Nurture Marketing meets Technology
How recipe box methods have gone hi-tech to produce real business results.
By Marijean Jaggers, Director of Marketing, The Growth Partnership (August 20, 2004) 

CPA firms that devote time, money and resources to one-shot marketing campaigns often wonder why such techniques don’t work. A campaign may involve a single mailing, or a mailing with a follow up phone call, but that’s where it ends.  

“A successful campaign is never complete in just a few months,” says Lisa Benson, Director of Business Development Services for The Growth Partnership, the nation’s only full service consulting firm focused solely on the accounting industry.  “The key to success in campaigns is relationship building, and success in relationship building is so often dependent on the make or break technology-based processes that drive the selling machine.” 

Such relationship building in sales, or “nurture marketing” is not a new idea. “It’s common sense, just not common practice,” quips Benson. While sales professionals and business development teams often know what it takes to make a campaign successful, doing it consistently, methodically, and conscientiously is another thing altogether. High-tech tools make the methods possible. 

Lisa Benson leads The Growth Partnership’s Business Development Center™ (BDC). The Growth Partnership engages in sophisticated processes designed to nurture and build relationships with client prospects. After a client firm defines its ideal prospect set, the BDC steps in to demonstrate, on behalf of the client, a sincere and ongoing commitment to secure those prospects as clients for the firm.  

The BDC uses technology to represent client firms to prospects seamlessly, and to manage the processes used in follow up, tracking and reporting. Through the use of customized contact management software, the BDC team can:

• Track thousands of contacts through each step of the process;
• Build a series of automated events including mailer delivery, scheduled phone calls or other “soft touches” to keep the client top of mind for the prospect; and
• Provide regular, detailed reports of successes to clients so they can make an informed decision to proceed, or expand campaign activity.

“In the early days of nurture marketing, the best salespeople would use a recipe box and monthly dividers to schedule follow up calls and periodic ‘touches’ to develop relationships with prospects,” explains Benson. “Technology allows us to do the same things the recipe box allowed, but in an automated, friendly, and exponentially more useful way than that box ever could.”  

The BDC’s software queues up a new crop of prospects weekly. When prospects enter the queue, they enter the sales process, a sort-of automated timeline with diverging paths determined by outcomes, and specific processes attached to records that tie directly to the prospect/s. For example, when a prospect enters the queue, they are sent a targeted mailer. Within a week, the prospect receives a second, but different mailer. A few days later, the prospect receives a premium gift with the third mailer enclosed. The team begins follow up phone calls the day or day after the gift arrives. The ongoing communication process nurtures the prospect into a client relationship. These relationships lead to appointments with the CPA firm; allowing the firm to move in and close the deal with the prospects. 

The BDC boasts a 60-65% contact rate, which means that a team member has been in direct telephone contact with the prospect. The appointment conversion is 10-15% of those contacted. Results-oriented clients appreciate the level of detail provided in monthly reports from TGP, outlining where prospects are in the process timeline. Reports include thorough notes regarding interaction and prospect status. Expectations are set early and agreed to by the client, who often is pleased by the expectations that are met and exceeded. 

Linda Watson, Marketing Director for Brady, Ware & Schoenfeld, Inc., is a big believer in the nurture marketing process. Her firm has engaged TGP and the BDC for a third campaign. “A great campaign is only as good as the follow up process. What TGP offers and delivers for our firm is an easy and measurable process, with quantifiable return on investment. The first campaign we did with the BDC gave us four new clients in short order. The revenue from just one of the new clients more than paid for the campaign.”  

The use of technology in business lead development allows for such comprehensive tracking that all pertinent prospect information is captured and retained. The regular status updates of prospects channels them, through the software to the proper place in the queue, ready to receive a letter or call right on time, and without a missed beat. These proven, tried and true processes are creating new business for accounting firms everyday, simply by using a high-tech version of the “old recipe box.” 

For more information on The Growth Partnership or the BDC, and how your firm can begin seeing real business results from nurture marketing techniques, contact Lisa Benson at 314-209-0922 or at lbenson@thegrowthpartnership.com. The Growth Partnership is the nation’s only full service consulting firm solely focused on the accounting industry. Founded in 1999, TGP works with clients throughout North America in the areas of sales, marketing, practice development, lead generation, training, coaching, compensation, human resources, and practice management.

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