The Solution

Choosing a Focus

Given the competitive nature of the branding and marketing space they occupied, Lead Gen Dept felt SME Partners needed to niche down and focus on what they did best. “We consulted with them and identified that their greatest results were in the food and beverage industry,” says Addis. “Their success in that sector was tangible, and their results were amazing — in one instance alone they grew a client’s B2C channel revenue by over 10 times and they had the metrics to prove it.”

Selecting the Prospects

The way forward was clear. “My advice was to build an email campaign targeted to other F&B companies,” explains Addis. “Our team mapped out the F&B space, focusing on companies of up to 1000 employees, and identifying the decision-makers within these accounts,” he says. “Once we had the list of prospects we submitted it for approval to make sure The SME Partners agreed that every contact identified was a good fit for their services.”

As always, Lead Gen Dept went beyond merely identifying prospects. “Our team researched every individual contact so that we could add a personalised first line to every email,” explains Addis. “The goal was to find something interesting, something personal. Maybe they won an award, or they've been in business 20 years. Maybe they created a specific food and beverage product that we could comment on.”

The Power of Personalised Email

“Taking the time to research a prospect and add a personalised line to each email also dramatically improves your response rate,” explains Addis. “But it's not just the response rate that is important — it’s the strength of the responses you receive. The SME Partners’ prospects replied with in-depth details of their business situation simply because we took the extra time to compose a natural email and write something thoughtful.”