How to find the best leads for your manufacturing business
Lead generation for manufacturing businesses is not just about volume – it’s also about value, which includes (but is not limited to) the cash value of the initial order placed.
Generating new business leads for manufacturing firms requires a holistic view of the overall ‘quality’ of the leads generated.
Just some of the ways you might decide to quantify that quality include:
- Readiness to place an order (time taken).
- Likely order size (one-off revenue).
- Significance of customer (brand value).
- Positive relationships (brand perception).
- New untapped markets (brand awareness).
It goes without saying that a big brand with a larger budget and a propensity to place repeat orders is a much more significant qualified lead than a small firm that places a one-off order of relatively low cash value.
You can do both
This is not to say that you shouldn’t reach out to smaller customers as part of outbound telemarketing campaigns in the manufacturing sector.
Often when you approach small firms, you hold more of the bargaining power, allowing you to resist attempts to haggle over prices and impose your own preferred payment terms.
In comparison, big brands know that their eye-watering budgets are often enough to make suppliers accept much longer payment terms and lower per-item prices.
By combining small, medium and large prospects as part of an overall telemarketing campaign manufacturing firms can balance these different types of value to ensure healthy revenues without harming cash flow.
Ambition vs. realism
Similarly, be realistic about the likelihood of any given prospect converting into a profitable sale.
Big brands can be valuable – they make excellent case studies to show future would-be customers, to prove that your company supplies household name brands on a regular basis.
However, competition for these big-name customers is fierce, whereas smaller customers might not receive quite so many sales pitches to choose between.
It’s also more likely that a big brand will have an in-house buyer whose job is to find the best prices for the goods and services they need, whereas SMEs have less time and capability to compare different suppliers and will often choose one that contacts them with an offer that sounds like good value.
However ambitious your next manufacturing B2B telemarketing campaign objectives might be, Toucan Telemarketing can help you to achieve them. Give us a call on 01260 294444 to find out more about how we can help, or fill in our online contact form and our team will contact you when it’s convenient.