JMB were approached by a leading customer insight agency, based in the US, who were looking to penetrate the UK market.
With little brand recognition and no client base the challenge was to develop a new lead generation and sales & marketing initiative.
The target market was easily defined; the top 200 UK high street retailers, hotel groups and restaurants.
Our role was twofold. Firstly, to book face-2-face sales appointments for the agency’s Managing Director. And secondly, although equally importantly, to educating the market on a new way of approaching customer insight.
Historically, top brands and retailers gained customer insight via mystery shopping programmes – a dated and ineffective service in comparison to the analytical insight acquired through digital technologies. Despite retailers wanting to know what their customers were saying, very few knew how to go capture this. With the majority of them not having dedicated insight departments or knowledge of the types of software services that were now becoming available.
The JMB Approach.
JMB held several meetings with our client to fully understand our clients proposition and build a communication strategy.
Our next step was a calling campaign to identify the relevant contact, whilst bolstering brand awareness of our client and positioning as a “industry thought leader” with a view to identifying commercial opportunities and securing direct sales meetings.
Trade shows: An underutilised telemarketing opportunity.
In addition to outbound telemarketing, our Client regularly takes part in a number of industry events and JMB’s telemarketing skills have been used to optimise their at-show presence.
Trade show exhibitors and attendees were identified prior to the events and outbound calls were made to book meetings whilst at the show. JMB also followed up on leads generated by our Clients’ staff at the show, securing additional post-event meetings.
The Results.
Fast forward 7 years and our client has doubled their investment in telemarketing and lead generation activity. Meetings have been secured with a significant number of top retailers and brands, many of which converted into valuable business wins.
The impact of the sales activity is evident. Since the partnership began, our Client has grown from a small home-based operation with one member of staff, to a 50 plus team member operation with state of the art offices just outside of London.
“The JMB team has fully understood our business and continues to play a vital role in our overall sales & marketing strategy. To this extent, we have recently doubled our investment in them.
I would have no hesitation recommending the team at JMB to help you on way to making your investment in the UK successful” – Managing Director, Customer Insight Service Provider.