One would like to think that when times are tough – like trying to do marketing when budgets are put under a microscope and emotions are running high – that we slow down, think smarter, and come up with considered solutions.  Instead, the opposite is often true.  We run the risk of exacerbating a bad situation with bad decision-making.  So let’s slow down and think of how we should react to today’s business climate.

Tip #1:  The sky is NOT falling.  Our economy is growing at 2-3% a year instead of, perhaps, 4-5%.  Life goes on. The cover story to the May 7th, 2012 issue of Newsweek is titled, “America is Winning.”  We attract the world’s immigrants because we’re great.

Tip #2: Talk to your customers. Companies are buying.  They have to.  You just have to figure out what and why they’re buying.  That’s classic solution selling, isn’t it?  This is time-tested and valuable in any economic cycle.  So how do you find out what your market needs?  Ask them.  If your budgets have been slashed this is NOT a time for fancy ads hyping features or attending expensive shows.  Take a breath and talk to your prospects.  Surveying your Key Accounts has never been more valuable.

Tip #3:  Avoid waste.  Seems obvious, right?  Many might think this means rigorously analyzing the ROI of every dollar spent.  If your company has long sales cycles (don’t delude yourself:  Many solutions take a year to close), such analyses can be deceiving.  So concentrate on the basics.  Is your database of prospect names clean and comprehensive?  Are your emails getting through?  Is the sales team rapidly following up on leads?  Control what you can.

Tip #4:  Respect your buyers and the pressures THEY face.  Guess what?  Its tough everywhere.  High fliers like Apple, Google and Facebook are under intense pressure.  Sure they’ve got cash, but every middle manager goes to work on Friday wondering if their boss might stop by for a little chat.  Expect every buying decision to take longer.  You’ll need to nurture leads a lot more.  Give prospects smart, compelling data to help inform the buyer’s journey.  Have highly relevant reference stories to help back up your claims.

Tip #5:  Be the voice of reason.  Advocate for the basics that have always worked:  Identifying the accounts that need your solutions.  Listening to your key accounts to gather facts about buying behavior.  Providing honest, clear information to prospects.  Be the clear-headed optimist.  Make it so when the boss stops by on Friday afternoons its to get cheered up… and be reminded why the sky is NOT falling!

To learn more, download our survey on “Target Account Penetration Strategies.”

We’ve heard this a million times when doing marketing campaigns:  appeal to human instincts.  Don’t think of your prospects as monolithic automatons.  So even when trying to reach that super senior executive in that big, impenetrable key account, keep in mind that he or she gets up every morning, spills coffee, gets grunted at by a teen and wonders how the neighbor drives such a nice car.

So how do your market to these humans?  Let’s explore the most basic of human instincts:  the desire to want things for free.  I remember one warm summer day at a street fair some promotional going on where hand fans were being offered to the crowd.  A piece of cardboard, emblazoned with First National Bank attached to a popsicle stick, and hundreds of people were flocking to take one.  I couldn’t relate.  I had a fan already: my hand attached to my arm did the same thing.  We’ve seen this movie before.

But let’s step it up a level.  In his 1995 bestseller, The Road Ahead, Bill Gates talked about paying people to read commercial emails.  That’s the same concept: earning something for, essentially, doing little or nothing.  Our time and attention are worth something to us, so we’d better get compensated.  I won’t wave around a sign promoting the First National Bank unless I get a free fan.

Let’s look further at the most brain-busting phenomenon of our day: Facebook.   It is closing in on a billion active users.  A billion. I find myself going on Facebook every day or so to find out what some of my friends are up to. It makes us feel connected; makes us feel human.  And the cost?  Zero.  Facebook is free. But my point is the same:  give me something valuable at an absurdly low price and you will alter my behavior.

So let’s go back to the equation we’re trying to solve:  how to engage senior executives.  Well, what do we want from them?  How about 5 minutes of their time to explain to their the features and benefits of our solution.   The disconnect is this:  from the salesperson’s perspective the solution offers real benefit and the individual, say a CIO, must make themselves accessible in order to learn about new solutions which may benefit his or her organization.  Trouble is, thousands of competing pitches are thrown at this poor person annually.

Compensating executives to engage is one logical solution.  Don’t make them feel cheap by offering cash for ten minutes of their time.  Many have found a way to navigate around these emotions.  Have the gift come from a third party.  Maybe have it be a charitable contribution.  Ask them to read a brief statement and to then weigh in with their “thought leadership” feedback.  Get them engaged.  Appeal to their professionalism.  Explain how it is in their interest to engage and participate, while you listen.  And pay them for their time with a gift.  If done the right way, the result will be greater openness to your underlying idea and approach.

