About the Company
The Company represented in this case study is a mid-size manufacturer of standard and engineered materials for the aerospace, automobile, electronics, equipment, medical and other key market segments. In addition to a direct sales force, the Company’s sales channel includes customer service and engineering personnel, and is supplemented by independent representatives and distribution partners in selected markets.
Analyzing the Situation
After years of incremental but steady growth, the company reached a plateau at the end of 2006 and revenue began to decline. As the 2007 economy weakened, customers were ordering less and new prospects were more difficult to find.
The Company’s initial reaction to the decline in sales was to focus on generating a higher volume of leads. As a result, sales people were spending a greater portion of their valuable selling time qualifying leads instead of converting qualified prospects with immediate needs into customers. This scenario caused sales productivity to decline even further.
Identifying the Problem
A recent independent study asked more than 1200 B2B sales and marketing executives how they planned to improve sales effectiveness during the coming year. The number one response was “optimize lead generation programs”. The consensus was that when leads are better qualified and have an immediate need, sales people will close a much higher percentage of opportunities pursued.
Lead optimization, the process of qualifying and building relationships with leads until they are sales-ready, is a very time consuming process. Unfortunately, the Company did not have the marketing resources required to maintain constant personal contact during the lead optimization process.
Defining the Solution
The Company retained Ascend2 to blueprint a lead optimization process that would leverage limited marketing technology and resources to automatically:
♦ Generate leads that qualify themselves.
♦ Build personalized relationships with longer-term leads until sales-ready.
♦ Identify when prospects have an immediate need and are ready to buy.
♦ Track and measure performance from lead generation to sales hand-off.
In addition to blueprinting and automating the lead optimization process, Ascend2 closely guided the execution of campaigns until the Company became proficient in lead optimization best practices.
The Result
The pay-off of lead optimization has been a measurable improvement in sales effectiveness, reversing the trend of declining sales. Sales people are now able to focus their valuable time on high-probability selling opportunities, turning more prospects into new customers and reversing the trend of declining sales.
If you would like to receive email notification when other case studies on related topics are released, please complete and submit the following.
