One thing your prospects should know: Is your pipeline leaking?

Customers are better educated and more informed and require value to advance through your company's sales pipeline. We will speak about adding value to pull your prospects through the pipeline in another article, here we will discuss prospects leaking out of the sales pipeline. Pipeline management is such an important part of a sales organization and I wanted to discuss major problems I have seen with many companies processes and management. In these trying times maximizing the dollars already spent to uncover and nurture prospects should be on every sales and marketing team's mind. When those prospects leak out of the pipeline, you are throwing dollars away.

Alaska has an almost 800 mile pipeline that connects Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, AK. What if a leak formed in that pipeline? If 700,000 barrels of oil left the oil field in Prudhoe Bay and only 500,000 barrels arrived at the Gulf of Alaska, due to a leak somewhere along the pipeline, you can bet several folks in Valdez would be quite anxious. Now why is that same anxiety not felt by sales and marketing organizations with the same results coming from their "sales" pipeline?

Companies of every size are guilty of having leaks in their sales pipelines, from SMB entities through to the fortune 100 companies. In every case the problem is the same, the sales and marketing organizations are not properly aligned and the sales teams focus on immediate opportunities. This style of sales pipeline management will usually allow a company to stay afloat and enable management to meet quarterly and annual goals, but it will disallow the entity from realizing substantial revenue increases. This flawed approach throws dollars away in lost opportunities when that dropped prospect buys from a competitor, and though the wasteful processes and necessary rework in an attempt to re-qualify.

How do you fix a leaky pipeline? The wrong answer would be "with duct tape". Do you really think duct tape will keep the oil flowing properly to Valdez? The proper fix: The pipeline would need to be drained, depressurized and the leak found and the broken parts replaced. This will have costs associated, and could mean downtime in the operations, but once back up and running the repair would pay for itself within hours.

The proper fix stands true for a sales pipeline. Although sales activities need not cease, analysis of the internal processes is required to define the location of the leak. (Where are the prospects falling out?) Once this is understood, create an improvement plan. The next two steps are commonly where I have seen the biggest mistakes, execution and control. The plan is in place now it must be executed. Plenty of ideas and plans are laid on boardroom tables each day, some are chosen to commence, but very few are properly executed. And finally, any good marketing plan will have a control plan. Without this last step you are destined to be right back in the same position with a leaking pipeline. A control plan is put in place to assure that future problems are detected early. If a weakness is discovered in the pipeline, immediate action can be taken before it develops into a leak.

In conclusion, your company has spent real dollars to uncover prospects, and your team has spent real labor hours developing them. Don't let those dollars go to waste over such a fundamental flaw. Take a hard look at what enters your pipeline, what activities are happening to add value and pull them along, and what is coming out the other side. In another article we will discuss further the concepts and strategies around value adding activities that will more efficiently progress prospective customers through the pipeline.

TSL Marketing joins Twitter

With the social hype being all about Twitter and the current "tweets," TSL Marketing has decided that it is time we join the revolution and create our own twitter profile. Check us out:

Click Here to follow TSL Marketing on Twitter

So what is twitter anyway? To the untrained "follower," twitter seems like nothing more than a silly and inconsequential way to waste time online. However, the more I got involved in twitter and what it brings to the table, the more I began to realize the value add that this social network prevails.

What makes this social media site difference than the others is that it is solely based on streaming updates. You can connect to colleagues, friends, prospects, clients, and groups by simply "following" their feed. Once you decide to follow a "tweet (fancy word for update)," you will be sent updates as often as the twitter tweeter submits their feed. Some great ways to use twitter in a corporate setting:

1. Point your followers to your landing pages: If you have a live or online event, white paper, or really any marketing tactic to promote, here is another way to generate leads without spending any marketing dollars. 


2. Follow everyone who follows you: A great way to build your twitter network is to follow the people who choose to follow you. As you start tweeting on a consistent basis, your social media stream will reach higher levels and you will be able to build your network substantially. 


3. Tweet about your blog: You can submit a tweet that links back to your company blog. This will begin driving more traffic to your website and also drive more interest to your blogging network. 


4. When there is nothing to tweet about, say hello: The point of twitter is to get your name and company out in the open. When you find that you may be at a loss for what to say in your updates, go ahead and say hello. The point of twitter (from a corporate standpoint) is to promote your company, this is often done by just showing your company name and continuing to build your network. 


5. Follow follow follow: Finding the right person to follow is a great way to generate research and learn more about what is happening in the current market. Many companies that use twitter successfully don't use it just to promote their company name. If there is an article of interest or a topic of relevance that would benefit their network, it gets tweeted. This is why when you choose to follow people or companies, follow those that you think you can learn from and benefit from in the future. 

If you haven't joined already, check it out Twitter and don't forget to add @TSL_Marketing!

What impact will the current Economic Crisis have on IT Budgets

What impact will the current Economic Crisis have on IT Budgets? When some firms will feel the effects, will others find opportunity? As in any scenario, this will be a benefit for some and a detriment for others. Who do you think will benefit and what will the “Others” have to do to remain competitive?



From your perspective, how will the economic crisis impact your strategy from a Marketing perspective? What will they have to do differently and/or proactively to adapt and overcome?

Why Lead Progression is so important for 2009

Industry Averages state that over 90% of leads are not followed up on regardless of who uncovers the lead (marketing or sales). This is why lead progression has become such a hot topic among businesses. 