How do most marketers create a database?  Does the marketer go off and simply order a big pull of data or purchases a list and hopes that these yummy target accounts are represented.  To load the sales funnel with these accounts is actually an easier task that simply hoping that you’ve gotten lucky when creating a database, and they’re in there.  Start by creating databases exclusively with the target accounts.  Unlike the pray and spray method, where specific words are purchased in the hopes that they will attract top prospects doing searches, start by asking the sales and marketing teams to submit a list of exactly, precisely the companies the team wants to penetrate.  There is no excuse for marketing to companies that you don’t want.  There are two parts to this challenge, though they should not be thought of as daunting.  First, creating a database is a non-mystical, non-random exercise.  It simply represents hard work and methodical research.  It goes like this:

1. Once the list of top prospect companies is drawn up, then the next step is to match those company names with the actual companies on larger databases.  Matching is a skill that takes both good tools and careful, manual labor.  The tools that, say, recognize a VP of Sales’ scribbling of the name, “ARM” has to figure out if the person meant “Arm and Hammer” the brand, the stock signature of American Airlines, Fidelity Investments (because he meant to write FMR), American Medical Response (an ambulance company) … or if the author simply misspelled the target account.  It can often come down to a judgment call.  Good technology can get you part of the way there, but name matching often involves a human element, a live person looking at a couple possible matches and choosing what they feel the person really meant.  It requires having some knowledge of the target marketing, and putting into the equation an understanding that, using the above example, American Airlines would likely process a lot of credit cards, elevating it to be a likely candidate.   Once the list is matched, and the accounts associated with their correct spelling, address, URL, etc., then the next step is the populating of the account with key contacts.
2. Building contacts (also known as “contact discovery”) is, again, a specialized discipline that actually isn’t very mysterious… it just takes hard work.  The old fashioned way is often the best:   call into the account and talk to real people and build names by title or by role.  It isn’t very sexy, but it is the only way to ensure that the person you want has responsibility for the area you seek.  You need skilled researchers who will call into the target account and get someone (or multiple people) to confirm the name, the spelling, the title, their role, their email, etc.  This method can achieve >95% accuracy.

What can make this process easier?

Clearly, if you already have some names in that target account you can leverage them to get other, net new names.    When your research teams do hunting for contacts they can invoke the names they already have, establishing credibility, and getting someone in the organization to yield new names.

Beware of sources that use “web scraping” another techniques for robo name building.  They often get names that would be described as “good enough.”  For many marketers “good enough” meets their budget constraints.  In reality, good enough names can compromise the credibility of your marketing message.  Imagine getting an email where your name is spelled wrong, you title is wrong, or the message doesn’t really resonate with what you’re responsible for.  Or, quite simply, the email bounces, is never delivered, and the outbound effort is wasted on a bad email.  Creating a database, specifically for the purposes of lead generation (particularly in target accounts) is hard.  Turning target accounts into top prospects is hard.  Getting specific executives in target companies into your sales funnel is hard.  Creating a database with the goal being high accuracy is easy… “easy” in the sense of not magical, not mystical.  It is simply all about hard word, careful, slow, methodical research.  But a super high accuracy database means that all the marketing programs that leverage those names will not fail based on bad data.  They may fail all on their own (more on that in other blogs), but at least the data will not be able to be blamed as one of the usual suspects.

To find out more, download our free summary report “How Poor Data Quality Impacts Marketing Effectiveness.”

1. Define the accounts you want in as granular detail as possible.  If you can’t get the list of specific accounts, define them in terms of industry (ie, retail, manufacturing) or SIC code.  Layer on company size, annual revenue or number of employees or both.  Keep adding information.
2. Define who it is within those accounts would make the best “entry point”.  Sure, it would be great to get to the CEO and use the trickle down theory, but so would it be great to begin your career as a mountain climber by tackling Mt. Everest.  Get real.  Start with a functionally relevant contact.
3. Interrogate your own database and see which of these accounts you already have, and which contacts within them you possess.
4. Come up with a high-response offer.  Let’s face it.  The list represents your bull’s eye.  They’re whom you ultimately want.  Now you need a campaign that yields the highest possible number of “hand raisers” for this exclusive list.

Let’s assume you’ve been tasked with penetrating a hot list of target accounts.  Your sales team, perhaps light on resources (callers, sales reps) has tasked you with getting in the door of several important, must-have, marquee accounts.   How do you do it?

