Unlocking Sales Among Untapped Prospects

8/14/2019 Unlocking Sales Among Untapped Prospects

1/7

TEL 503 640-980 0 FAX 503 640-98 88 132 3 NE Orenco Station Parkway Suite 300 , Hillsboro, Oregon 971 24 www.massini-group.com

unlocking sales among

untapped prospects

Engineering Marketing and SalesProcesses for Maximum Results


2/7

Most companies, including those with sterling marketing

reputations, operate without a comprehensive view of

their market. These companies often market and sell to

approximately one third of their available potential . If

you are in this situation, and it is likely you are, this limited

view results in a number of undesirable consequences. First,

you are over-communicating to the third of the market that you

are seeing, wasting marketing effort and funds. Second, you are

effectively giving up two thirds of your opportunity, and a

major chunk of revenue, to the competition without a ght.

Winning marketing and sales operations can overcome these

issues by engineering their processes to ensure better

market visibility . Then, they make this improved visibility

pay off by aggressively targeting viable new prospects,

instead of overworking tired, old ones.

What Are Untapped Prospects?Untapped prospects are a) accounts and sites with the same

characteristics as your best customers, but are not in your

marketing database, and are therefore invisible to you, and

b) unidentied key player contacts within accounts and sites

you are already targeting who are in the decision-making group

for your product or service. These contacts are especially

signicant because they represent a segment of your market

you may now believe is visible to you but, in fact, is not.

How The Status Quo Creates Blind SpotsMany marketing and sales techniques in use today practically

assure that your company is overlooking major parts of

your available market, missing viable prospects in the part of

the market you are actively targeting.

Database Building by Drive-By Salespeople, including those that work for channel companies,

generally build market knowledge through referrals and

drive-bys . A drive-by is a situation in which a salesperson

is on their way to an appointment and notices a large building

with an impressive logo and thinks, They must buy what I

sell somewhere in there. The salesperson adds the company

name to a list of cold-call accounts. When business is slow, they

might pull out that list of cold call accounts. Sales management

works diligently to keep sales people from spending any time on

untested accounts, and that is an absolutely correct posture for

them to assume. Ideally, it is a salespersons job to close deals ,

not nd and cultivate new opportunities.

u n l o c k i n g s a l e s a mo n g un ta ppe d pr o s pe c ts page o n e

Engineering Marketing and Sales Processes for Maximum Results

Massini Group has measured the resultsof Engineered Processes among our clients. Quantitative outcomes include: 40% or more increase in quarter-over-

quarter sales in a down market. 36-fold increase in net new

opportunities produced. 600% improvements in ROI by tapping

into unrealized market opportunities.


3/7

Relying on ListsRented lists are one of the most common ways that marketing

departments try to build market knowledge and generate leads

on behalf of sales. Have you ever taken the time to look at thoselists? Massini Group has, and what we see is not encouraging.

Weve found that even list sources with relatively strict selection

criteria can be 50% or more off target from how they were

described . If you doubt this, look at the list of respondents

to your latest email or direct mail campaign using rented lists.

In one particular case, an enterprise software company found

53% to 76% of its respondents were off target . In another, a

storage system company found that eight in nine of the respon-

dents were off target even though selection criteria were very

strict and the source deemed credible. Worse yet, marketers

have absolutely no leverage to push list owners to developcontacts at accounts that are not presently in their list.

Another appealing source of information to tackle the

problem of gaps in market visibility is a commercially compiled

list or database. However, like rented data, they are not

comprehensive.

A computer hardware company that uses a major provider of

IT-installed base data recently estimated that the source had

detailed information for just one third of its market .

Commercial Data Sources AreAvailable to Your Competition, TooAlso remember that your competition has access to the same

commercially available sources. And so does every other company

that is marketing and selling any product even remotely similar

to yours. This translates to a massive amount of competition for

mindshare among the unfortunate individuals whose names

appear in those databases .

Automating the Problem with CRM and SFAA growing number of companies are investing in Customer

Relationship Management (CRM) or Sales Force Automation

(SFA) solutions with the expectation that they will improve

marketing and sales operations. Unfortunately, these tools

generally only increase the velocity of the status quo . If no

specic effort is made to change the culture, improve the meth-

odology or advance the science of market penetration, then a

system to automate the processes will not help. It will only

automate and accelerate a awed and ineffective process .

In our experience, these tools take signicant time to implement

and are initially focused on late-stage pipeline accounts and

customers, thereby providing no assistance at all to individuals

trying to grow their business , generate leads, or meet

aggressive sales targets beyond the installed base.

Sheer Numbers Are Not EnoughNo single source of market information can assure you

comprehensive market visibility, coverage and penetration.But even a variety of sources of accounts, proles, attributes

and contacts do not necessarily solve the problem. If all of

the sources that you acquire offer overlapping

views of the market, then you have not gained a thing , except

maybe a false sense of security . For instance, having 100

contacts at one account and none at 99 other accounts is not

helpful. In another scenario, having detailed knowledge of 10%

of the installed base of a complementary product is necessary,

but not sufcient.

