I recently attended Engagement Expo in Frisco, Texas.  This B2B event organized by the Loyalty 360 organization attracted a couple hundred people looking to learn more about loyalty in the B2B space for the next 2012 sales cycle.  There were many learnings about effective prospect engagement and acquisition, but two major themes emerged very clearly.

The first is new competition to traditional loyalty programs, along the lines of “group buying”, a formula popularized by Groupon, and Living Social which has also been cloned across every major American city. These programs promise a multitude of subscribers a deal per day, price-discounted from 50% to 80% off regular prices.  In a national U.S. survey done by Research Now, 58% of adults said they were enrolled in one or more of these types of programs.  There is a problem though:  group buying as a customer acquisition strategy is  weak when associated to lasting brand loyalty. This is supported by a Rice University study which reported that only  ~20% of first-time Groupon customers returned to the businesses where they’d used a coupon.

The second is that a more effective approach to new prospect engagement and acquisition is a data- driven communication strategy across the prospect and customer lifecycle. This tactic ensures that your audience receives the right messages, at the right time, differentiating you from your competition.

To implement a data-driven strategy that targets both decision makers and influencers, you’ve got to start by analyzing your own data, then profile and examine your current customer base in order to identify like prospects. This is very important because by identifying prospects that resemble your current customers, you will substantially increase response rates and build prospect dialogue. Segmentation is the starting point to creating “relevant conversation” because it allows us to apply inferred knowledge in our messaging and enhances our chances “just to get in the game”, as generic messaging does not create dialogue opportunities.

Prospect cultivation strategies that create sales-ready leads, and significantly enhance sales conversion rates are also critical to the success of your efforts to maximizing customer lifetime value. Research has shown it takes 5+ touches just to begin making an impression in your targeted audience, hence less than 5% of all B2B leads generated are sales ready (were only touched once and sent to sales). Synergistic multi-touch cultivation efforts outperform single touch, so you’ve got to wrap a complete campaign around each communication, and please don’t sell, instead, offer. Offer information, motivation and consistent messaging.  As you capture and track the dialogue that transpires with a prospect, you position yourself to engage in a personal and relevant conversation based on real information.  This information helps you plan and manage through the sales cycle as well as identify up-sell/cross-sell opportunities through data intelligence.

Does this sound familiar?  It sure did to me since this is an approach that we encourage our clients to pursue for the most effective engagement with their partners.

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