1. The Direct Assault.  The Marines would call this approach “Grab you gun and take the hill.”  Not very nuanced, just an escalation of direct efforts: email, write, call, stop by unannounced, stalk the individual at their health club, etc.  Not every salesperson is up to this task.
2. The VITO variation.  Occasionally successful, this involves researching the company, going through annual reports, and then writing a letter (remember postal mail?) and addressing some salient points, culminating with a statement (threat?) that you will call at a specific time and hope to have a conversation.  This approach takes a lot of work, custom research, careful schedule coordination, etc.
3. Bribery-well at least a strong offer/incentive!  We actually like this one at SimplyDIRECT.  Once you’ve built a list of exactly whom you want, ask them to take a survey (which, itself, asks the tough qualifying questions) but offer to compensate them for their time.  If handled properly, with a mix of politeness, professionalism, seeming “insider information” (such as listing competitors) and an unambiguous request for a meeting, this approach can be surprisingly successful.

There are as many different ways to penetrate target accounts, as there are target accounts.  You’ve got the list, now you have to move this static list of names into your sales funnel.  You have to generate leads from this exclusive, very finite list.  You can’t afford to “burn” anyone with an off-putting approach.  You have to be exemplary in your politeness, fearful that – God forbid – the marketing department harms the relationship before it even begins.  Say there are 137 accounts on the list.  One overly aggressive message or pitch and you’re down to 136.

There’s a reason your sales team identified these guys as their hoped for top prospects:  they are incredibly valuable if closed.  Remember the line, “There’s a rose in a fisted glove”?   You have to walk that fine line between trying to penetrate a given account too forcefully and being too shy to even get in to make the pitch.

First up was the suggestion, “Why doesn’t our clinic have a Facebook page?” Fair question… I politely pointed out that we’d had one for over two years. One would think if you were planning a presentation on social media, you’d have checked that one out. But enough of the put-down. I decided to take command and ask some basic questions. Where are our current volunteer physicians coming from? One of about five local hospitals. Where do most of them live? Again, given the location of the clinic, most reside within about a 15-mile radius from our facility. Next, what are their ages? Consensus was that 70% were retired, but still affiliated with their home hospital. “Call me crazy,” I began, a common preamble to my pronouncements, “but instead of spewing a message out to the couple hundred billion who are on-line in over 160 countries, perhaps we should see if each of these five hospitals can give us a list of their retired physicians? “Oh, I’ve seen that list!” excitedly exclaimed a volunteer. “There’s a local organization of retired physicians already.”

But I come here not to slay social media. It can bring miraculous results to marketers. What I AM here to attack is lazy thinking, those who try to find an easy solution instead of the intelligent one. At meeting after meeting after meeting my clients, who are all B2B, are asked what companies they’re targeting. (Hint: if there’s more than a 30 second hesitation while the marketers or salespeople in the room are composing an answer to that question, we recommend selling stock in said firm as soon as possible.)

Absent having a handle on how to describe the target market, many marketers seem to want to leave it up… to the market! They spew out e-messages or blog posts or Tweets and they hope that the interested magically are drawn to the message, lemming-like, and hopefully drawn to their website, where they will complete forms and linger on the right pages and get scored and touched and emailed and called… and the target market will reveal itself, like a photo slowly developing in a darkroom.

Knowing what thier customer should look like really speeds up the process (and does not crowd out the all-important social media efforts). SimplyDIRECT can build out their lists of accounts and contacts when our clients give us a hint of that those attributes are. It often results in delightfully well-defined, not too terribly large markets, and company counts that the client’s sales teams can actually call.

Napoleon famously said, “If you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna!” Social media is valuable. Picking up the phone and dialing your market is actually valuable, too.

Maynard – December 7, 2011 – There are segments in the market that are healthier than others, either lagging the crisis, emerging from it, or immune to it. The challenge is to find those segments and market directly to them.

There are two approaches we see among marketing departments in this environment: one is a ‘hunker down’ mentality, and the other is to ‘invest now to kill those who are hunkering down.’ The latter is aggressive and gutsy, but history is filled with stories of how this can work.

There are several reasons the “invest now” approach succeeds.

First off, there are segments that are relatively prosperous and buying. Government seems to have the appetite to buy. Healthcare anticipates a delirious carnival of new spending. Engineering, design and construction are poised for a renaissance. Organizations fearful of waking up to CNN with breaking news about security breeches are frightfully ready to invest. Don’t buy into the myth that nobody’s buying.

Second, marketing professionals, vendors, partners… all are on their toes right now, so programs will more likely be designed and guided by highly-motivated, highly-focused individuals who are painfully aware that upper management will not tolerate waste, slackers or unsubstantiated results. We have all elevated our game.

Third, marketing dollars go further in this economy. Why? Pricing is down, and vendors, suppliers, consultants are open to making deals. No need to be predatory – a dependable vendor driven to extinction does no one any good – but everyone understands that discounting is to be expected in such times.

