After all the hard work you have put into road-mapping your marketing plan, now is the time to implement and test the authenticity of your marketing skills.

So, you launch your marketing campaign as planned. You start to get responses from various marketing tactics or tools. These are essentially responses or leads, which eventually if you do the right things, are converted into sales. Every single touch point or contact that you receive is a potential sale.

Obviously as you read this, you would realize the importance of leads and more significantly, leads management. Hence, learning how to manage leads is critical to your marketing activities.

Many entrepreneurs make the common mistakes of running incessant marketing campaigns but do not have the resources to follow up with their responses or leads. Eventually, the leads become “cold” and useless after a period of time. Experience has it that newly generated responses or leads must be attended to within a month from the point they are generated. Efficient marketers attend to the leads the moment they are generated, so as to keep the touch point warm. If first attempt to convert fails, they revisit the lead may within one month or a given time period, based on the type of business they are in.

Another major myth is that there is no way to track ad responses or leads. Many marketers are hesitant to advertise in TV, radio, newspapers and magazines by the sheer myth that such advertisements cannot be effectively tracked for response. In truth, it can be achieved very easily using simple routing approaches effectively for leads and sales tracking.

The Illustration for lead tracking system below:

You have a need to run marketing campaigns and advertise the business in order generate more leads with the objective of converting them into sales. Advertising channels broadly encompass television commercials (TVCs), press advertisements, email & website marketing & marketing collaterals. You will need to train one telemarketer (depending on scale) to run this process.

Tracking Your Traditional Advertising Channels – TVCs, Press Advertisements, Writeups as well as Marketing Collaterals

What you need to do:

• Design Ad copies and emails with Hotline (Loop-Back) feature & website address prominently placed.
• Prepare a Lead Tracking Schedule which will be tabulated at the end of each day.
• Prepare a telemarketing script to lead generate effectively

Managing the Process

• Ensure that the Hotline and email responses are attended to immediately.
• At inception, the telemarketer will check the source of ad channel, ie. From where did the caller find out about the campaign.
• Your email campaign system must be able to track how many of your emails are opened or read.
• It should also track how many email readers visit your website via the links in your email. (this could be tracked from your website) At best, allow half a day turn around time. The longer you wait on the lead, the colder the lead gets. Route the lead to sales person.
• Sales person to revert on status of leads after attending the lead via email or call update. If your email system has the capabilities, configure the consolidated reports will be routed to your system on a daily basis

Tracking Your Website

• Capture your prospects’ details by installing an auto-responder.
• Ensure that there is a response or “shy yes” page which allows your website visitors to leave their details or enquiries.
• Use analytics tracking systems to track your website traffic flow.
• If you have installed Google Adsense or affiliate marketing on your website, analyze your leads and sales analytics from respective programs.
• Analyze from comprehensive analytic reports where & who your visitors are as well as whether they are repeat visitors. You can also track the backlinks from where your traffic is generated. This will help you to further hone your channel marketing tactics.

The above lead tracking model works well for traditional & internet marketing mix, from advertising to sponsorship, to event management and of course the ever-green marketing campaigns.

To reiterate, Leads are the essence of your Small Business Marketing Strategy, hence, you need to grow the process over time and track accordingly.

For more information, check out Small Business Marketing Strategie here.

Having carefully weighed the various models namely Target Segment Analysis, Product life cycle, Competitive Advantage Model, Product Growth Directions as well as the BCG Matrix and concluded the broad business strategies to adopt, we are now ready to explore Your Marketing Plan which will help you investigate your Marketing Mix (4Ps), Internet Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications, Marketing Budget plan as well as Marketing Implementation plan.

1. Value Proposition > Unique Selling Point (USP) >> The Positioning Statement

Value propositions are product characteristics turned benefits. Your Value Proposition must be clear and to the point. Having defined your value proposition, you can craft the UPS. With creativity, you then come up with the Positioning Statement. Of course, your positioning statement must map to match your target segments identified in Part 1 of your marketing plan.

2. Marketing Mix (4Ps)

The 4Ps essentially denotes Product, Pricing, Promotion, Placement decisions which interplay to cumulatively create compelling value proposition, UPS and positioning statement for your potential customer.

Product decisions define the real physical product characteristics which might include your product brand name, quality, packaging, functions, after sales services, etc. Not that Product benefits give rise to USPs which allow you to provide your customers with a compelling purchase reason.

Pricing Decisions includes list, retail, wholesale, seasonal pricing, volume discounts, early-bird discounts, bundled pricing, flexible pricing, consignment options etc. Depending on your viability analysis strategies and in particular, your Competitive Advantage strategy and which you adopt in Marketing Plan Part 1, you might consider pegging your pricing with a cost leadership model, or cost focus model.

Placement Decisions essentially means distribution channels which you utilize to bring your products to your customers. Extent of coverage in your market could be defined by inclusive or exclusive or selective distribution. Distribution and warehousing centers, inventory management as well as logistics. Internal extension of sales distribution is a common consideration. If you are selling mass retail products, you might consider using a broad network of distributors to maximize your sales, hence the inclusive distribution approach. You may also need to decide on applicable warehousing, inventory and logistics methods which fit your mode of operations and budget.

Promotions Decisions is the final phase of the Marketing mix which, to certain extent could make or break a product. This is the phase whereby you successfully communicate your product to your target segments with communication tools available. Your promotional mix includes Advertising & Promotions, personal selling, sales promotions, public relations and publicity as well as sponsorships. Essentially, what promotional mix you apply to your business is largely determined by your marketing communications budget.

Advertising Strategies were traditionally considered to be an expensive medium, and it still is. One can, however, consider cross “advertising”, or what I might consider “barter-advertising” by cross-advertising in a collaborative channel partner’s newsletter and allowing your partner to cross-advertise in yours. Internet advertising if controlled well, could also generate better lead to sales potential.

Internet Marketing Strategies are the latest most popular approach to tap on huge potential business revenues. Driving Traffic is the key critical element in this equation. Check out more of this in Internet Marketing Category.

Personal Selling Strategies not only include individual sales persons, but more extensively of late – telemarketing as well as direct-marketing. To cascade you sales more exponentially, you may consider a mix remuneration package combining the benefits of network marketing model and the traditional sales force structure. (of course, do ensure clearance for authorities as certain countries may impose restrictions to this mode of sales structure)

Publicity is initiated by your company. It is the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception of your company or products. Publicity is internally created news for external dispersion to subtly portray the desired positive image. Publicity activities include speaking engagements at public seminars, contests, exhibitions, testimonials, interviews with the CEO, award presentations etc. Publicity could also take the form of free featured news and business information in trade magazines and websites to enhance company’s positioning. Sponsorship is a very effective exposure tool for the company, and monetary benefits could be exchanged for database listing from participant lists.

Events Management is a tool which many marketers tend to ignore and believe that they can manage the process should they be required to do so. Event management should instead be viewed as a tool for lead generation as well as positioning your business. Sometimes it can be closely tied to sponsorship where organsing events become a part of the “package”. Very few materials have been written in this area whereby ready-to-use templates may be tweaked to fit your business process.