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 5
Ways to Attract Hotter Prospects
By Alan Sharpe
Looking to attract even hotter prospects? Direct
marketing and copywriting guru Alan Sharpe talks
about ways you can attract hotter targets in direct
mail B2B sales lead generation.
In B2B direct mail lead generation, as your volume
of leads goes up, your quality goes down, and vice
versa. The people in marketing prefer volume. They
want the most leads for their dollar. The people in
sales – the folks who must follow up on the leads
that marketing supplies – want quality. They have no
time to waste this quarter chasing down tire kickers
and brochure collectors.
One way to keep sales and marketing happy is to
write lead generation packages that improve the
quality of leads generated. Packages that attract
the hottest prospects. Here are some ways to do that
with your next campaign.
1. Discuss price. The best prospects are the ones
who don’t faint when you talk price. They have the
budget to buy what you’re selling. So attract them,
and scare away the time-wasters, by mentioning your
price.
2. Say “A salesman will call.” This should chop your
response rate in half by my reckoning. But the
prospects you’ll attract will be the hottest
prospects, the ones who don’t mind talking to a
salesperson, and actually want to (these people do
actually
exist!).
3. Ask their age. Just kidding. Maybe. Asking
qualifying questions on your reply device or website
landing page helps you weed out the people who are
not ready to do business with you right now. This
can involve asking them their age (if you’re selling
life insurance, for example), but it normally
involves soliciting the kind of information that
tells you how serious a prospect you have.
Think BANT: Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe.
Asking qualifying questions in your lead generation
piece helps you attract prospects who can afford
your offering, have the authority to buy, need what
you are selling and are ready to act within your
timeframe.
4. Charge for information. Putting a price, even a
token amount, on an information booklet, white paper
or demo will soon separate the cream from the milk.
5. Ask for a stamp. Don’t use a postage-paid
business reply card or envelope. Make the prospect
buy and affix the stamp. The replies you get will be
qualified inquiries.
--- Alan Sharpe is president of Sharpe Copy, Inc. (
www.sharpecopy.com ) a B2B direct mail
copywriting agency.
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