ConnectIT
21-May-2008
Small
businesses say following up leads
biggest failure in marketing efforts
by Liam Lahey
Surveying the landscape of small businesses
(SBs) across the U.S. and amid concerns over
the need to grow sales while reducing
expenses, SB owners say the No. 1
frustration they face daily when it comes to
sales and marketing is the inability to
consistently follow up with prospects.
In a survey of
entrepreneurs across the U.S. conducted by
SB marketing automation software provider
Infusionsoft, 65 percent of SB owners cited
an inability to consistently and efficiently
follow up with leads as the top concern.
The survey
also indicated a growing frustration among
SB owners and marketers with closing an
immediate sale, suggesting that the
nurturing process is being overlooked and as
a result, leads are left idle.
"These
findings are telling for understanding the
challenges a small business owner faces,"
said Clate Mask, president and CEO,
Infusionsoft. "Small business owners are
trying to figure out how to make their
marketing more effective amid the reality of
smaller marketing budgets, limited time to
manage campaigns, smaller organizational
infrastructure, and longer to-do lists. So
these results are eye-opening to understand
just how simple, yet real their daily
frustrations are with converting more leads
into sales."
The report
highlighted SBs want to send more email to
customers and prospects, capture information
from Web visitors, prospects, and then
automatically follow up with those people.
The survey
asked SB owners across the country to choose
their top marketing-related issues from a
list and then rank them in order of
importance, recording results from 1,000
respondents. The following is a list of the
top 10 marketing-related frustrations as
cited by respondents in Infusionsoft's
"2008 U.S. Small Business Marketing
Frustration Survey":
-
Too
difficult to follow up with cold, warm
and lukewarm leads consistently and
efficiently;
-
Can't
properly track and manage prospects and
customers;
-
Need to
integrate online and offline marketing
efforts;
-
Poor email
deliverability;
-
Too much
manual grunt work in the sales and
marketing process, no automation;
-
Can't
track sales activity;
-
Lack of
centralization, too many different
programs and systems;
-
Too costly
to maintain servers and IT staff;
-
Too
difficult to manually manage
multi-channel campaigns;
*One-dimensional marketing.
Infusionsoft
conducted the survey via email and phone to
organizations with two to100 employees from
January 1st through to April 30, 2008.
Automation of
marketing and processes enables the small
business to convert more leads into
customers, grow the business without the
need to grow staff, and increase sales from
existing customers, the company said.
"I agree with
their findings that SB's face immense
challenges when it comes to following up on
leads," said Michelle Warren, senior IT
analyst, The Info-Tech Research Group. "This
is a challenge they face continuously -- how
to balance customer (and growth) demands
with their workforce (which tends to remain
the same size). Employees and managers often
find it frustrating to continually try to
maximize opportunities while dealing with a
slim workforce."
Technological
solutions, specifically software
applications, offer some interesting and
efficient ways to address these concerns,
and to improve productivity; from sales to
marketing to production.
Warren added
there are three challenges that SBs face
when contemplating a new tech solution,
however. One is cost, because everything
boils down to the bottom line. The second is
training and the third has to do with the
actual purchasing process. "These factors
way in when making the decision," she said.
ConnectIT is a
publication of
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