Getting Started Managing Suspects in BCM

Let's start discussing some of the implementation details for converting suspects into prospects.

By definition, suspects are people who don't know us. From an implementation standpoint, this means we cannot solicit them via e-mail. Direct mail (letters & postcards) and telephone calls are the primary tools I use for contacting suspects.

In an earlier post, I outlined my process for converting suspects into prospects as:

1. Contact each suspect 3 times via direct mail
2. Contact remaining suspects via telephone.

The goal of each of these contacts is to determine whether or not the suspect is interested in my services. The way they indicate their interest is to request a free marketing report - 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success.

Your first step will be to obtain a list of suspects that match your ideal customer profile. You may purchase a list from a list broker, such as infoUSA. When looking for suspect lists, don't overlook the many free resources that are available at your public library.

Once you have a suspect list, you may want to import it into your CRM package. I find that the value you get from importing your list into Business Contact Manager (BCM) depends on several factors. Don't assume you have to import your list.

If you outsource your direct mail production, it may not make sense to import your suspect list into BCM. If you are producing your own direct mail pieces, importing them into BCM will allow you to create address labels, personalized letters via mail merge, etc.

Another advantage to importing your list is that you can indicate that you don't want to import duplicate records. This can help prevent sending direct mail to someone you disqualified in a previous campaign.

At the end of the day, you want to know:

1. Who you contacted
2. How you contacted them (what you sent them)
3. When you contacted them
4. What was the result?
5. When was the decision made? If they became a prospect, when did that happen? After the 1st contact or after the 3rd?

It is often easier to keep track of the macro information about a campaign (items 1,2, and 3) outside of BCM - particularly if you are outsourcing your direct mail and\or telemarketing.

It makes sense to track information about individual conversions (new prospects) in BCM. In BCM, you can use the "Initiated By" field to link a marketing campaign to a new prospect or opportunity. Tracking when the conversion took place is a little trickier and will depend somewhat on how we set up our campaigns in BCM.

In my next post in this series, I'll cover the different options available for setting up campaigns in BCM.