subject: Erp Leads: Information Without The Information Overload [print this page] Website creation and email marketing appear to be the most suitable lead generation methods for technologically savvy companies. Those in the ERP software industry are no exception. However, given the nature of both their software and of their prospects, it actually would make using those methods extremely difficult.
The difficult arises in the sheer amount of features that ERP software packages possess. And in fact, a single package would contain individual applications for specific enterprise management tasks. You have payroll, CRM, SCM, and even Business Intelligence. Each of those features alone can require the entirety of a large webpage just to explain.
Now ask yourself, who are you trying to contact? Remember that B2B leads are a far cry from B2C ones. One obvious indicator is the latter stands for private, individual consumers while the former could be an entire business corporation. Of course, you don't really need to target every single employee to turn an entire group like that into a lead. However, the one person you need to talk to is of a far different league than your average consumer.
This is of course referring to the executives and other powerful business decision makers who call the shots in those companies. Do note that these are very busy people! You do not want them to click on your website or open your email and then force them to spend their precious time digesting the vast amounts of information on your product. That's a guaranteed turn-off.
In fact, surely you know something like that is better off in the actual sales-making stage? What you need to do is to gradually give them just the right amount of information to entice them to stage. And information isn't just supposed to go one way here either. Again, these people are of an entirely different league so it will take a lot more to impress them. To do that, it might be best if you actually get information on them yourself and qualify them to see if there are really any good chances of them needing your product.
This is something you have to do for each individual company and your approach to them must be as personal as possible. You need to show that you are both aware and concerned of what issues they might have (which you should be because if anything offends both consumers and business people, it's a lack of consideration).
Simply put, take control of the information flow from the moment you make initial contact all the way up to finally having the meeting to make the sale.
Such a feat requires a flexible but direct means of communication that might not be found in emails. Important business officials are likely to have a spam filter up really high so there's a dangerous risk that they don't even know your message is there.
In cases like this, it's better to make a telephone call. Unlike telemarketing to average consumers who would sooner curse you than hear what you have to say, telemarketing in the B2B world is different. If you desire anything like a controlled means of acquiring and disseminating information with your targeted prospects, then you're better off using outsourced telemarketing to make call and quickly determine their interest instead of being left hanging on an email response.
