The percentage of companies that are currently proactively shopping and looking for your services or products is always negligible. Perfect timing represents always a significant challenge for sales. Only about 3% of your ideal customers will place an order in the next one to three months. So you are either too early and too late.
This is why it’s crucial to create an early opportunity where your prospects can get to know your brand, have a positive experience, and build a foundation of trust. Ideally, this should happy very early in the sales cycle.
The key challenge is how to engage effectively with cold contacts without being directly perceived as a nuisance. According to a recent survey by Gartner, lead generation is a fundamental key pain point for 58% of business leaders, and this percentage is unlikely to decrease in the near future. Constantly increasing competition and abundance of information makes it very difficult for a company to track, reach, and engage with potential clients. As a result, many businesses find it hard not only to succeed but also to survive. Standing out from day one is of pivotal importance in this context.
To be successful it makes a lot of sense to select a presumably anachronistic approach. B2D lead generation direct mail campaigns with bespoke handwritten letters can provide your with the ultimate solution. The response rates for such cold campaigns with handwritten letters are regularly between 10-40%, provided you take the following success factors into account.
This particular expression of appreciation for the customer always leads to outstanding results. Trivial advertising messages remain banal even in handwriting. Our most productive customers pay special attention to preparing their acquisition letter in handwriting to be successful.
“…58% indicated that lead generation is a key challenge business leaders face.”
Gartner Survey Reveals That CEO Priorities Are Slowly Shifting to Meet Rising Growth Challenges
How to reach your target audience 100% GDPR compliant
Even if you invite prospects to a webinar, this is legally speaking considered as an (unsolicited) advertisement. Therefore, your invitation could also represent an unreasonable nuisance for the recipient. If you send it by mail, you need the recipient’s authorization in advance by giving their consent in a double opt-in procedure. However, if you send this invitation by mail, permission isn’t required.
By law, it’s not allowed to contact contacts via WhatsApp, e-mail, or text message. It doesn’t matter whether they are private customers or business customers. You are only authorized to contact existing customers in this way.
Therefore, you have to consider the legal aspects of cold calling. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), communication at B2B level can be carried out “cold” if there’s a “presumed interest” in the offer sent.
The opt-out procedure applies to the transmission of advertising by post. This means that the recipient must expressly object to receiving mail in advance. If this isn’t the case, you can send direct mail. However, you have to offer the recipient the option of a written right of objection (opt-out) by which you can object to further addressing by post. It’s therefore not necessary to request consent (opt-in) in advance.
“…44% believe GDPR made it extremely difficult to capture new leads and effectively market to them.”
Gartner Survey Reveals That CEO Priorities Are Slowly Shifting to Meet Rising Growth Challenges
B2B Lead Generation Success Factors To Win: the basics
1. Personality
To be able to acquire new customers successfully, trivial advertising texts aren’t enough. Instead of focusing on the usual sales statements, you’d better focus on a potential first contact. You’ll receive feedback from the recipient if you address them personally and their emotions. A handwritten message conveys a high level of appreciation to the recipient, and you point out that the contact is essential to you.
2. Relevance
But it doesn’t work without an important statement. Point out the benefits for the recipient in your message. What benefits do you provide if he reaches out to you? A reference to a specially set up landing page is a great way to offer further information. Limit yourself to the appreciation in the handwritten message, not the promotional value. The interested party can get additional information on the corresponding website.
3. “Keep It Simple Stupid” (K.I.S.S.)
Keep the handwritten message short and sweet and get quickly to the point. Use catchy and straightforward language to make it understandable. Don’t use trite phrases everyone uses. Usual PR language annoys the reader more than it affects. You should clarify to the recipient that you can keep it short and still provide all the necessary information. This saves time, and you convince with competence.
Express your statements, in short, concise sentences and encourage the interested party to act by arousing curiosity. Speak the language of your customers – tailored to the target group, in a nutshell.
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.”
Zig Ziglar
4. Target group definition: the ideal customer
To find your target group and address them accordingly, you need to identify your “ideal customer.” The more precisely you can do this, the more successful your campaign will be. Ask yourself:
● Who’s the ideal user for your offers or solutions?
