Secrets of Writing. HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business. Chapter 11

Transcription

1 Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business Copy Chapter 11

2 Copyright 2009 by American Writers & Artists Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by: American Writers & Artists Inc. 245 NE 4th Avenue, Suite 102 Delray Beach, FL Phone: Fax: Website:

3 Chapter 11 Building Your Lead- Generation IQ In this chapter, you ll see: 4 Why you must understand what lead generation is, how it works, and why. 4 How companies generate leads, and the role B2B copywriters play in that process. 4 An overview of the top lead-gen offers used in B2B marketing. 4 A valuable bonus article. 4 An important skills-building exercise. Audio Script Welcome to Chapter 11 of Secrets to Writing High-Performance B2B Copy brought to you by American Writers & Artists Inc. (AWAI). I m Steve Slaunwhite. There is a marketing technique used extensively among business-to-business companies that you need to be familiar with as a B2B copywriter. In fact, you can expect the majority of the projects you handle to involve this marketing technique, at least to some extent. So it s important that you understand it thoroughly. The technique I m referring to, of course, is lead generation. In my estimation, 90% of B2B companies engage in lead-generation marketing activities of some kind. They send out s, make phone calls, roll out direct-mail campaigns, run Google ads, and harness social media sites such as Twitter, all in an effort to identify potential clients and customers for their products and services. When a company runs a lead-generation campaign, they re basically saying to a group of prospects, Hey, who s interested in learning more about our products and Chapter

4 services? Those prospects who raise their hands are leads. What do companies do with those leads? Ideally, they follow-up on them diligently until fingers crossed a percentage of those leads are eventually converted into sales. Some companies drop the ball when it comes to lead follow-up, which is surprising. Study after study reveals that about 25% of leads become a new client or customer for somebody. Unfortunately, if a company doesn t followup on a lead, that somebody could be the competition! As a B2B copywriter, you may be asked to write for projects that are used for lead follow-up, such as s, e-newsletters, letters and phone scripts. Lead generation is sometimes referred to as two-step marketing. And, in fact, that s a good way to think of it. n Step one - the company generates a lead. n Step two - the company follows-up on that lead in an attempt to convert it into a sale. Why the two steps? Let me put it this way. Imagine an office manager visiting a website, becoming enamoured with all the features and benefits of a new line of telephones, and then clicking the BUY NOW button to place a $32,000 order to replace all the phones in the company! If she did that, she might have some explaining to do! (The CFO wouldn t be too happy.) A more likely scenario would be for that office manager to first download some information perhaps a white paper on how that particular type of telephone increases office productivity. When she does that, she becomes a lead for that company. She has, essentially, raised her hand saying, I m interested in learning more. Because most B2B products and services require a considered buying decision, most B2B sales start with a lead. There are exceptions, of course. Notably, products that are relatively inexpensive like Because most B2B products and services require a considered buying decision, most B2B sales start with a lead. 184 Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY

5 office supplies. And products that have been purchased before and simply need to be re-ordered such as a replacement gizmo for an assembly line. Small business owners, too, can make major purchases quickly or on impulse. (Like I did recently when I purchased a new Mac computer while shopping in the mall for a sweater!) But, more often than not, there are two steps in the B2B buying process: first the lead, then the sale. That s why you need to understand what lead generation is all about. There is no doubt, as a B2B copywriter, that you ll be writing a wide range of marketing pieces s, letters, ads, web pages that are created to generate leads for your client or company. So in this chapter I ll be giving you all the basics, so you can speak to clients or your employer intelligently about lead generation, and write lead-generation materials effectively. Let s get started What is a lead? Let s say you arrive home from school or work and check the mail. Among the bills and other letters is a flyer for a fun-filled vacation to London, England. This sounds interesting, you think. So you scan the piece to discover that a free brochure and special pricing is available on the Web. All you have to do is fill out an on-screen form and download the information. So you do. What s happening behind the scenes? At the travel company, someone in sales receives your information and adds you to a list for a follow-up phone call. Like it or not, you ve just become a lead a prospect who has expressed an interest in the vacation package. This doesn t mean you ll buy, but it does mean you might buy. (At least, the travel company hopes you do!) Lead generation is used sometimes on the consumer side of marketing for travel, homes, insurance and other expensive products and services. But it s much more prevalent in business-to-business marketing. Remember Ann Douglas from our Day in the Life story in Chapter 2? She received an from a software company that persuaded her to visit a website, fill out a form, and download a white paper and case study. When she did that, she Chapter

