Getting the Attention of Prospects

Engag­ing with prospects can be a chal­lenge for many B2B com­pa­nies who are pitch­ing their prod­ucts to busy, senior-level executives.

Con­sider:

• Few exec­u­tives answer their office phones
• Emails are often ignored or deleted
• Many build­ings are secure so drop-by’s are difficult
• LinkedIn’s Inmail ser­vice can improve response rates, but is still hit-and-miss

At Heeter, we face this challenge. We recently completed a new account blitz campaign that took a different approach to get the attention of our busy-senior level prospects. We want to share our experiences with the program.

Our New Account Blitz

We knew we needed our Heeter sales­per­son to be able to sit down with a key per­son at the tar­get com­pany for at least 30 min­utes. The rep needs to hear the prospect’s chal­lenges and be able to tell the Heeter story. The hope is that this 30 min­utes turns into 90…and a sec­ond meeting.

But how does the rep get this 30 min­utes in front of the prospect. Here’s what we did:

• In our increas­ingly dig­i­tal world, mail­ings that are inter­est­ingly shaped and dimen­sional tend to get atten­tion.  So we sent a thick 9” x 9” per­son­al­ized enve­lope to 100 tar­geted senior executives.
• Each enve­lope had the executive’s name with a clearly labeled incen­tive to open the envelope.

• Given that it was win­ter in Pitts­burgh, what sounds bet­ter than a hot cup of cof­fee from a trusted brand like Starbucks?
• Inside the mail­ing was a let­ter that included an active $5 Star­bucks’ gift card (this is dimen­sional) along with the promise of an addi­tional $20 gift card if the prospect meets with the Heeter sales per­son for 30 minutes.

What came after the mailings?

• A few days after the mail­ings, the sales team called the prospects– ref­er­enc­ing  the pro­mo­tion (“Did you get the Starbuck’s gift card? I’d love to tell you about Heeter and give you the 2nd card.  Would you like to get a coffee?”)
• We sup­ple­mented the mail­ings and calls with a series of emails. Some busy exec­u­tives like to respond via email dur­ing early morn­ings or late nights.
• We also did a fol­low up mail­ing to help close sales with these prospects.

So how did we do with the promotion?

Heeter did very well. The creative spin and targeting paid off.

Of the 100 tar­geted com­pa­nies, we had in-person meet­ings with exec­u­tives at 25 com­pa­nies which trans­lates to a 25% engage­ment with senior mar­ket­ing representatives.

Did these leads turn to sales? Yes, within 3 months, we opened busi­ness with 6 of the accounts and have advanced the rela­tion­ships with many more.

As you put together your next New Account blitz, con­sider these best prac­tices for connecting with senior level executives:

• Get the atten­tion of your prospect with a cre­ative, appeal­ing outreach
• Per­sis­tence– the sales­peo­ple who reached out repeat­edly to their prospects did best
• Sup­ple­ment mail­ings with dig­i­tal messaging
• Have some fun; it is harder for a tar­get to  say no when he/she is chuck­ling at the campaign

Give us a call. We’d be happy to tell you more about this program.