Magnus Marketing Blog

Another inane post was put up on the AMA boards.

How do you gather information from prospects before the sales team makes its first contact? What can reps do with that data to more accurately target accounts, speak intelligently about the prospect’s needs and, in turn, close more deals?

ONLINE SURVEYS

Online surveys can be used to poll prospects on specific business challenges and industry trends to uncover key issues they deal with on a daily basis. Consider the online survey to be your first sales call. The survey allows your marketing team to gather information that the sales team can use to have intelligent, relevant conversations with prospects.

Segment prospects using customer profiles

Consider who your prospect market most closely resembles in your existing customer base with regards to location, industry, company size, etc. Understand who you are selling to and what their hot-button issues are.

Develop survey questions

Encourage participation in the surveys by crafting questions that aren’t overtly sales-oriented or directly related to your company. Instead, try a market-research approach that asks questions about industry trends, current situations, levels of satisfaction with existing products, etc.

Consider offering a free gift in exchange for participation

It’s a toss up – I’ve participated in survey’s only to be told at the end ‘sorry, we are out of the free gift’… and I’ve rejected surveys because they are offering a gift. Online audiences are only going to respond if they are inclined at that particular moment and have time to participate.

Send email invitations for survey

Having an email invitation come from a third-party research organization may make prospects less apprehensive about taking the survey. Having their contact information pre-populated into form fields makes it easier for the participant, but it also may make them wonder where their information is originating. Keep the survey short and let participants know exactly how many minutes the survey will take. Monitor the 'drop-off points' to make adjustments as you roll-out your survey by region.

Thank participants and follow up

We can’t thank people enough for their insights on the market and target audience. Not only do they appreciate the thanks and the free gift, they might be interested to learn what others have said and where their answer fell in comparison.

Online surveys can help fill the sales pipeline and allow your company to be a knowledge center in your industry (and the industries of your target customers). Aggregate survey response data can be leveraged to publish reports on industry trends... getting much coveted media placement in trade publications and beyond

Yes, lets survey. Surveys are super mass marketing vehicles for trends and higher level analysis - no argument there. That is definitely a part of creating a well targeted campaign. This again demonstrates the "mass" view marketers take when it comes to account development. I think that is another disconnect - sales understands the uniqueness of people and accounts, marketing views "segments" - it is this mentality in B-to-B that has to change.

Surveying is NOT the way to target prospects, especially on a one-to-one basis. Why the hell would I waste time "surveying" people at a target organization. If I am so lucky to get a decision-maker on the phone, I am not going to "survey" - I am going to get me a meeting and pitch for a sale. Because...the chances of my rep getting a call into that person again are in the 1% range unless I have something of interest to that person.

Surveying is information gathering with the goal of information gathering, prospecting is information gathering with the goal of solution mapping and an actionable point - a meeting or a sale. It is like reading a book. You can read words and understand the meaning of the words or you can comprehend what the entire word cluster means.

Surveying is a marketing function also, a non-functional, low aggression, not serious selling effort. It can show a prospect you are serious about the product development or service launch, but it does not demonstrate your desire to do business with that person/company. Major difference.

The competition also touts primary research which is similiar to this. One company talks about piecing together information, knocking secondary info as "publicly available", and relying on primary interviews. One competitior touts the thousands of influencers they speak to.

Hey man, I can research a company for less than an hour, call a VP, and get a meeting. Don't get me wrong sales intelligence helps a lot and can provide insight and opportunity beyond the obvious, it is a great tool. I can do an hour of research, I can do 40 hours of research on an account, I don't waste my time talking to "thousands of influencers" unless they can give me info to get a sale.
My methodology is to "follow the trail" of secondary information, yes publicly available, some not so publicly available, and then prospect and build a case or multiple cases for a decision-maker to buy my service or product. My goal and target is within 3 phone calls I get to the right person, pitch, and get a yes or no. Like I said, in technology - you need to understand business, technology, sales, marketing, and business development to really produce sales strategies that have any meaningful result.

Micro-business intelligence, intelligent prospecting, surveying, call it what you will...brand reports with fancy names and lots of other bullcrap. If it doesn't get business and lead to results, it doesn't matter what information is culled, from where, and from whom.