; Again, converting 2 or 3 out of 10 should be quite achievable, but you probably only have 1 or 2, not 10, so to have any success you conversion rate need to be an unlikely 50-100% rather than a realistic 20-30%…
- Repeat in 2 weeks; If you feel I have been over-pessimistic in all of the above and that the ‘Plan’ can work for you, you are now at the point where you need a new list of 10,000 new contacts to start again, or do you reuse the original list (with almost inevitably lower results). Unless you genuinely have a business where you can sell products and services that can appeal to pretty much every business and you can service customers nationally or globally, you will run out of target lists remarkably quickly.
The Bottom Line The above ‘Plan’ is phenomenally wasteful. Even on the original figures they are talking about 2-3 sales from an initial list of 10,000. What about the other 9997? If you want to reuse the list you will need to come up with ever more ‘great knowledge’ and each time, you start back at the beginning. I can’t deny that it is possible for the ‘Plan’ to be effective once, or maybe even twice but as an effective long term B2B business development solution it just won’t work! So what’s the alternative? In a word: ENGAGEMENT Sustained, relevant engagement with well qualified target contacts build relationships, awareness and understanding. Keeping in touch with your contacts with relevant content (yes, your ‘great knowledge’ is vital, so make the most of it!) helps them build confidence in your business and your ability to deliver. You can’t dictate when a customer will need your products or services but when they do, if you have built a strong relationship, you will be the first people they think of – and that plan can run forever!