Contract training units looking to increase sales have ramped up their marketing efforts. The goal of contract training marketing is lead generation and with the contract training lead:contract ratio benchmark at 4:1, generating leads is very important.
The following are key contract training marketing actions:
- Contract training units spend 0-5 percent of their budget on marketing because contract training is about relationship building which is not normally generated through integrated marketing efforts, but instead salespeople. But a contract training unit should be budgeting and spend some money on marketing each year.
- Sales Kit. A contract training unit must have a sale kit. It may never be read by your clients, but you must be able to drop something off. Use folders where you can insert targeted materials. Money spent on having different client-targeted sales kit covers is a good strategy. A sales kit being used for health contracts should look like health. The goal of your sales kit is to highlight your capabilities, credibility and ability to customize.
- 50 percent of your business should be repeat, 25 percent referral and 25 percent cold call, so it is important to think of marketing activities in these three buckets. What are you doing to stay connected with repeat clients? What are you doing to get existing clients to make referrals? What are you doing to generate new leads?
- Unlike open enrollment course programming, your contract training website or webpage does not have to be supported by online registration. Allowing clients access to a transcript of training they have done in the past would be good. The website or webpage should be designed to demonstrate capability, credibility and the ability to customize. Use videos. Use white papers. Use testimonials. Have examples of the services you provide. Share national and local trends that demonstrate your expertise.
- Digital Media. You should have a documented plan for your eMarketing and social media. Make sure the look is consistent with your website or webpage and sales kit. The more targeted by industry your digital marketing, the better. Have some fun with your digital media. The goal is to get present and potential clients to read and link to your website or webpage.
- One of your greatest lead generation tools is content. Included with your digital media and on your website or webpage should be content demonstrating your expertise. You could be generating the content. Your subject matter experts could be providing content. You could repurpose content. When sharing content have the person reading/downloading the content provide their name and email address. At the least they should be added to drip campaigns, so you can stay in touch with more content.
- Unique Selling Proposition. Work with your present clients to identify what makes your contract training unit different and better from the competition. Develop a slogan and/or list of key benefits. Make sure to pound home your uniqueness in as many ways as you can – in your signatures, on the back of placards, when you answer the phone, and so on.
Lead generation is the action or process of identifying and cultivating potential clients for your products and services. After surveying successful contract training units, the following lead generation best practices were identified:
- Make sure salespeople understand part of their job is getting referrals. It should be part of their scorecard.
- Past Clients. Analyze past clients to help identify other similar-type clients. Work researching and discovering potential new leads is important.
- Review open enrollment course registrations to determine companies that pay for employees to attend open enrollment courses.
- Bring in free speakers, offer free webinars, and schedule Breakfasts with the President. Breakfasts should be by invitation-only. Less potential clients attending is better than more.
- Become members of the various community groups like the Chamber of Commerce and network. Hopefully you or one of your subject matter experts can present from time-to-time. Don’t make the presentation about you, but instead about something they need to be doing to be successful.
- For $X a year, let present and potential clients purchase seats at soft skill trainings you hold each month normally for two hours in the morning. If 10 seats are purchased, they can be used all at one time or spread out over multiple months. Use the trainings to demonstrate expertise and to discover how best to make inroads into the various potential clients’ decision-makers.
- Inside Salesperson. If you really want to be successful with contract training unit marketing have one person serve as your inside salesperson and one of his/her duties should be marketing.
When you build your annual one-year business plan, make sure to include your market plan – the actions you are taking to generate leads.