Ed Trachier, Founder and CEO
OnTarget Partners

Marketing to the top is not easy.

CEO marketing requires unrelenting patience and tenacity.  It also forces marketers to be at the top of their game at all times, understanding that powerful executives expect nothing less and often demand more.

I have been in the CEO marketing business for over 20 years now.  I suggest to new prospects and clients of OnTarget’s services that I have learned a lot more from my failures than my successes; the scars on my back enable me to be that much more successful (for them) today!

So, what have I learned about CEO marketing over this time?  Several things that may have an impact on how you approach selling to CEOs in the future:

CEOs are interested in solutions that help their companies become more effective and efficient.  They want to cut costs and increase revenue.  They are required to spend time on strategic initiatives that make the company better in the future.  They are expected to be visionaries and motivators, with great communication abilities and unwavering integrity.

CEOs are paid to make the right decisions quickly.  This does not mean that they do not do their homework; it means that they tend to say “no” much more readily than the average corporate buyer.  They process better.  They know what they need based on experience and talent, and if your offering does not create the value they require, you will be shown the door quickly.

I have written many times about “Demand Discovery” versus “Demand Creation”.  At no place in corporate buying decisions is demand discovery more important than the c-suite.

Therefore, studying and reading prior to marketing to a company CEO is paramount.

If you understand where the leader is looking to take the company, it is much easier to see where your solution fits in that journey.

Google the CEO and the company.  Do an advanced search and see what has been written in the past month.  (Not long ago, we at OnTarget would spend hours reading 10-ks and quarterlies prior to picking up the phone.  Now, information is at our fingertips with a quick online search).  Go to the company website and read the recent press releases.  Read the blog, specifically the “CEO’s Blog” if there is one.  Watch videos and listen to the podcasts produced by the CEO.

What are you looking for while studying and reading?  Trigger events that make your solution attractive to the CEO.

Look for situations, issues, and opportunities that match success stories and case studies for your company’s solutions.  If these exist, you may have just discovered demand.

Build your value proposition to highlight your solution in such a way that the CEO knows immediately the value you can bring to the table.  Maybe start with a dimensional mailing (FedEx works the best).  Send an email to support your phone call, and then coordinate an in-person meeting when it makes sense.  Don’t “sell”, rather, “market”.  Inform, prove and be honest.  The CEO will appreciate your candor and if your offerings match up to his or her vision, you may be on your way to a fabulous, long-term business relationship.

-Ed

Ed Trachier is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners, LLC.  He can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

What is the best way to clean data, and move over into a new CRM? Yes, it is a question that marketing professionals have struggled with for decades. In examining your current sales data, it is critically important to take a holistic view of all of your data. What records are still valid? What is the current corporate structure? Have any mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures occurred? What about name changes? Are the target contacts still at the company and how has their role likely to have changed and to what? Data cleansing must precede your CRM implementation.

Unfortunately, there are no short-cuts to this process. What is needed is a systematic, repeatable, accurate, and verified process to assure the highest accuracy possible. With so many other responsibilities, and tasks, it is highly unlikely that a company should attempt, or will succeed, in handling this function without outside help. You need a company with experience to assist – allowing your marketing team to think strategically, and freeing-up your sales teams to focus on filling their sales pipeline, and closing the deals “closest to the cash.”

-Ed

Ed Trachier can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com

Ed Trachier, Founder and CEO
OnTarget Partners

As an insider, I have a unique perspective of outsourced B2B marketing and sales companies.  Competitors of OnTarget Partners generally fall into four categories:

1. Full service boutiques

2. Pay for performance appointment setting firms

3. Onshore/offshore telesales organizations

4. Market and marketing research companies

Generally, the clients we work with have a good grasp of the markets they operate in, and have a robust marketing department with qualified and capable people.  Offshoring is usually not an option, as the typical target contact we develop is in the c-suite or at the VP level.  Also, our clients are not looking for “meetings” or “appointments”, but, rather, true and qualified sales opportunities with the right prospects at the right time.

OnTarget is a full service boutique.  We pride ourselves on offering extreme customer service and excellent results that will consistently produce marketing spend ROI.  When choosing a partner in the outsourced b2b marketing and sales space, OnTarget and our clients believe full service is the only way to go.