6 A lead is someone who has expressed an interest in learning more about a product or service. became a lead. You can bet that a sales rep at that software company will be following-up with a call or very soon. So here s my definition of a lead: A lead is someone who has expressed an interest in learning more about a product or service. Consider the following example of a lead-generating print ad promoting an industrial adhesive: Double Your Up-Time With Velocity [Visual: Before and after pictures] The pressure is on to ramp up production speeds while maintaining performance. This means turning downtime into uptime and making certain all process components are operating efficiently especially the adhesive you use. So don t get unglued with adhesives that cause rejects, gun misfires, tip buildup, throwing and other performance-related problems. Velocity is specially designed for fast machining at line speeds up to 1,650 ft/min. with clean cut off; developing a precise bead line with aggressive tack. It maintains consistent viscosity and clean machining so folding carton equipment can be run longer between clean-ups. When it s time to open the throttle on your production line, Velocity will deliver the goods. [Reply form] FREE Digital Demonstration YES. Please send me a FREE high speed digital camera demonstration. Please send a Product Data Sheet. We have questions. Please call us at. Fill out this form and FAX BACK to (905) Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY

7 Notice that the ad copy doesn t ask the reader to pick up the phone and order a skid of the adhesive. Instead, it simply asks if the reader is interested in learning more about the product. And how does the ad ask that? It asks by making an offer. Three offers actually. The reader can: 4 Request a DVD of a demonstration. 4 Request a product data sheet. (This is in a category of B2B marketing materials called sell sheets.) 4 Submit a question. If the reader does any of those, he has indicated an interest in learning more about the product. He has become a lead. That s how leads are generated. Like bait on a fishing hook, a company makes a compelling offer of some kind. Those prospects who bite becomes leads. (The next step is, of course, reeling in those leads with effective follow-up.) So when you re writing a marketing piece to generate leads, the main focus of the promotion is the offer. In fact, you may be focusing more on promoting the offer than the product, which is an effective technique when writing lead-gen materials, as you ll discover in the next chapter. Let s take a look at lead-generation offers in more detail The Lead-Generation Offer Any offer used in marketing is essentially an I give you this, you give me that proposition. I give you: a special price on a new photocopier machine provided you buy before the sale is over. You give me: money. (You buy the product.) Pretty simple, isn t it? But things get a little more complicated in lead generation. After all, nothing is sold yet. Where s the exchange in value? You give me: an expression of your interest in my B2B product (a lead) so that, later on, I can follow-up with you and try to sell you. I give you: what? Chapter

8 What do companies offer in exchange for prospects raising their hands and saying, Yes, I m interested? To answer that question, let s go back to our definition of a lead. Remember? A lead is someone who has expressed an interest in learning more about a product or service. Think about how YOU express interest in a product or service, like a car, a new home, or a family vacation. If you re shopping for a new boat, for example, you might: n Request a catalog. n Sign up for a free newsletter on a boat dealer s website. n Enter a contest. (Maybe you win a new boat!) n Phone boat dealers and ask questions. n Download a free report from the boat dealer s website: Seven Things You Need to Know Before You Buy a Boat and Seven Good Answers for Each. n Arrange to take a test drive. n Visit a boating show. Now let s say I am a boat dealer. What could I possibly offer you to identify yourself as a potential customer a lead? Well, I could: 4 Mail you a letter offering you a free catalog. 4 you a complimentary pass to the boat show, on the condition that you visit my exhibit and say hello. 4 Run a contest for a chance to win a free boat. 4 Phone you to offer a free test drive of the boat model of your choice along with a free bottle of champagne just for accepting. 4 Offer a free report Seven Things You Need to Know Before You Buy a Boat and Seven Good Answers for Each on my website for you to download. Those would all be good offers; what marketers refer to as lead-gen offers. They 188 Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY

9 are specifically designed to get prospects to identify their interest in a product or service. Business -to-business marketers use a wide range of lead-gen offers in their quest to find raised hands among their target markets. Here is a list of the most popular: l Case studies l White papers l Special reports l How-to guides l Webinars l E-newsletters l Product demonstrations l Free trials l Brochures l Free consultations l Information kits l Checklists When I started in B2B copywriting about a gazillion years ago, free information kits and brochures were the most popular lead-gen offers. These days, white papers and webinars are all the rage. Looking around the corner, I see online videos, virtual product demonstrations, and CDs becoming more popular. The formats may change, but the technique remains the same. The best B2B lead-gen offers anticipate the specific information that a prospect wants to have, then provides that information in a compelling way whether it s in the form of a demo, video, report or presentation. Want to double your project income? Write the offer in addition to the promotion! Here s how it works. Say your client wants to generate leads with a new white paper. He wants an and banner ad created. If the white paper hasn t been written yet, ask if you can write that piece as well. If your client says yes, you ve just doubled the size of the project and your earnings! Chapter

