Version Regional. Tips for Success with your BuyerZone Lead Program

Transcription

1 Version Regional Tips for Success with your BuyerZone Lead Program

2 Tips for success With the help and insight of thousands of sellers on our program, plus more than 10 years of experience in the lead generation field ourselves, we ve compiled some of the best tips and techniques to help ensure you maximize your success with the BuyerZone program. How to track your leads... 3 Engaging your sales force... 4 Maximizing your close rate

3 How to track your leads As with any sales and marketing program, tracking your BuyerZone leads is the key to measuring your success. While BuyerZone will provide you an itemized invoice each month with the number of leads you receive and the total cost of the leads, it is up to you to track how well you do overall from the moment you begin the program. Knowing how many sales you make (and how much revenue you bring in as a result), against the total cost of all the leads you receive from BuyerZone makes it easy to calculate your return on investment. There are many ways to determine how the program is working for you. You may already have a system, program or simple tracking method in place, but here are a few methods we recommend: CRM/contact management solution Use your current CRM or contact management solution (or get one up and running) to import each lead you receive so that your sales professionals can input details from their follow-up process and easily report on closes. Salesforce.com integration BuyerZone provides standard integration to Salesforce.com and can accommodate clients requests for customized Salesforce.com integration, if needed. Contact your sales manager to get started! Excel spreadsheet If you don t have a CRM system in place, create a simple Excel spreadsheet that you continually update with the key details of each lead. At a frequency you determine, have your sales team (or whoever is calling the leads) update the spreadsheet with their progress and denote any closes. This may not be the most sophisticated method but it works just as well. Lead management companies There are numerous companies who provide in-depth lead management solutions for sellers in every industry. Leads can be sent directly to the lead management company (via ) and distributed to the appropriate contact/department/dealer of your company helping to ensure proper follow-up and assist with tracking. 3

4 Engaging your sales force Following are suggestions that have been successful for other sellers in our program in educating and engaging their sales, dealer and reseller networks. Send a program kick-off to your sales teams. Include an overview of the BuyerZone program along with supporting information about how to maximize your close rate with Buyer- Zone leads, also covered within this guide. We encourage you to send periodic updates that recognize successes and that include BuyerZone lead best practices from your own sales managers or dealers who have experience following up with the leads. Hold a brief launch meeting with your sales or dealer team, and ask your account manager to deliver a presentation and demonstration of the program, with an overview on how BuyerZone works and tips for success. Put a link to or post information about the BuyerZone program on your sales or dealer intranet. We are happy to provide you with some overview text. This is also a great location to celebrate or recognize progress and BuyerZone lead closes. Make sure each of your sales team members and dealers are subscribed to the quarterly seller newsletter. This newsletter contains helpful tips and news about the BuyerZone program, including product and service updates, buyer feedback, and more. Simply ask your account manager to pass along your sales and/or dealer list to our marketing team. Set expectations properly with your sales teams. Like all leads, BuyerZone leads do not always close immediately or, in some cases, at all. Prospects may take a month or longer to close, depending upon your sales cycle, the size of the purchase, and the buyer s purchasing timeframe. Keep in mind that you are also competing with other sellers for the business, so be cognizant of the volume of follow-up you provide. Incorporate the status of BuyerZone leads in your regular sales reporting, and set a schedule for gathering feedback from your sales/dealer team about how the program is working for them. Evaluate if there are adjustments you can make to your BuyerZone lead follow-up process to make the program even more successful. In seeking feedback from your sales force, you may want to consider using online survey tools such as SurveyMonkey.com or Zoomerang.com, both of which are affordable and make conducting and analyzing effective surveys easy. These tools are especially helpful when you re dealing with remote sales people or dealers across the country. Ask your account manager about various lead delivery formats (CSV, FTP, XML, Salesforce.com integration) that we can provide to you to streamline the importing of BuyerZone leads into your CRM or contact management solution. 4

5 Maximizing your close rate Here is a list of best practices we have compiled from successful BuyerZone sellers and satisfied buyers: Follow up on BuyerZone leads immediately Each BuyerZone lead is matched to multiple sellers, so your timely response will help to ensure your competitive edge. We consistently hear from our buyers that one of the main reasons they return to our service again and again is because they know their request will be responded to quickly. Ideally, contact buyers within minutes or hours after receiving a lead use , telephone, or both when appropriate but be respectful of the buyer s time since other sellers will be following up as well. I was so impressed that within the first hour of my request, I had heard from several sellers I d been matched to I appreciated the direct response, and receiving the exact information I needed. Consider using a smartphone to keep on top of while on the road. Customize your response BuyerZone leads contain detailed purchasing criteria submitted by our buyers. Buyers regularly express to us how much they appreciate when potential sellers respond to their specific requests. My note in the original request was read and understood when the seller contacted me. This contributed to my decision to go with that particular provider. Provide a customized response to your prospect based on the details in the BuyerZone lead. The more focused and on-target your response, the more likely you are to close the deal. Consider offering an initial base-price quote in your first contact with the buyer. Also emphasize your desire to speak more about their long term needs in order to ensure they are purchasing the right product or service. 5

6 Maximizing your close rate (con t) Mention that you re a BuyerZone seller upon initial contact In your initial contact with the buyer, reference that you are a seller following up on the buyer s request. Also mention the type of product or service you offer during the initial communication and how your company can help the buyer with their needs for that product/ service. Some buyers request quotes for multiple products or services at the same time, so be specific to help avoid confusion. It s so much easier to come to one place and give my criteria once, rather than looking up sellers individually and contacting them myself and then find they don t have what I need! Continue to pursue leads until they close Sometimes the information is needed now for future purchases, as we build our planning and budgets. In this case, we plan to make the purchase 6 months down the road, but need the research and costs now. Check the expected buying timeframe with every lead. If the buyer did not initially state their buying timeframe, obtain it during initial conversations. Purchase decisions sometimes exceed expected timeframes. Follow up a few weeks after the expected purchase date to inquire whether a selling opportunity still exists. If the purchase does not occur within the immediate sales cycle, add the prospect to your database for future marketing and sales efforts. If the buyer chooses a different seller, follow up with them at a later date to gauge whether they are still satisfied with their selection. 6