The Most Measurable Strategy for Business Development: Identify and Build Relationships With the People Most Likely to Buy
The EEA provides a simple, tried-and-true holistic approach to business development for almost any type of company involved with engagement solutions, meetings and events, brands, travel, or gift cards. The program has such a clear return on investment, it can hardly fail if connected to a measurable sales effort. We can either show your company how to set up and implement a fully integrated permission-based marketing and sales program or provide a turnkey solution; either way, there are clear metrics tied to sales and meaningful relationships.
We help organizations and events target and build relationships with the people mostly likely to purchase their products and services, primarily in the world of engagement, travel, brands, gift cards, and events.
Click here for a one-page PDF of the EEA’s general business development services. Click here for a brief presentation on our playbook and here for for more details in an article.
The Premises
- The best sales and marketing process starts with identifying the persona or specific organizations most likely to see value in your proposition.
- Most prospects do not focus on anything unless it meets a personal need or interest.
- Unless someone is in a buying mode related to a product or service, they will likely pay little attention to messaging except if it relates to a more general need.
- Only a small percentage of stakeholders care about your organization and never will, even if when customers.
- Third-party cookies will one day go away. The tracking tool that has enabled companies to inexpensively target people in digital advertising will be less effective in the long run.
- Cold-calling and e-mail marketing are increasingly ineffective because of the volume assaulting potential buyers,
- Traditional trade advertising and trade shows in many cases continue to have hard-to-prove return on investment.
- No marketing program can have optimal effects without engaging the sales staff by making it beneficial to them.
- The best results are achieved when promises get kept in terms of products and services.
The EEA Engagement Agency Solution: Permission-Based Marketing Linked to Your Target Audience and Sales Management Process
The key in sales and marketing is to identify the people who can benefit and to become a trusted advisor so that people turn to your company when in a buying mode. That means:
- Determining how your organization creates value and delivers promises. Developing a clear value proposition for your services that you are sure your company can deliver in a measurable way.
- Visualizing the personas of your target audience to identify information or other content related to what you sell is of interest to them.
- Developing a sales, content and social media strategy that focuses on the needs of your customers, not on what your company wants to talk about, and which provides authoritative information or other content we or your salespeople can share with clients to open a door, continue a conversation, or even to help close a sale.
- Continually building a permission-based database of people receptive to hearing from you, tracking as carefully as possible the source, i.e., your sales team, trade shows, inbound marketing, referrals.
- Creating content partnerships with the media, trade shows and other organizations so that organizations hear about your company from other sources.
- Training and engaging your salespeople on how to use the social media, e-newsletter, and content provided to open doors, continue conversations, or in some cases help closing sales by providing authoritative backup to a critical claim.
- When selling, carefully identify prospects and present them with very specific ideas, rather than just dialing for dollars.
The Metrics
- Were specific objectives achieved?
- How many people and who follow you on social media and/or receive your permission-based e-newsletter, and what percentage share and click through to your content, become customers, refer people to you, etc.
- How are your salespeople engaging in your social media strategy; actively using content, suggesting new client to help address customer questions.
Engagement Agency Services and Fees
We can either facilitate the creation of permission-based sales and marketing strategy or implement a turnkey strategy, starting from $8,500 for a setup and preparation fee; or up to $32,000 for creating and managing an ongoing social media and e-newsletter campaign.
Contact:
Bruce Bolger
Bolger@TheEEA.org
914-591-7600, ext. 230