Marketers know the importance of sending relevant, tailored communications. But how well are we doing? Not so well according to a  poll by Chief Marketing Officer Council. This poll reveals that of 91 percent of consumers who opt out or unsubscribe to emails, 46 percent are driven to brand defection because the messages are simply not relevant. Ouch.

How connected are marketers to their customers? Not doing well here either, with nearly three quarters of consumers reporting they have received promotions for products they have previously purchased from the company.

If marketers know how important it is to be timely, relevant and personal, why is this such a challenge? One might argue marketers have a wider array of tools and technologies at their disposal, so shouldn’t they be doing a better job? While its certainly true there are more technologies to choose from, the reality is having a tool in your tool belt and knowing how to put it to best use are two entirely different things.

So, how then to achieve the holy grail of personalized and relevant email marketing? By adopting precision marketing approaches that utilize more tailored and targeted messaging throughout the customer life cycle. Continuous data collection, as well as integration and on-going analysis are needed to produce customer insights. These insights enable marketers to achieve mass-customization of messaging to customers and generate improved response, engagement and retention.

As an accomplished eMarketer, you may already have sophisticated Marketing and SalesForce.com Automation systems in place. You may also be using an analytics module to provide  in-depth stats by the minute, as well as a set of Automated Marketing Programs  to qualify, score and funnel Leads to your Sales system. With all of this in place, you will have a steady volume of prospects flowing through your system and a lead conversion rate on par with industry average.

However,  to add the ‘Customer Driven’ dimension to your automated marketing programs, one must design programs that elicit targeted actionable feedback from your prospects, leads, customers and marketing programs that are ‘Agile’ enough to adapt themselves based on customer feedback.

The key here is to ask the right questions to the right person. If you already have a lead/prospect/customer scoring mechanism built into your marketing programs, you could use the score to determine whom to ask what.

For Example:  When you lose a lead after he was assigned to a sales executive, you could send a satisfaction survey email asking to rate the salesperson. This feedback could be used by your agile marketing program to route your hottest (highest scoring) leads to one of your top salespeople in the future.

If one of your existing key customers gives you a very high overall rating, your agile marketing program would take note of this and send out an email asking for references or perhaps send another email to try and crosssell/upsell more products.

When reviewing automated marketing programs make sure you’re also evaluating just how agile and customer driven they truly are.

Its a safe bet that many companies have made New Year’s resolutions to increase revenue streams as so many companies, large and small were hard hit in 2009. While becoming leaner and meaner as some companies have done can help reduce expenses, there are other strategies that can be employed. Namely being smarter when it comes to sales.

If you’ve been asking yourself  “what can I do to get leads flowing again? Here are five areas where businesses can look to improve their sales potential:

1. Poor Lead Stewardship. The number one reason sales are lost is that they are forgotten. Many companies have poor systems, or no systems in place for tracking leads from the moment they are aware of them to the time a customer deal closes. Take a hard look at the “lead leakage” in your business, adopt or modify your existing process, and you’ll see sales climb quickly.

2. Are you Listening?  Any successful salesperson knows that “Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm.” You must be enthusiastic about what you are selling, but you have to also keep your focus on the customer’s needs. Make sure you are asking focused questions about their business process, their sales needs, what’s working, what isn’t and how you can help them achieve their goals. Be relentless, less ”selling” and more listening! IMHO, buyers will choose the company that they feel hears and understands their pain points and has a solution that seems designed just for them! (After all, each of us want to be heard; this simple shift can bring some profoundly positive results.)

3. Lack of Urgency.  Hand in hand with the previous point, is how well you are managing urgency. You’ve probably heard many times: The most important question in sales is not “Why should I buy your product or service?” but “Why should I buy your product or service NOW?”  Buyers are more cautious than ever, so coming up with compelling reasons why they shouldn’t delay making a commitment to your products/services is very important for success. 

4. Craft a new elevator pitch. The beginning of any dialogue often starts with: “So, what is it that you do?” Even experienced, savvy sales people may use a list of bullet points to explain what they do. What they’re not getting is that your prospects don’t care about what you can do. They really only care what you can do for them to solve their problems. Tell them why you are the best one to provide this solution. Its time well spent to understand exactly what your core value is to your customers and develop the strongest focused messaging to communicate this effectively.

5. Pay for Performance Marketing. Shameless plug : True Influence has developed LeadPacs to help companies who don’t have the time, resources or money for in-house multichannel marketing campaigns but need more warm leads for Sales. Pay-for-performance leads mean you get exactly who you want, leads scored on the behavior you specify. Once you provide the content to us, we launch a campaign on your behalf and immediately deliver the results to your Sales Team!

Wishing everyone a Happy and PROSPEROUS New Year!

I saw this today and thought it was inspiring for all of us to view as we start a new year.

The concept is that at 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. Its that 1 degree that makes the difference in 2010. Kudos to www.simpletruths.com for making this available.