The key is to develop a single data set built from multiple

sources , and then develop metrics that illuminate the gaps ,both in terms of overall scope and of depth of knowledge. This

is an ongoing process, and additional sources should be

reviewed and added as they become available. The biggest

returns are realized as gaps are lled and marketing and sales

efforts are directed at the newly discovered accounts and

untapped prospects .

Finding Better Points of Entry Tired of ghting to get past gatekeepers? Wouldnt it be better

for you to locate a different individual within the same target

company that is not constantly subjected to such a barrage? Theresponse rates that most email, direct mail and telemarketing

campaigns generate might suggest so. Massini Group denitely

believes so. This is not to say such sources of information are

not useful. Use them to clarify your vision of the available

market, but seek a more fruitful path of entry into the

target company .

u n l o c k i n g s a l e s a mo n g un ta ppe d pr o s pe c ts page t wo

Any source is limited by thenature of the processes used to collect, compile and conrm

the data it contains.


4/7

Most sales process training available today differentiates

between the individual within your target company that makes

the decision and those that prepare the decision maker to make

the decision. Called the point of entry, or point of receptivity,this individual lives every day with the pain that you seek to

remedy .

Depending on the industry, this individual is probably not

someone whose name appears in Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC) lings. But he or she is the key to your ability

to get your foot in the door. The point of entry can identify

all of the players in the process and provide your salespeople

with the internal intelligence needed to advance the process.

Your challenge is to nd these people. This is where alternative

sources and data gathering techniques should be used to ll

in the gaps left by commercially available sources of information.For example, by rst seeking the individual with operational

responsibility for the solution the company was offering, a data

warehousing company increased its appointment-setting

rate ve times over , making it possible to utilize a face-to-face,

scheduled meeting to get past the Chief Information Ofcers

phalanx of gatekeepers.

Increasing Market Visibility:the Master Target Site ListThe key to successful market penetration lies in exposing

untapped prospects by improving the quality of the dataupon which you base your programs. This is not accomplished

simply by buying a better list. It is done by qualifying existing

data, verifying it, identifying and lling in the gaps, and engi-

neering an improved system that allows you to continually

improve and augment the data throughout the sales cycle

all while furnishing your sales force with higher-quality, on

target leads . The result is greater market visibility in the form

of a Master Target Site List that accurately represents your

full potential market.

Creating a Master Target Site List is a process, not anevent. If your current marketing practices are based on sales-force or third-party data sources, the steps are straightforward:

Build a comprehensive list of members (sites) ineach market segment.

Assign a value to each member that is shared bysales and marketing.

Identify and quantify additional information gaps(e.g., incomplete data in title eld).

Methodically gather data to ll the gaps.

Maximize the value of new visibility to untappedprospects by aggressively communicating to thosecompanies and individuals.

Once developed, the Master Target Site List provides the following critical benets:

Guarantees the list contains only those companies yoursales force agrees are valuable. Therefore, any time ormoney spent to develop a lead or sale will be on target interms of company/site.

Guarantees you are seeing the entire list of companies orsites within a given geography that correspond to your targetmarket criteria. Thus your untapped prospects are minimized,and you are calling on a much greater percentage of the overallmarket. Each lead will be truly incremental to the current salesforce funnel.

By knowing your entire universe through your Master TargetSite List, you are taking a critical step toward marketingefciently and effectively, and you are in alignment withthe needs and expectations of your sales force.

Sales force resources are not wasted qualifying leads;the sales force can concentrate on converting quality leadsinto sales.

Creating a Master Target Site List (MTSL) helps you align your view

of your market with the actual market potential.

The payoff potential is enormous in terms of the efciency and

effectiveness of marketing operations, alignment between

marketing and sales, and the ability to rapidly sequence actions

based on an objective understanding of the gaps in your

knowledge base.

u n l o c k i n g s a l e s a mo n g un ta ppe d pr o s pe c ts page th r e e

market

MTSL

market

on target leads

off target leads

currenttarget

list

market

MTSL

market

on target leads

off target leads

currenttarget

list


5/7

Proof: Master Target Site List = Better ResultsExample #1: Fortune 1000 Storage Company

ASSIGNMENT: This company was seeking to substantiallyincrease penetration of their storage products among the

4,000 largest hospitals in the U.S.

MEASURE: Gain initial responses from qualied targets in order

to initiate a marketing dialogue.

KEY STRATEGY: Compare traditional direct marketing with the

Master Target Site List approach while gaining initial responses.