-Ed

Ed Trachier can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com

Ed Trachier, Founder and CEO
OnTarget Partners

No doubt, establishing a good market penetration strategy is a complex task.  Whether you are entering a new vertical or a new geographic market, building a solid foundation in the form of a strategic plan is extremely important.

When I advise my clients regarding market penetration, I tell them three things: Research; research; research.

Start with market research and begin to understand where it is you will be going.  If secondary research information is available and adequate, use that.  If you have an internal market research department, get them involved early and often.  If you need outside help, talk to someone like OnTarget.

Next, you will need to understand your targets from both a company and contact perspective.  Who will be buying, and why?  What will motivate them?  Who has the budget?  Where is the pain?  Exploring all of these factors will take some serious time and energy, but will be worth it in the end.

Finally, as you begin to roll out your marketing program, be watchful and fluid.  If you see that something is working, do more of it.  If not, stop.

Research is the key when you are establishing a market penetration strategy.  As Dr. Carl Sagan is known to have said: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known”.

-Ed

Ed Trachier can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

Do you have a contact data problem?

Do you have outdated marketing lists?

Do you need better sales leads?

OnTarget deals with contact data daily, and updates and appends marketing contacts for our clients.  We can work within a client’s CRM (offering CRM data cleansing services), or can transfer data via FTP or in CSV.  (If these acronyms are confusing, don’t sorry, we can help!).

One of the things that drive sales forces and marketing teams crazy is the e-mails that are returned for non-delivery.  Bad contact data are a waste of time and money.

We have found that large-scale contact data providers offer data that is 70% correct.  That means three in ten records in inaccurate or incomplete!

Perhaps there is a better answer…

Let OnTarget Partners do the work for you.

OnTarget is not just another 3^rdparty lead generating company; not in the slightest.  OnTarget doesn’t merely skim the surface of company personnel rosters with hasty searches using three key words. OnTarget digs deep, analyzing connections between companies, and – more importantly- between people. Using personal contact and specialized search techniques designed for our company in addition to modern “digital age” social media connections, allows OnTarget to maintain accurate and thorough leads. What good is the name and number of someone in purchasing for a company, if that person doesn’t have the authority to make decisions about purchases? A company that seeks to survive or, even better, to survive and thrive, needs to maintain accurate marketing data – with specific names, numbers, titles, relationships and more. Our lead generation is truly OnTarget. Keep those contact lists intact and updated, and let OnTarget do the dirty work for you!

To learn more about our data cleansing and custom research please visit: http://www.ontargetpartners.com/customresearch.html

If you need up-to-date and accurate prospect contact information, you’ve come to the right place…

Ed Trachier, CEO

Researching prospective clients can have many names.  Some companies call it “account research”.  Some companies call it “account mapping”.  Even others call it “account discovery”.

Whatever it is called, I call it IMPORTANT!

Knowing who you are targeting at a contact level is as important as which companies you are targeting.  The decision-makers, influencers and champions of your solution(s) need to be known in order to develop and express the most powerful value proposition possible. 

Connections that exist, trigger events that have happened, and historical decisioning may all be available with a little research.

So, you have to have the time for these processes in order to maximize success.  If you don’t have this time, call OnTarget.  We can help.

-Ed Trachier

Ed Trachier is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners.  He can be reached at 214-618-4960, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

We often hear the expression that the most important words in real estate are location, location, and location.  At OnTarget Partners we have decided that 3 of our most important words are qualified, qualified, and qualified – especially in regards to the leads we generate.  We take B2B lead qualification very seriously and understand that generating quality leads ultimately results in subsequent and successful business for our clients.  Qualified leads comprise one of the most critical factors in successful B2B campaigns.  Lead quantity is important as well since a campaign certainly needs a steady supply of high-quality leads in order to be effective.

So, what makes a lead more than just a lead?  Our process begins with thorough and intensive research at OnTarget Partners.  We determine which contacts should be targeted, based on the type of marketing campaign.  We analyze contacts for each prospective company in which our client has interest.  Our research analysts can then determine who should be the key decision-maker and buyer for our clients’ solutions.  We will then take it a step further by also analyzing other contacts within their organization who may be influential to the main decision makers.

