Follow these steps to tune up your B2B marketing plan and drive new business

Goals

Determine your corporate revenue goals. I suggest you set three goals at three levels:

• Minimum
• Target
• Stretch

Determine the percentage of your company’s revenue that needs to come from new business

Next, determine the percentage of your company’s new business revenue that needs to come from marketing-generated leads

Define a “qualified sales lead” that sales and corporate management agree with

Determine how many qualified B2B sales leads are needed to meet these revenue goals

Determine how many new inquiries are needed to identify enough qualified B2B sales leads that can close during the period

Strategy

Determine the “pain” your products and services address

Determine the “pain relief” your company can provide

Determine your company’s competitive advantages and how best to articulate them

Determine the best companies and contacts to target with your lead generation efforts

Tactics

Determine where to find these companies and contacts

Determining the B2B marketing resources already available

Determine and prioritize how best to communicate with your target companies and contacts

Determine and prioritize tactics for eliciting inquiries from these companies and contacts

Determine and prioritize tactics for identifying qualified sales leads

Determine and prioritize tactics for nurturing your “not-yet-qualified” leads until they are determined to be qualified

Sales tools

Determine and prioritize the sales tools needed by your salespeople to demonstrate the pain relief offered by your company (both products and services)

Demonstrate the advantages of selecting your company instead of its competitors

Propose

Close sales

Metrics

Determine how best to measure the effectiveness of your B2B marketing programs designed to 

• Generate inquiries
• Identify qualified sales leads
• Nurture not-yet-qualified inquiries
• Provide sales tools for your salespeople

Determine how best to communicate the results of your B2B marketing programs to management

Resources and Budget

Determine the resources and budget needed to accomplish the above and meet

• Minimum goals
• Target goals
• Stretch goals

Use your B2B marketing plan to justify the budget

Get your budget approved

Implementation

Determine the best schedule of B2B marketing activities designed to

Generate a steady stream of qualified sales opportunities and sales tools for your salespeople

Generate some short-term results to demonstrate competence and ROI

Determine resources needed to implement these activities

Assign responsibilities

Start implementing!

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