● For whom can you generate added value?
● What’s the perfect company size for best results?
● Who are the decision-makers who benefit most from this added value?
● How can these results be quantified?
5. Data quality: complete, up-to-date and error-free
To carry out a successful mailing with handwritten messages, it’s essential to have excellent data quality. The letters must be wholly and correctly addressed to arrive. Otherwise, you’re throwing your money and time away.
The letter has to relate to the professional role of the recipient and may only be sent to the recipient’s business address. Don’t use generic terms such as “to the marketing department.” You are not addressing a person by this, and accordingly, the letter won’t have any effect. You only signal that you have taken neither time nor effort to identify the correct contact person. The intention of conveying a high level of appreciation with the handwritten letter is thus going nowhere.
6. Exclusivity of the communication channel
Show exclusivity by handwriting your message! Never send them simultaneously by e-mail. In doing so, you destroy the surprise effect and the exclusivity of the message. Provided that the recipient reads this advance e-mail, they will no longer take the letter seriously sent by mail and will simply wonder why you use both channels.
B2B Lead Generation:What's In It For Me is what drives most buying decisions.
7. Personal address and sender
The content of your message is important in that it has to be personal. The personalization shouldn’t end with the salutation. Point out what added value you can provide or limit yourself to expressing appreciation.
To transmit advertising information, you can refer to a landing page where the recipient can receive all relevant information. Make sure that you in person are behind the offer and not just an organization. You value every single customer and thus accept a particular type of communication. Organizations, on the other hand, send cheap printed matter. Distinguish clearly from it. Don’t close the message with “your team,” but rather personally with “your” Suzanne Brown.
8. WIIFM -What’s In It For Me is what truly drives most buying decisions.
Content relevance: The personalization of the content shouldn’t stop with the address. Point out the benefits for the recipient by contacting you. You can provide all further information on a landing page the addressee can visit online.
9. Short texts are more successful
Don’t write a novel. Get straight to the point; in a nutshell, all other necessary information can be obtained by interested parties from a specially set up landing page. Truncated phrases and too many technical terms which are difficult to understand only annoy the reader. Instead of robbing the recipient of their valuable time, tell them directly why they benefit from a relationship with you. Stimulate his curiosity for more.
A successful sales letter should never be longer than an A4 page. Avoid buzz words, abbreviations, and bland phrases. Speak the language of your customers.
“Making your prospects feel like they have an exclusive membership in a club makes Lead Generation a positive customer experience.”
-Eric Brower
B2B Lead Generation: Why you ALWAYS must follow up
You’ve managed to get the attention of a potential customer with your handwritten sales letter – congratulations! Don’t forget that this high-quality form of communication implies that it’s at least the same in the following conversations. The prospect now has high expectations of you. It’s therefore important that you respond immediately and personally to any feedback from the customer. Only then are you initiating a relationship of trust. If you miss an immediate reply, the unique value of the message will, unfortunately, fail.
For these mailing campaigns, you should make additional calls in advance and allow time to respond to feedback. Because even if recipients don’t respond, this doesn’t mean there’s no interest. A few days after sending it, you can find out whether the letter has arrived or not.
The 3% rule explains why post-processing is so essential.
An important part of a successful mailing campaign is active follow-up. Otherwise, you leave your business success to chance. Over 90% of the recipients will definitely remember your handwritten letter. An advantage you should take by the horns!
And here again briefly in numbers:
● Only 3% are active buyers
These are the people and companies that have a demand and are actively looking for providers. They want to purchase in the next thirty to ninety days. These are sales contacts.
● 7% intend to change
These prospects have a demand but are not proactively looking for options. A well-planned cold call or marketing campaign can be very effective in this segment as they are open to new ideas.
● 30% have a demand but don’t act
This group doesn’t buy. They may look and act as potential customers, but they won’t make any commitment. You have other priorities. Unless the demand increases, they won’t make a purchase.
“Only about 3% of your ideal customers will be ready to purchase in the next 30-90 days; 97% are currently not yet.”
