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Lead Optimization: Part I - Are you targeting the right prospects?

Lead Optimization: Part I

Are You Targeting the Right
Prospects?

Marketing campaigns should always start with the "who?" who will you
target, who has a need for your product or service? No one can
optimize lead generation without specifically defining the right

audience to approach.

Lisa Cramer

President
LeadLife Solutions, Inc.
lcramer@leadlife.com
770-670-6702

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Lead Optimization: Part I - Are you targeting the right prospects?

Too often you see marketers jumping head-
long into lead generation projects only to
A 4-Part Article Series:
wonder why their efforts fail to deliver
In this 4-part series, we target four major
meaningful results.
lead optimization milestones:
It's sort of like that old science project where
1. Targeting the Right Prospects
your bridge was supposed to support X
2. Measuring Real Marketing ROI
amount of weight. You figured, this is easy,
3. Scoring Leads for Sales Success
just put some popsicles sticks together and
there you go, no problem. Perhaps you got
4. Nurturing Leads for Marketing
lucky, but more likely the science and physics
Success
caught up with you and your bridge collapsed.
In marketing as bridge building, you need a plan. To get results, you need a formula that
helps you construct a project to meet your expectations the target, the dimensions, the
timing so that your campaign project does not crumble along with your reputation,
expected ROI and sales leads.

Define Who You Want to Target?
Marketing, although thankfully not science, still needs that plan to be successful. Marketing
campaigns should always start with the "who?" who will you target, who has a need for your
product or service? No one can optimize lead generation without specifically defining the
right audience to approach. Targeting can encompass many dimensions:
ˇ
The types of business, typically defined by Industry or Standard Industrial Codes
(SICs)
ˇ
The geographical location of the business
ˇ
The size of the business by revenue or number of employees or both
ˇ
The people within the business typically defined by function code or job title
ˇ
Previous interaction with your company
ˇ
Specific events that have happened in the business

How Specific Do You Need to Be?
When we speak to our prospects about email marketing, or lead optimization in general,
much of the discussion focuses on understanding what comprises their very best prospect
profile.
Some end up being so specific that they have a very difficult time trying to figure out how to
get in front of and influence those buyers. Some think only one person will be the one that

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makes the decision to buy their product or service, that no influencers or others are ever
involved.
On the other end of the extreme are companies that are not specific enough. They want to
send the entire world their message and hope their value proposition arouses interest in
someone. Marketers are under very real pressure to produce leads their very sales team can
talk to. Marketers are often under such pressure that they don't want to narrow their
audience or spend the time to accurately define the best prospect profile. They just want
the large number of "leads." This is often a hard cycle to break.

Circumventing the Suspect Cycle
To circumvent this endless cycle of mass suspect blasts, sales and marketing must
collaborate. There must be a definition of the best prospect profile with as much input as
possible from both sides on who has a need or is likely to buy the company's products and
services. This does not mean these are the only people to target campaigns. Sometimes
these definitions are nearly impossible to target from a marketing perspective or an early
outbound first touch.
For instance, a firm selling CRM services would benefit from understanding what stage
companies are with their CRM system maturation? Often you can track who has bought and
who is looking, but what about the stages in between? There are lots of examples of this
type of information where a company has had a CRM system for two years and is struggling
in their adoption. These can be the best suspects for your services.
Yes, you could troll through CRM shows and speak to hundreds in hopes of finding the few.
Yes, you can blog on CRM sites and pick up a few folks here and there. However, in this
paper we are discussing ongoing marketing programs that can bring in more than a few
possible leads and are repeatable over time.
There's a fine line between who you market to and who your sales team ends up selling to.
There is the best prospect profile that sales sell to and there's the most probable prospect
profile that marketing markets to. Maybe you market to the most probable profile and
nurture that lead to see if they become more qualified and then onto the best prospect
profile. Sales will be able to uncover the rest of the equation through further discovery
throughout the sales cycle. It's marketing's job to bring the very best qualified leads to the
door.
So, how do you figure out who to market to? And once you figure out who, then how do
you market to them. Once marketing and sales determines the best prospect profile,
marketing needs to translate that in to the best probable prospect profile. There are many
criteria to use. Let's review just a few.

Industry, Function, Size, Geography
First, look at industries, the types of businesses that would most likely have the need for
your product or service. Industry definition can get as broad as "Manufacturing" or as

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detailed as "Wood Turning." Some types of products and services are very specific to a
certain industry for use in their business processes or workflow. Some products and
services, however, can have application to a broader type of business with similar
processes.
Next, consider who within that company owns or shares the pain you are trying to relieve.
Who owns that pain and who else in that company feels that pain? It's important for
marketing to target multiple points within a company. Unless you are selling low-priced
commodities, rarely do decisions these days get made with only one person being affected.
Should you target high and hope to get the influence going down? Should you target low
and build up the trust of the gate keeper. Should you target both? This is where the Sales
team can really help. They can tell you who makes and who influences buying decisions
during the sales process. Based on that knowledge you can decide who should be targeted
in your marketing campaigns.
That takes us to company size. The "who" can be very different based on the size of the
company you are targeting. For larger companies, you may target the VPs or Directors. For
smaller companies, you may go to directly to the CEO.
What size company by revenue or employee size would be the best fit for your products
and services? Are companies over $1 billion in revenue the ones that your solution fits
have a need for your product or service, the ones that can afford your solution? Or are you
better positioned to target the SMB market? The size of a company makes a huge
difference. For instance, we actually segment the same industry, same target title/job
function differently based solely on the size. The same industry and title within a SMB has a
different pain and therefore in FirstWave's case, we actually have a different solution to sell
them versus the large corporations. That may or may not be right for you. It's more
common to see companies target just one size company within a market.
Finally, you need to consider geography and this if often based on how you sell your
products. Do you sell face-to-face? If you have regional offices you might want to target
market around those offices? Do you have a national presence, city-only presence, etc? Do
you sell over the phone and web? Most companies understand this criterion well.
Of course, depending on what you sell, there are usually several other criteria that factor
into lead generation optimization. This discussion is just the starting point to get you
thinking about your formula.

Next: Measuring Real Marketing ROI
How are you measured? How do you measure marketing campaign success? How do you
measure marketing's success? Do you think about hits, opens and clicks? Or do you look
for conversions, interactions and score? Marketing metrics and ROI are changing to meet
business demand. Find out how these metrics are changing and how you can take
advantage and generate true ROI for your company in our second whitepaper in our series
on Lead Optimization.

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About LeadLife
LeadLife Solutions is a provider of on-demand marketing automation software that generates, scores
and nurtures leads for B2B marketers. LeadLife offers flexible and easy-to-use marketing software
that enables marketers to automatically track, score, prioritize and nurture leads, thereby increasing
the value of lead generation dollars (online and offline). LeadLife enables organizations to work
smarter, not longer, increasing marketing ROI while maximizing sales resources. For more information
on LeadLife Solutions, visit leadlife.com or call 1-800-680-6292.

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