What Do Marketing Response Rates Tell You About Campaigns?

The marketing response rates of life science telemarketing campaigns should never just be measured in initial response rates. What matters more is how the buyer journey progresses and whether this can lead to a contact becoming a customer.

Not every marketing campaign is immediately successful. Even before you start, you will need good market research to establish the demand for the type of products you offer, identify your target market and consider how to reach them.

These essential elements are just the start. At this point, you may consider using telemarketing as a means of reaching potential customers, possibly alongside other methods such as email and direct marketing.

However, what is not always well understood is that a successful marketing campaign is usually a more extended process than is often appreciated. It is not simply a case of someone receiving a marketing communication and deciding to buy straight away.

What Is The Rule Of 7 In Marketing?

A prime example of this is the ‘Rule of 7’. In marketing terms, this means:

•       The typical buyer needs to see a marketing message seven times before they make a purchase
•       This is pertinent because people are exposed to high volumes of marketing
•       The concept is not a new one and arose in the pre-digital age when marketers used billboards, newspapers, radio and TV to advertise products

This is important to consider when using telemarketing or any other means of contacting potential customers. Rather than looking to strike lucky the first time, a successful strategy will begin by getting interest, engagement, and perhaps a request for more information.

What Are The Stages Of The Marketing Funnel?

Closely related to this is the marketing funnel. This is a concept that enables you to understand the journey a buyer goes through, as well as helping you to gather data that can help you to make modifications to marketing campaigns to produce measurable improvements.

These stages include:

•       Awareness, when they first learn about the products you offer
•       Consideration, when they consider whether your product will meet their needs
•       Conversion, where they make the purchasing decision
•       Loyalty, where they come back to you for more of the same, or other products, in the future

This goes to show that initial success in getting people to pick up the phone and have a conversation, while it may register in the response rate, is not the be-all and end-all. That stat may be favourable, but not if it does not start many buyer journeys that end in purchase.

Equally, a lower initial response rate with a higher rate of eventual conversions is a better outcome. In effect, it pitches quantity against quality.

Ideally, you want both, but it is better to have quality, because it is preferable to have 20 people respond and ten make a purchasing decision than 50 people respond with only five conversions.

How Do B2B Customers Relate To The Marketing Funnel?

Besides these issues is the fact that in the B2B sector, your customers may be very savvy people who have already done substantial research before you even make first contact.

This was highlighted in a survey by Zipdo. This indicated that:

•       71 per cent of B2B buyers start their buyer journey themselves with an online search
•       On average, they are 57 per cent of the way through the buyer journey before they receive their first sales contact
•       During the consideration stage, 64 per cent of potential customers read between three and five reviews of products
•       The final buying decision takes up an average of 21 per cent of the buyer journey time
•       76 per cent of revenue in B2B sales comes from the loyalty of customers returning to make further purchases

How Should Your Marketing Campaigns Be Shaped For B2B Customers?

These facts can have some major implications for your marketing campaign. In particular, if the first contact prompts some interest, it may be because they are not quite as ‘cold’ a contact as might be assumed, as they are likely to already be looking for solutions.

However, moving from that point to a conversion may be a lengthy process, as they may read several reviews and seek more information as they progress down the buyer funnel. And even when they do get to the purchasing decision, this will not be swift.

Therefore, any successful B2B marketing campaign will understand that the buyer may already be clued up about the kind of products or solutions they want and that you can offer, while positive initial contact is likely to require further efforts to nudge them along.

What this means is that any marketing campaign will never be just about the initial response rates. It will be about making the most of those who do respond with effective follow-ups to lead them along the buyer journey and make successful conversions.