Smart agencies offer inquiry qualification services
Published on 10/06/1996 under Accountability
I'll never forget the call, even though it happened twenty years ago. One of our regional sales managers was chewing me (the ad manager) out over the phone because he just tried to set a meeting with a prospective customer who had responded to one of our ads in an electrical equipment trade publication.
According to our reader service information, this person worked for the state mental institution as a maintenance engineer. The only problem was that he was really a patient who borrowed the magazine from a lounge area, filled out the bingo card and mailed it.
The sales manager was justifiably upset, and his faith in my ability to deliver worthwhile sales information was critically damaged. It taught me in one instant the value of pre-qualified leads.
Some companies still regard inquiry qualification to be a responsibility of field sales, but many others have recognized that sales people have more important things to do with their time. These companies employ some sort of system to initiate communication with prospective customers before bringing field sales into the loop.
You can do it yourself with in-house personnel or use an outside specialist firm. And you might be surprised to know that in a rapidly growing number of cases, these specialist firms are full-service advertising agencies. These firms have recognized the importance of hanging with sales leads long enough to determine sales potential and build databases for future marketing efforts.
Not only is it a source of additional revenue for the agency, but it helps answer that age-old question, "What am I getting for my advertising investment?" Assuming the answer is positive, that should strengthen and prolong the agency/client relationship, which would make it worth the effort and then some.
One agency that figured this out many years ago is the DBM Group of Palo Alto, CA. As Carlick Advertising, a high tech agency working with a lot of start-up companies that were so small they didn't even have sale forces, Dave Carlick and his media director, Toni Walker, had to devise methods of helping these small clients generate leads and then do something with them.
"We started offering inquiry processing services over toll-free 800 telephone lines because our clients were in fast-paced markets and couldn't wait for traditional lead handling systems," said Toni Walker, who now serves as director of the 50-person DBM Group.
As things turned out, not only did this work well for their clients, but it helped the agency attract other clients and develop a results-oriented reputation in the Silicon Valley area. (It also attracted the attention of large agencies outside the area, as Carlick's agency was acquired three years ago by Poppe Tyson/BJK&E.)
Toni Walker has watched several of these clients grow from a handful of employees to multi-billion dollar worldwide enterprises. Silicon Graphics, Cypress Semiconductor, Cirrus Logic and Network General are examples of clients that have experienced significant growth since turning their lead management programs over to DBM.
"Ten years ago, over 70% of marketing communications budgets went to (media) advertising," Walker said. "This was one-way communication from advertiser to prospect or customer, but today only 40% of marcom budgets go to advertising. Marketers are looking for ways to establish ongoing customer relations, or at least initiate dialogues with their prospects, and that requires new thinking."
Certainly marketers have learned the value of maintaining regular communication with key accounts, and in order to do this, you have to build a database. If your products are sold through distributors or retailers, just knowing who buys them can be tough.
"Over a 3 year period, we were able to help Toshiba build a list of their computer printer owners by offering a series of contests and special incentives," Walker said. They included fliers with each printer promoting such things as "buy-one, get-one-free" accessory offers, and discounts on the purchase of additional equipment. That eventually got a very high percentage of users to tell Toshiba about themselves.
But many of today's more sophisticated marketers want to know more than name, rank and serial number. In some cases, they want to know what the customer will buy.
"We worked with a large, midwestern university to boost enrollment in its adult education programs," Walker said. DBM telemarketers called former students and asked them what kind of additional courses they would be interested in. "The results were amazing," Walker added. "Three new and highly successful courses were developed in response to the calls."
The emergence of new media options on the Internet opens up an array of interesting opportunities. DBM is starting to analyze the different profiles of Internet responders compared to 800 number callers. "The more our clients understand about the people who respond to their communications programs, and the way they choose to respond, the better job they can do as marketers," Walker said.
Not all database marketing programs are successful, of course. Walker singles out two primary reasons why these programs fail.
Reason One is lack of commitment. All parties must be totally committed to a program's success. If the marcom manager is behind it, but the sales manager or ad agency is less than enthusiastic, the database program will probably fail. Database marketing programs require lots of time, attention and tender loving care, and less-than-committed participants will bring them down in a hurry.
Reason Two is insufficient response. Some database programs die an early and untimely death because initial responses are too low to warrant the set up and maintenance costs. Walker recommends experimenting with the basic offer, the way it's creatively packaged, and the distribution or media strategies before pulling the plug. "We seen changes as simple as the substitution of several words in a headline double qualified responses in a database marketing program," Walker noted.
Optimizing message and delivery systems should be no problem if an agency is working with its clients in a variety of communications areas. Not only is it exposed to more opportunities for breakthrough creative solutions, but it's much more likely to be cost effective than ones limited to isolated projects.
And that sounds like a "win-win" deal to me.