Fourth, it is a time when any marketing program tacitly communicates to the market that the company is healthy, confident and forward-looking. “Going dark” during this period helps confirm suspicions clients and prospects may have about your organization’s viability. Like gazelles that jump and prance extra high while lions are about, it is a statement that you have a lot of fight in you.

Fifth, it might just drive your competitors to make their own irrational decisions. In 1980, at the height of the Cold War between Russia and the United States, the Russians took one of their supersonic fighters and intentionally flew it through skies they knew were being tracked by US radar. The plane was tuned for high-performance, the pilot flew the fighter at speeds much higher than the plane’s engines could handle, and he returned to his base with a crippled aircraft, its jet engine’s dangerously falling apart from overuse. But the US had tracked its speed as considerably higher than their intelligence thought the Russians capable… and proceeded to try to build their own fighter fast enough to match this performance. It nearly bankrupted the US trying to catch up. Perhaps this is a good time to show off to your competitors, and watch them attempt to catch up, as well.

All of this takes money, for sure. But therein lies the need for programs like SimplyDIRECT’s. If you’re going to try to free up budget, make the argument that every dollar will be spent directly on known buyers. Make sure the list is ‘spot on’. Go with programs where response rates are guaranteed. Leave nothing to chance.

About SimplyDIRECT Corporation..

SimplyDIRECT is the leading marketing services company that identifies, engages and qualifies enterprise sales leads with maximum precision. The offering includes survey-based lead generation, building targeted account databases, and cleaning and enhancing existing databases. Many of the Fortune 100 companies are long-time clients of SimplyDIRECT. Founded in 1996 and based in Maynard, Massachusetts the company is privately held.

• We’re on the cutting edge of account-based marketing. SimplyDIRECT was early to recognize that marketers can’t afford a shotgun approach to prospecting—it’s inefficient and costly. Our account-based approach focuses on the right contacts, in the right accounts.
• We’re flexible. SimplyDIRECT can accommodate most data and survey requests. Tell us what you need and we’ll give it to you straight what we can and can’t deliver.
• We’re accountable. We appreciate the pressure on you and your bottom line. We guarantee both the accuracy of the databases we develop for you and your campaign response rates.

Founded in 1996, SimplyDIRECT is based in Maynard, Massachusetts, with offices in San Francisco and New York. GatePoint Research is our wholly-owned research subsidiary.

Maynard, MA – April 15, 2011 – SimplyDIRECT started 2011 by setting another record for revenue for the company.  The record comes as the company has expanded the sales, marketing and service staff to addresses the needs of the growing list of clients that include Fortune 100 companies, 3rd Party Data providers, and growing companies looking for accurate and high quality sales leads.

“This record revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was made possible by the phenomenal team we have at SimplyDIRECT,” said Lisa Vitale, President of SimplyDIRECT.  “We work with the most demanding companies in the world, that need to see quick results with a very high degree of accuracy.  We are able to exceed our client’s expectation because of the skill and dedication of the employees at SimplyDIRECT”.

About SimplyDIRECT Corporation
SimplyDIRECT is the leading marketing services company that identifies, engages and qualifies enterprise sales leads with maximum precision.  The offering includes survey-based lead generation, building targeted account databases, and cleaning and enhancing existing databases.  Many of the Fortune 100 companies are long-time clients of SimplyDIRECT.  Founded in 1996 and based in Maynard, Massachusetts the company is privately held.

Maynard, MA – December 19, 2010 –  SimplyDIRECT will end 2010 setting another record for revenue for the company.  The record comes as the company celebrates 15 years of serving the marketing and lead generations needs of Fortune 500 companies such as Computer Associates, IBM, Symantec, and Novell.

“While 2010 will be a record year for the company, we believe 2011 will see tremendous growth with the addition of Brian Perks, our Vice President of Sales,” said Lisa Vitale, President of SimplyDIRECT.  “Brian’s extensive experience in lead generation and databases with Jigsaw and Salesforce.com fills in the final piece needed to make SimplyDIRECT the complete  marketing partner for our clients”.

“Accuracy and responsiveness are the keys to any successful database and lead generation project,” said Brian Perks, Vice President of  Sales at SimplyDIRECT. “I am convinced there is no better company to partner with when you need an accurate database or well qualified leads quickly.  2011 will be an exciting year for SimplyDIRECT.”

About SimplyDIRECT Corporation
SimplyDIRECT is the leading marketing services company that identifies, engages and qualifies enterprise sales leads with maximum precision.  The offering includes survey-based lead generation, building targeted account databases, and cleaning and enhancing existing databases.  Many of the Fortune 100 companies are long-time clients of SimplyDIRECT.  Founded in 1996 and based in Maynard, Massachusetts the company is privately held.