Small Business Marketing

Paul D. Vander Horst, President & CEO

Richard F. Hahn, Vice President of Client Services

 S. I. Marketing Inc.
Strategic Integrated Solutions
150 Allens Creek road
Rochester NY 14618
585-475-9690
www.simktg.com

Fact Number One

The primary challenges in marketing small or emerging businesses come down to lack of funding, insufficient personnel, not enough time and/or lacking marketing knowledge.

The Sales and Marketing Process

READY – Understanding your specific current situation

AIM – Understanding your customer profiles to expand those relationships and to identify key prospects based on those profiles

SELL – Use this new data and these new tools to increase sales with customers and prospects

Overview Items

Targeting prospects based on current customer data allows for effective and lower cost marketing & sales efforts

Each step is critical to the process

Long term value keeps building

READY

Understanding Your Current Situation

ACME Inc.’s Current Situation

$ 5MM in Annual Sales

Slow growth over course of startup

150-200 current customers of various sales amounts

Customer list is only housed in accounting software

Rochester HQ with Syracuse sales office

One marketing support person at HQ

Three sales people locally, one in Syracuse

Sales staff on the road 50% of the time

Sales people manage own prospects lists either on paper, in Excel or Access

Current Problems

No ability to track effectiveness of sales in regards to marketing efforts

No sales prospecting data for management

No sales pipeline forecasts for management

Inefficient tracking of prospects by sales team

Lack of lead generation efforts – All cold calls

No customer knowledge other than sales value

Door wide open for savvy competitors to steal market share

Goals – Short Term

Understand key customer characteristics

Know potential of target prospect segments

Develop cohesive prospect and customer databases

Establish a lead generation / management capability

Increase sales efficiency & effectiveness

Goals - Long Term

Develop new relationships with prospects

Increase sales with customers by increasing depth of customer relationships

Increase company and product awareness

Continue development of databases

Increase sales team opportunities through more efficient processes

AIM

Use an understanding of your current customer profiles to expand those relationships and to identify key prospects.

Knowing Your Customers

What are the characteristics of their customers?

–  How are they the same?

–  How are they different?

What do they purchase and why?

What are their thoughts on your products and services?

Identify trends from your customer data

The Right Database

Paper files will tell you nothing!

Choose an appropriate database for your customer information

Look ahead - plan for information you don’t have but want to get

Sample Customer Data Fields

Customer contact information

–     Name and Address

–     Phone, Fax, Email Address

Account Manager

Company Specifics

–     Industry

–     Annual Sales

–     Number of Employees

Amount and date of last purchase

Types of products purchased

Frequency of purchase

Other industry or product specific elements

–     Discount allowances

–     Types of machinery used

Sample Prospect Data Fields

Prospect contact information

–    Name and Address

–    Phone, Fax, Email Address

Account Manager

Source of lead

Status of lead

Product interest

Timing to purchase

Potential volume

What promotional material sent

When promotional material sent

Industry, Annual Sales, # Employees

Internal Information Sources

Account Manager files

Accounting system data

Other internal databases

Customer Profiling

What information can be added?

–   Industry classification

–   Annual sales

–   Number of employees

–   Other executive contact information

–   Sales growth trends

–   Ownership Status

–   Certain product demand estimators

–   Credit scores

Customer Profiling

Export your customer database to data warehouse vendor and append critical information

Process can take two to four weeks

Customer Profiling

What to do with this information?

•   Analyze it!!

•   Investigate trends by industry type, company size and products purchased

Developing Final Profiles

Rank customers by key demographics

Identify missed opportunities to market to existing customers

Up-sell and cross-sell

Targeting Prospects

Utilize profiled data to target new prospects

How many companies in your most successful industry targets are you NOT reaching?

Key prospects will most closely match characteristics of your current customers

Finding new prospects through research

Many sources of B2B and consumer prospect mailing lists

In-Depth List Research

Types of Mailing Lists

–    Response or subscriber files

–    Compiled files

–    Association/Trade Group memberships

Selection Criteria

–    What is available versus what you want

–    Geography, Industry, Company Size, Job Function, Gender, Age, Lifestyle Characteristics

Usage - Single use versus multiple use

List minimum order sizes

Delivery methods and formats

Create Final Database File

Conduct thorough merge/purge to eliminate duplicate records

Do this work in a temporary database to ensure final data integrity

Import final data file into database

Which Database Program?

Look for flexibility of design

What are your resources to manage structure and data entry?

Determine accessibility needs for internal and remote users

Lead Management Needs

Benefits of a Lead Management System

–   Flexible database design and modifications

–   Automated sales efforts resulting in

• Effective tracking of contacts

• Management of history and pending activities

• Standardized prospect communications permanently linked to contact records

–   Calendar planning for sales staff

Lead Management Needs

Benefits of a Lead Management System

–   Sales forecasting and analysis

–   Sales prospecting data and staff effectiveness measurement tools available to management

–   No lost or missed opportunities

–   Focus on lead generation

SELL

Use this new data and these new tools to increase sales from customers and turn prospects into new customers.

Marketing to Customers

Sell complementary products to current customers

Identify those with greater volume potential

Identify marginal customers and improve efforts to them

Re-prioritize weak customer relationships

Are customer product and/or service needs being met?

Marketing to Prospects

Utilize continuity direct marketing efforts to build image awareness to prospects

Manage prospect status through lead management system

Prioritize prospect segments by potential sales volume

Conduct tests before rollouts

Review other segments previously ignored

Tying In Your Sales Staff

Sales staff involvement is critical

Tracking of leads

Reporting on results

Applying result information to segment analysis to aid future efforts

Get sales staff input for future programs

The Future of the Database

With proper data input and updates the database will become more and more valuable

Continuity will be key in establishing a market presence or in maintaining one through use of data

Continuous updates and periodic data refreshing is key to keeping the database current

Fact Number Two

Creating a bunch of pretty Marketing pieces is the last step in the process not the first.

Basic Marketing Materials Needed

Strong Logo with presence

Coordinating Stationary Items

Basic Ad Template

Some Level of Web Presence

Lead Management Capability

Lead Generation Materials

Lead Fulfillment Package