10 You now have a good understanding of B2B lead generation. Now, how do you actually craft the marketing pieces the ads, s, web pages, letters, phone scripts used by companies in their lead-generation campaigns? We ll be covering that in detail in the next chapter. But before you move on, be sure to test your lead-generation IQ with the exercise below. If you struggle with the exercise, review this chapter again. As I said earlier, it s critical that you have a good understanding of lead generation. You really can t become a successful B2B copywriter without that knowledge. When you re ready, I ll meet you at Chapter Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY

11 CHAPTER 11, EXERCISE 1: Test your lead-generation I.Q. Answers are provided at the bottom of the page, but don t cheat! 1. Fill in the blanks: A lead is someone who has an in a product or service and a willingness to. 2. As a technique, lead generation is used: A) Exclusively in business-to-business marketing B) Extensively in business-to-business marketing C) Rarely in business-to-business marketing 3. A free white paper is an example of: A) A lead-gen offer. B) An effective way to generate leads. C) A type of marketing piece that you may be asked to write as a B2B copywriter. D) All of the above. 4. Fill in the blanks: A company will on leads in an Chapter

12 attempt to convert them into sales. 5. Which marketing piece is NOT an example of a lead-gen offer? A) A certificate for a on-site product demonstration. B) A case study C) A sales letter D) A free subscription to an e-newsletter E) A webinar (Answers: 1. expressed an interest learn more, 2. B, 3. D, 4. follow up 5. C) 192 Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY

13 BONUS ARTICLE Why do businesses need leads? Let s say there are 2,500 marketing managers who you think might be interested in your copywriting services. You could try to get in contact with each one by one but that would take forever. Even if you worked hard, and reached 50 per week, it would be a year before you spoke to them all. And what if, by some coincidence, it was only the last ten that were interested in hiring you? Could you last twelve months with no work? Probably not. But what if, instead of cold calling, you mailed all 2,500 a letter? This could be done in less than a week. Even if you got just a 0.25% response (one quarter of 1%) you would get over sixty replies people who have expressed at least some interest in what you do. Spending your time following-up on these folks will certainly yield a new client, or two or three. And you could probably follow up on these in less than a month. Which option do you think would be the best use of your time, money and resources? Plan B, of course. And that s exactly the way many B2B companies think, too. Businesses need leads for a variety of reasons: 4 1. To keep the sales force efficient Most companies selling business products and services have sales people in the field. And these folks don t come cheap. Even if they re paid straight commission (no salary, just a cut of the sales) the company still has to cover expenses, employee benefits, travel, car lease, and other costs. That s why companies don t want their salespeople to waste time cold calling prospects that have little chance of becoming customers. They prefer this scenario: a salesperson is given a handful of hot leads, reaches more prospects faster, and closes more sales sooner. It s proven that following-up on good quality leads will result in more face-to-face sales appointments than simply Chapter

14 phoning a list of names compiled from a directory. And, in the mathematics of selling, more appointments mean more sales To motivate resellers. Not all companies sell through a sales force. Many, in fact, sell through distributors, dealers, agents and other resellers. There are even retail centers that cater to the business market (a plumbing supply store frequented by professional contractors, for example.) To [leads enable] dealers, distributors and others who sell your products and services to generate sales they might not otherwise have gotten on their own. keep these folks happy and selling a company may run lead generation programs and pass these opportunities to their resellers. This is more than just friendly distributor relations. As Bob Bly puts it in The Lead Generation Handbook, [leads enable] dealers, distributors and others who sell your products and services to generate sales they might not otherwise have gotten on their own To get more sales, faster. Lead generation is often a much faster way to acquire new customers than knocking on doors or cold calling. That s because, by definition, leads are people who have already expressed an interest in your product or service, and a willingness to learn more. Sure, a few tirekickers or brochure collectors who are not serious prospects may creep in. But, for the most part, working the leads will get more sales, sooner To beat the competition. There have been several studies that indicate that approximately 25% of leads will eventually be converted into a sale for someone. That could be you. That could be your competition. According to sales lead expert Mac MacIntosh, I ve had the opportunity to personally review dozens of research studies about inquiries or sales leads. All the research points to the same conclusions: Nearly one-in-four inquiries results in a sale within six months. No wonder businesses work so hard to generate leads. They don t want to miss out on potential sales. 194 Secrets of Writing HIGH-PERFORMANCE Business-to-Business COPY