The incumbent approach involved use of direct mail targeted

using rented lists. The rented lists had exactly the selection

criteria the storage company wanted and were generally known

to be the best sources available. The direct mail seemingly

produced good results, generating a 4.5% response in a market

generally known to produce only 0.5% response. However, of the

450 responses, only 100 actually hit the target list of 4,000. The

remaining responses were from a) hospitals that were too small, or

b) allied industries (companies selling products to hospitals). Of

the 100 in the target list, 50 were from hospitals with previous

sales processes underway and thus did not present new sales

leads. This left only 50 new hospitals that would be considered

good prospects for the sales force. Thus, the successful

direct mail program really only generated that same anemic

0.5% response the market expects.

ENGINEERED PROCESSES: Using the Master Target Site

List approach to achieve the same objective, the company pur-

chased an unlimited-use list of contact names and cross-

indexed them with the target 4,000 hospitals. There were

2,500 contact names that connected to the target hospitals. The

remaining names, those not on the target list, were discarded

for a lack of t (prior to any further investment by marketing or

sales). A telemarketing effort was directed at the 2,500 names,

and 900 offers were accepted, representing 600 of the target

4,000 hospitals. All 600 sites were in the Master Target Site

List of 4,000 hospitals and none of them had a prior sales force

relationship. Both of those factors were conrmed prior to the

telemarketing effort.

RESULTS: The Master Target Site List approach resulted in

12 times the number of accepted offers by qualied prospects,

compared to the previous direct marketing approach.

To further emphasize the value of the Master Target Site List

approach, the cost of the rented list approach was three times

the cost of the Master Target Site List of 4,000; therefore, the

overall benet of the target universe base approach in terms of

cost-per-outcome was 36 times better than the standard approach.

The tremendous improvement experienced by this company

exemplies the rationale for using the Master Target Site List

approach. If you allocate some of your marketing funds to

developing and maintaining the complete target universe, your

marketing programs will perform better in terms of achieving

sales goals, and will easily pay for themselves.

Further Proof: Fortune 500 Computer Company ASSIGNMENT: A leading direct-sales computer manufacturer

had been given aggressive new objectives for the expansion of

PC and server sales in several markets: K-12; higher education;

state, local and federal government; and healthcare. This

directive came on the heels of this business unit having

achieved only 91% of their revenue objective in the previous s-

cal year. Massini Group helped their marketing team discover

untapped prospectsthe set of prospective customers who

were currently not being engaged by their direct sales force. Thechallenge was to rst identify these customers, then form

viable relationships with them, and bring them all the way

through the sales process into the companys online store

to purchase products.

MEASURE: To meet or exceed sales goals by growing the

revenue from the small/midsize segments in excess of targeted

levels.

KEY STRATEGY: Rapidly increasing visibility to untapped

prospects through the use of Master Target Site Lists focused

on each key market segment.

u n l o c k i n g s a l e s a mo n g un ta ppe d pr o s pe c ts page fo u r


6/7

ENGINEERED PROCESSES: Overall, the company needed

to gain control of their complex sales process, and Massini

Group teams worked with them to accomplish this goal. A

four-phase, end-to-end marketing and sales funnel program was

implemented, based on the Massini Groups Dialogue Strategy. SM

1. Created Master Target Site Lists (master list of target sites),

starting with an extensive analysis of the business units

existing sales database. This process conrmed 69%

of the companys target sites were untapped opportuni-

tiestarget sites and contacts with which the company had

not established a measurable relationship.

2. Identied key decision-makers at a much higher

percentage of the Target Sites, using telemarketing assets.

The idea is not to use inside sales resources to create your

Master Target Site List, but to use them later to exploit it.

3. Secured email opt-ins among known decision-makers by

using a combination of telemarketing, direct mail and

email, supported by a Web-based resource center.

4. Followed up the opt-ins with aggressive e-marketing,

causing interested prospects to either visit the online store

or establish a relationship with an account manager for

near-term sales.

RESULTS: Since the Dialogue Strategy methodology wasimplemented in mid-2001, Massini Groups client has increased

their coverage of targeted sites to 100%, and contact coverage

(identication of at least one decision-maker at a target site)

from 31% to 88%.

Additionally, the company converted high percentages of

untapped prospects into partially and fully engaged relation-

ships* with target accounts over the six measured quarters.

A signicant percentage of those relationships converted into

business, and their all-important revenue performance ballooned

to over 130% of target.

u n l o c k i n g s a l e s a mo n g un ta ppe d pr o s pe c ts pag e f i ve

* Partially engaged is dened as opted-in and responsive to dialogue with telemarketing; fully engaged relationships are dened as talkingwith a salesperson who is actively attempting to close a sale.

market visibility

v i s i b l e m a r k e

t

r e v e n u e g r o w

t h

revenue growth

100%

90%80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

-10%

-20%

Unlocking Sales Among Untapped Prospects

Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6


7/7

Documents

Unlocking Sales Among Untapped Prospects