The B2B lead qualification process then continues with verifying and testing.  Contacts are confirmed in regards to their employment status, titles, phone numbers and email addresses.  Only after a contact has been analyzed and completely verified will it be added to a campaign.  When the campaign is completely filled with an adequate number of qualified targets, our opportunity developers are then prepared to hit the phones with their robust lists of data.

Would you like to learn more about our custom research and prospecting services?  Our CEO, Ed Trachier, is very knowledgeable in helping companies achieve their lead generation goals.  Find out how we can help you, too,  here.

Jennifer Hanford is Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget and can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

I recently had the opportunity to hear and learn a wonderful story. The story is one of opportunities found…then lost. We have all been there and maybe this story holds true for you as well.
This is the story as I heard it:
When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.
The book wasn’t very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the Touchstone!
The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.
So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.
He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold – throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.
The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about mid-afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along he still threw it away. ~Author Unknown ~
Oops. So it often is with opportunity.
The opportunity developers at OnTarget Partners want to make sure you are not casting away your golden opportunities. Our Associates are experts at making consultative cold calls to executives at every level and in virtually every industry and marketplace to identify opportunities with the highest probability for your organization to close.
Is your business searching for its own “Touchstone”? Are there opportunities out there that you would rather not lose? We would love to hear more about your company and the “pure gold” you are searching for. Please check us out at http://www.ontargetpartners.com/customprospecting.html to see how we can help you in your search.

Jennifer Hanford is Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget Partners, and can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

Books, books, books — love them or not, they are a part of your life! From your first days in school until your last day on earth. Even if you don’t read, someone you know does. Just go to your local library or bookstore and see for yourself that there is no shortage of:
1. Books or
2. People who read books
Borders Group filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and recently announced plans to close and/or sell its stores and/or liquidate. I have to wonder if one of the reasons for their demise was their lack of innovation. Barnes & Noble came out with the Nook; Amazon.com came out with the Kindle; Borders came up with nothing of the sort – unless you count the Kobo (which is debatable). There are rumors out there that books as we know them today will become a thing of the past. I agree that this is probably true since the world seems to be going paperless at an astronomical rate.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to stay ahead of the game. Something that may have seemed like a crazy idea a few years ago could be the next best thing. A person can no longer think of ideas as impossibilities…anything is possible. If nothing else, you can find a good book to read…or download.
We have a group of researchers here at OnTarget Partners who stay on top of the latest events in the business world that could impact not only the overall marketing environment — but also the marketing environment of your company and customers. Would you like to find out more? You can check us out at http://www.ontargetpartners.com/customresearch.html.

-Jennifer Hanford is a Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget Partners.

Have you ever “googled” yourself?  Your company?  Chances are that the research team at OnTarget Partners has!  It’s truly amazing what you can dig up on the Internet these days….you can find out all sorts of stuff about people and places that you never have thought of finding out, until you find it.  Research is truly the foundation…and the heart of…market penetration strategy.  Knowing who you should be reaching out to certainly has importance, but having some knowledge beyond that name is simply invaluable.

The research team at OnTarget takes pride in not only finding the data that our clients specifically request, but we often go above and beyond by using our own unique system.  It goes back to finding out the stuff that you would never have thought about finding out, until you find it.  Sure, there are plenty of firms out there that sell (outdated) lists of names with phone numbers and email addresses.

But, how many of those lists can tell you that the CEO of “XYZ Company” went to college with the Board of Directors of “ABC Incorporated”?

Can those other lists tell you that the CFO of such & such Fortune 500 company has identical twins attending college on a merit-based scholarship?

I don’t think so!

That’s one of the things that sets our research apart.

Our research contains not only what our clients need, but we can also go an extra step (or 10) to find out additional information.  On top of it all, our researchers really enjoy what we do and have fun digging through the layers of the internet to learn more.  We seem to learn something new everyday….sometimes more than we bargained for!

Our clients use the marketing intelligence we offer to help them get ahead in their marketplaces, increase their revenues, and improve upon their due diligence.  We can provide you with the custom research and contact data — wouldn’t your organization benefit from the additional knowledge we can offer by having a robust list to use within your market penetration strategy?   That’s what we’re here for – we can find it for you!

-Jennifer Hanford is a Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget Partners.