5 simple steps will help you scale up your B2B business growth
These five simple steps will help you scale up your B2B business growth as you lower the cost of finding new customers.
Step #1: Choose the right channels
When we surveyed our B2B customers, it was 100% clear that certain customer acquisition channels delivered a much lower cost per lead than others.
The winners were:
- Email prospecting
- PPC
- Email marketing (newsletters)
We were surprised to learn, however, that most companies continued to hedge their bets by spreading budget and activity over many channels, rather than maxing out these top performers.
Our advice is, find what works and stick with it.
As email delivers such a low cost per lead, we’ll look at the channel in more detail below.
Step #2: Source the right data
You might now be tempted to ramp up your email marketing and prospecting in any way you can.
Before you do, our next piece of advice is this: never buy a marketing list.
Customer data has a very short shelf life – so, you need to make sure your data is up to date and accurate. Almost all marketing lists that you buy have already been worked on by many other companies.
In all likelihood, they will contain outdated and invalid email addresses. Unfortunately, using data like this will position you as a spammer – more on this in step #3.
Given that people now change job roles about once every three years, any database owned or bought has a half-life of just 18 months.
Rather than using static databases, find a provider, like Sopro, that uses live data.
Step #3: Avoid spam and deliverability traps
When it comes to email deliverability, there is a very slim margin for error.
Even a 90% deliverability rate could be enough to get:
- Your sending IP address blacklisted
- Your mail server account suspended or closed
- Your domain and brand terms blacklisted
A key aspect of successful email prospecting is maintaining your reputation by minimising complaints, monitoring spam signals, maintaining strong engagement with those receiving your emails and avoiding sending to invalid email addresses.
You can find out more about how deliverability and your sender reputation affect your new customer cost and success rate in our in-depth guide here.
Step #4: Make sure you write person to person
Always remember that – no matter how many people you are trying to engage with – each potential new customer is not a job role or a function. They are a human being first – and they’ll respond 10 times more readily to personal messages.
So, keep your messages simple and conversational.
You are looking to set up a conversation – and no-one would want to engage with someone who speaks like this:
“Dear Sir,
Intech Software PLC’s recently released technology-driven integrated performance enhancement solution uses patented SMART™ data management to provide an unparalleled opportunity to…”
Drop the marketing language and jargon. Instead, tell it in plain English using simple, uncomplicated sentences.
“Hi Dave,
I read your post on cloud migration last week – it really got me thinking about your approach.
I’d love to run a couple of thoughts I had past you. Do you have time on Thurs for a call?”
Step #5: Don’t be shy
Once you have sent your first email, the job is far from over.
Failing to follow up on your emails ensures you’ll get a tiny percentage of the potential responses.
We send up to four emails per prospect. A look at our statistics shows you why.Of all of the leads we get for our clients, the first message only accounts for 23%. Messages two, three and four actually have a better response rate, and account for 77% of our leads.
So, if you’re too shy to chase – you’re kissing goodbye to the majority of your leads.
We hope you find these five ways to lower the cost of acquiring more new customers useful. It’s how we built our business.