PRECISION Marketing from APOLLO

Provide Proof Points! If you have followed the previous 4 secrets to Auto-Pilot Marketing you will be getting the attention of your prospect. Now, this is very important to understand...they will have a tendency to NOT believe you. That's right, we have all been a bit desensitized by all of the marketing noise out there, not only in our business lives, but in our private lives. We simply do not believe everything we see, hear or read. Therefore, you must provide proof points for your claims. If you are going to tell someone that your solution will save them 20-30% or more from what they are currently spending, don't tell them yourself, let your customers tell them! The best spokespeople you could ever have for your solution are the ones that would swear by it and want to tell everyone else about it. Why do your think that all of the big retailers have implemented Facebook pages and community sections on their websites? They want their fans to have a place to come and brag to everyone else. Develop as many quotes, case studies and customer endorsement letters as you can. Match the small company testimonials with the small company lead generation and nurturing campaigns and the large ones with the large ones. Match industries, match geographies, match the roles of each customer and prospect - as best as you can. This rule of sales NEVER CHANGES - PEOPLE BUY PROVEN SOLUTIONS (when their peers have already tested the waters and proven the case). They'll even pay more! They'll even pay more and pass up on a competitor's guarantee to select the "proven solution". So, Prove It!

The Most Interesting Stat in B2B Lead Management What is one of the most interesting stats in B2B lead generation? Of the prospects you connect with (conversation, in-bound lead, meeting, event, other direct response)… …15% are ready to engage with you regarding your solution to their need …70% are a confirmed fit for your solution, but not yet ready to engage with you …15% are not a good fit and are disqualified. We use these percentages which are an average from research from Miller Heiman, Sirius Decisions and our own findings at Apollo. Given that, on average, 70% of the prospects you spend soooooooo much time and money for the 1st contact are not yet ready to engage with you, it begs the question, "What is your lead nurturing or lead management strategy?". Are you using an e-marketing solution or an automated marketing solution? If your firm does not have the resources or expertise to execute an effective lead management strategy, do you know of a good partner that can help you with lead management/nurturing services? An outsourced marketing partner? The good news is that there are plenty of options and some very affordable and effective game plans that you can execute to nurture these leads over time to convert them into your pipeline. Some of our client campaigns find that after 4-6 months, as much as 50% of their pipeline is being produced by their B2B lead management strategy. Beats finding out they are engaged with a competitor after 6 months because you gave up on them. That's a sinking feeling. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Well, to some it is an appointment with anyone on a target list. To others, it is an appointment with a target contact in a target company that meets pre-defined criteria in a standard scoring model like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing). Some would say any inbound lead works. Another must have a qualifying conversation before considering something a "lead". The important thing is to not worry about what someone else calls a lead, define it for your organization. What is a qualified prospect? What are the demographic criteria? What are the key roles and responsibilities in a company that make a decision for your B2B solution? Does budget have to be allocated before you should engage? It's hard to sell something that is "nice to have" so what level of pain must be uncovered or quantified to call something a lead? It is critical to define these not only for your own organization, but also for any partner companies that are performing any marketing services, especially telemarketing services for you. If you can answer these questions for your company, you can define what you should work on in sales and what should be included in a lead nurturing campaign or discarded as not a fit. Apollo {Houston, TX - B2B Sales Leads, Marketing Campaign Development, e-marketing/eMarketing and Lead Generation Services} Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

The Trusted Advisor * Is able to effortlessly understand clients…their needs and requirements. * Always help clients see things from new perspectives. * Never forces the issue. * Doesn't panic or get over emotional. * Criticizes and corrects gently and almost lovingly. * Values relationships more than current issues. * Challenges client assumptions. * Acts like real people. * Are always honorable. * Remembers everything clients say even without notes. Derived from The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford; Free Press; 2001 Apollo specialized in working with professional services clients that thrive on their reputations as trusted advisors. Many of our clients utilize our Lead Generation for the Trusted Advisor campaigns to secure more of the right business from the right clients. Marketing yourself as a trusted advisor is different than what most people would consider traditional marketing or lead generation. It relies on educational themes and the willingness to trickle out some free consulting to demonstrate your value. Often this is not accomplished in the initial conversations with prospects but rather over time in an effective lead nurturing campaign that continuously drips on prospective clients the knowledge and value that you would bring to them if you were their trusted advisor. Apollo {Houston, TX - B2B Sales Leads, Marketing Campaign Development, e-marketing/eMarketing and Lead Generation Services} Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

