Main Subject - Business

In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, sell your offer, not your product.

This sounds like lethal advice to a sales person, and it is, to a salesperson responsible for closing sales and meeting quota. But y

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

our direct mail is not responsible for closing a sale but for opening a dialogue. Your goal with a B2B lead generation letter, postcard, dimensional mailer or email is not to persuade prospects to buy but to motivate them to resp

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

nd.

This makes perfect sense in B2B direct marketing more than anywhere else, particularly when you are selling to large companies, where:

Sales cycles are longer (months or years rather than days or weeks)

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

The buying process is more involved (gathering information on solutions, establishing specifications, requesting proposals, interviewing promising suppliers, checking trade references, testing the product, haggling over ter

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

s and price)

The buyer isn’t a person, but a committee

The costs of making a poor buying decision are usually great

Not all B2B direct marketers face these challenges, of course. One of my clients,

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

a Brazilian manufacturer of high-end women’s footwear for the North American market, is able to generate sales with a simple two-step process. The company mails a postcard to prospective business buyers (women’s fashion boutique

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

, for example), and offers a free pair when the prospect buys a case of shoes from the company website. The postcard generates the lead and the website closes the sale. Cha-ching.

But most B2B sales aren’t that simple. A

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

nd that’s why your B2B direct mail shouldn’t sell your offering, which is your product or service. It should sell your offer, which is the incentive or reason you give prospects to respond now.

CALL NOW BECAUSE . . .<

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

b>
In practical terms, what this means is that your direct mail package should offer prospects something that is so compelling, valuable and exclusive that they take action and respond. They “raise their hand,” as we say in

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

the trade, and show their interest. And they usually do that when you show, through your offer, that you can solve their problem.

“When you are responsible for generating sales leads, focus on promoting your offer as the

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

solution to your target audience’s pains before you start selling them on your company or product,” says Russell Kern in S.U.R.E.-Fire Direct Response Marketing, a book I highly recommend and sell from my website.

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

By phone, fax, email, web or mail, your prospects respond to your offer. Then you follow up with them, qualify them, sell them on the features and benefits of your offering, or nurture them until they are ready to buy.
<

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

r>

Here’s an example of selling the offer and not the offering. Every couple of months, I receive a phone call from an affable chap from Pitney Bowes. He doesn’t try to sell me an expensive digital postage meter for my office. H

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

e doesn’t tell me the mailstation^TM has a built-in scale. Or that it processes up to 20 pieces of mail per minute. Instead, he offers to let me test drive the postage meter risk-free for 60 days—and he throws in

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

$30 in free postage to make me respond then and there.

That offer would work just as well with direct mail. It’s a great lead generator because Pitney Bowes doesn’t sell the digital postage meter. That’s the offering. T

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

hey instead sell a free trial and free postage. That’s the offer.

When Pitney Bowes sells its high-volume mailing systems to larger accounts, it uses offers that match the needs of these prospects, which is not a simple

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

rial or $30 in free postage. They offer:

White papers: “Managing Content Through the Enterprise”

Case studies: “Bank of America Saves Millions in Postage and Operational Costs”

Featured articles: “Th

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

e Future of Mail”
Webinars and online presentations: “Bringing Customer Communication Into The Boardroom”

Whoever your target audience is, make your offer irresistible. And make sure your list is gold. Afte

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

all, I should respond, take the Pitney Bowes trial, use the free postage and become a long-term customer. But, even though I’ve enjoyed hearing their frequent sales pitches for the last two years, I remain a lousy prospect. But

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

that’s another topic altogether, isn’t it?
© 2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author" message)

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Main Subject - In B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation, Sell Your Offer, Not Your Offering

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