In my last blog, I outlined the challenges of marketing to small business. Now let’s talk about the big ones. A few things to keep in mind:
- Besides, big, how do you define the perfect enterprise target? Is it really every large company? Is it 500 employees? 1,000? What other characteristics make a company a fit for your services? Is it certain industries or locations? Certain hardware or software configurations? What narrows it down for you?
- Now, define who your primary contact is. What is their title or role? Who else in the company can help your cause or refer you to a decision maker? Who might be in a position to veto the decision? Who wastes your time? Identify the different roles so you can segment your communications appropriately.
- Then, as always, set a strategy and objectives. In addition to the usual responses, qualified leads, opportunities and sales, consider adding metrics on engagement. Or referrals to a decision maker.
- With enterprise, the number of companies is going to be small and contact names can be hard to come by. Consider using a target account approach. That’s identifying a list of 10-20 key companies that you want to sell to and focusing on gathering contact names within those organizations. Get sales to help you build a list or one of the tools available to gather names at those companies. Then carefully market to that list to gain opt ins and engagement.
- When it comes to marketing to enterprise, no matter what you are offering, it is smart to assume your prospect currently has a solution. Big companies just don’t do without if they have a need. Your job is to convince them that what you have to offer is better than what they are using now – and any competitors they might be considering.
- Since gathering the right names is critical, make sure that your emails have a “refer a colleague” function so prospects can share information with others within the company who might be interested. And so you get those names in your database.
- Be aware that lead times are very long. It’s almost unheard of for an enterprise prospect to respond and immediately buy. So plan for the long haul with a nurturing program.
- As part of that, develop offers for each stage of the sales cycle. For top of funnel, think of offers that educate on best practices and identify potential pain points. Once they’ve engaged a bit, use offers that demonstrate how your product is the solution. When a prospect has moved to an opportunity, provide offers that help them evangelize your product within the company and that sell against any competition.
- Last, enterprise names are hard to come by so don’t burn one unnecessarily. Validate that your program is on track by watching engagement and unsubscribe rates carefully. And if you run a prospect through your program and don’t get a response, don’t retire the name. Let it rest a bit and then develop a reactivation campaign to see if you can’t engage them again in the future.
Need ideas? Let me know.