It is no mystery that we are subjected to a barrage - or more accurately, an assault - from various media all day, every day. If we don't watch TV, we have alerts flowing in from online news sources. We have radios in the shower and newspapers with breakfast. Try this to de-stress: Turn it ALL off for one day. Or half a day. News can become an addiction. Really. When Websense of San Diego conducted a survey of surfing habits in the workplace, a large majority of employees admitted they surfed for personal reasons. And fully one quarter admitted to having an obsession with the Internet. And guess what? News beats out porn. So even if your company is blocking porn, which it should, it's likely that one-fourth of the staff wastes time (and possibly emotional reserves) as they cruise for news. It can get worse when There is breaking news or a disaster, and the same news and images are looped over and over. Surfing can take an extra emotional toll. So turn the thing off for a while. Unless you're in a position to affect the news and therefore need to be totally informed at every moment, the world can live without your eyeballs for a few hours at least. Take a full-day sabbatical once in a while. Weekly if you dare. At least tune out for a few precious hours a day and focus on life as you know it in the world you can touch and feel. Honestly, it seems odd to not be 100% in touch. But it's also a relief. You can't do much about most events in the news. And relentlessly bad news can make you more stressful. Unplug however and whenever you can. Consider it a gift to yourself to let the world slide by. If the end of the world comes, someone will text message you, I promise.

How's your stress level today? Want to drop it quickly? Here's a "Saving Grace" you can activate right now to buy a little peace and quiet. Give it a try. Almost every email system has some sort of auto responder feature that most people use when they'll be gone on vacation. Why not use it to stop incoming rounds for half a day? Usually these are "out of the office" messages, but simply being "unavailable" is also useful when email could be a distraction. Close the program or turn off the sound for incoming messages. Do the same thing for instant messaging. It is smart to tell your immediate group what you're doing and why ("Report due at 1:00"), or else you may have a parade coming to your office door - which pretty well defeats the purpose. Here's the saving grace: If people know you'll be available again, they won't keep sending you emails or instant messages hoping to get a reply. And your attention won't be diverted by email dropping into your In Box.

Be Consistent! Get started and don't stop. Let's assume for a minute that you have only been half as successful as you might have been working on your Secrets to Auto-Pilot Marketing. This still puts you miles down the road ahead of your competition. They, most probably, haven't even left the station, yet. (That's Secretariat winning the Belmont by 31 lengths in 2:24 in 1973) (His record still stands today) Keep pumping. Zig Ziglar gives the analogy of a water pump for a well when he talks about business development. He relates how all the hard work is done pumping the handle to get the water flow started. Once the water is flowing, all you have to do is maintain an even pace of pumping and you get all the water you want. But, as soon as you let up, the water stops flowing and you have to go back to pumping much harder to restore the water flow. This analogy will hold true for your B2B lead generation and lead nurturing too. In getting B2B sales leads, timing is everything. Be there with the right solution at the right time and you have a new customer. The buying cycles of your prospects cannot always be predicted or manufactured by visionary, consultative selling. How do you ensure that your message is in the right place at the right time? Be in a lot of places a lot of the time. If you let up and lose your consistency, your message will fall cold and your audience will cease to remember your company and your solution when their buying cycle starts. So, plan out a marketing calendar. Assign resources (internal, external - outsourced marketing, marketing consulting, marketing services) to accomplish each of the tasks involved. Find the right technology (CRM, SEO/SEM, marketing automation, email marketing, reporting, analytics, blogs, website) to execute and measure you success. That's it - 8 Secrets to Auto-Pilot Marketing. Best of Success!!!

Multi-channel Marketing! Simple put, communicate with your prospect in multiple ways - direct (phone, email, direct mail, events, networking); indirect (website, blog, PR, SEO/SEM) and partners (resellers, referrals, endorsers). There are two levels of multi-channel marketing in B2B lead generation, one is across the main major channels, direct, indirect and partner and the other is within each channel with utilizing multiple communication methods and, in the case of partners, lead sources. As an example, let's take the direct channel. If your lead generation program is only teleprospecting/telemarketing and the networking you do, you are failing to reach a large percentage of your audience. Studies continually show that people respond to B2B marketing differently. Some answer their phone regularly, but will never respond to emails. Others never pick up the phone, have effective screeners, but will read and respond to much of their email. This higher up in an organization you go, you'll find that executives like to network with their peers at events. Therefore, when you are working hard to deliver your finely tuned, very specific marketing message to the right target at the right time with a great unique value proposition and a fantastic call to action, all communicated in a relative manner to their industry and their role within the company - - DON'T WASTE IT BY NOT COMMUNICATING THROUGH MULTIPLE CHANNELS AND COMMUNICATION METHODS. As for indirect and partner channels, ensure that your message flows consistently throughout and is clear for all audiences. If this task seems just a bit too much to handle or manage with your current resources, there are many fine business marketing services and marketing consulting firms out there to help you along.