How do you compare?

In 2009, it's more important than ever to deploy a lead progression campaign and make sure that leads do not slip through the cracks. With the economy being in its current state, businesses cannot afford to waste valuable leads by not following up. Here are some tips to deploying a successful lead progression campaign:

• Update your CRM and assign tasks to yourself - by updating a customer relations management database, you will be able to determine when the last conversation was placed as well as when the prospect has requested a future follow up. By simply assigning a task to yourself after logging your first conversation, you will assure that any future conversations will not be lost. 

• Nurture your leads through multi-touch campaigns - regardless of where your prospect is in the sales cycle, you should maintain a monthly or at least bi-monthly campaign to stay in touch with your prospect universe. This is typically done best via email.

• Hire an outside firm to help drive leads into the sales cycle - Many companies, including TSL Marketing, offer services that help move leads along the sales cycle. This way, your sales team can continue to work on closing deals while your outside firm works on moving leads along the sales pipeline so that they do not slip through the cracks. 

As the new year approaches, be sure to use these tips (as simple as they seem) and you will see immediate results with your current lead progression. 

Marketing in a down economy

It is not surprising that when asked, most B2B executives assume the first department to be hit (given the state of the economy) is marketing. What is surprising, however, is the actuality that only 13% of B2B organizations (surveyed by Marketing Sherpa) indicated a plan to cut marketing first. While 13% is still a large number, this presents a huge opportunity for the other 87% of organizations to take advantage of the budgetary spend and make the most of marketing in this down economy. 

Top 5 key trends to marketing in a down economy

1. Tactical budgets are shifting:·      

WHAT IS HOT

• Web 2.0 – 48% of B2B marketing indicated that they plan to increase marketing activities to include Web 2.0 and social media plans to their budgets.

• No change in telemarketing – while telemarketing is still an old-fashioned way of generating leads, the budget for telemarketing is hardly seeing a change. 18% of B2B individuals in fact indicated that they plan to increase telemarketing spend.

• Email to your house list – There is a 48% increase in email when the email is sent directly to your house list. Make sure you have a proper email marketing campaign in place and that it is focused on the pains your customers are facing. 

WHAT IS NOT

• Renting a list is a bad choice – With the talk of quality over quantity, it is no surprise that renting a list has become a lost cause. Marketing Sherpa found a 43% decrease in budgetary spend with outsourced lists (from a 3^rd party source). If you need a new list, plan on spending more money and go for a quality list that you can keep than renting one for a quick one-off campaign.

•  Events are down – Travel costs have risen so much in the last year that there is a 57% decrease in budgetary spend regarding event marketing. Take our advice… plan a webinar instead.

•  Direct mail –With email marketing and Web 2.0, it was only a matter of time before direct marketing became almost extinct. With a 52% decrease is marketing spend; you may want to think twice before sending a post card. 

2. Virtual Training is a must – as mentioned before, the cost of travel has become so high that many marketing and sales professionals are shifting the way they do their business. In fact, 28% of organizations indicated that they plan on shifting in person training to virtual web-events. This has cut the cost of travel significantly while also maintaining the need for customer service.

3. Are you outsourcing? – Hiring is always a challenging time, especially when there is a need but no budget to back up a full time person. This is probably why 25% of companies surveyed indicated that they plan on moving more marketing activities to an outsourced marketing firm.

4.  Your sales cycle has shifted – One of the top trends in marketing in the current economy is to pay attention to your sales cycle and track how this has changed. A large number of companies are being hit by less money coming in and therefore have much less going out. Because of this more and more companies are taking more time to make decisions on budgetary spending. Some key trends with sales cycle shifting are as follows:

• 41% of organizations have seen a significant lengthen in the sales cycle
•  27% of organizations have a lower average purchase per person
• 25% of organizations have a lower number of new customers per month 

5.   Customer Service has never been more important – Customer service is the number 1 reason why organizations decide to leave a firm. This is why, at a time where the economy is a challenge, customer service has never been more important. Be sure that you have a highly effective team of customer service personnel on staff that are ready and able to work with your current client base at all times. In a down economy, it is not only important to market to leads, but also to market to your clientele. 

Marketing Sherpa - Special $600 Savings - Increase and Nurture B-to-B Lead Generation with Proven Techniques and Strategies from the Real World

For a limited time only, TSL Marketing and Marketing Sherpa are offering a $600 savings for their upcoming summit: B-to-B Demand Generation Summit 2008 - East & West

Click here for more information on this special

Event Dates:
San Francisco, October 26-28, 2008
Boston, October 5-7, 2008

This 5th Annual MarketingSherpa Summit offers:

• 19 all-new Case Studies
• Latest Research on B-to-B marketing
• Training Day for Landing Page Optimization
• Special $600 Savings brought to you by Genius

This offer ends September 30th, be sure to act fast to receive $600 in savings and information that is priceless.

Columbia MD, here we come!

As of September 2nd, TSL Marketing opened the doors to our newest office in Columbia, MD. With this opening, we are more than thrilled to be expanding our team and servicing our local clients in the area.

Read our press release

Here is a picture of the new office:

Along with the expansion, we are looking for energetic talent to join the TSL Marketing team. If know someone or you yourself are interested in becoming part of our growing business, please contact us at 617-753-9100.