Do you know the cost of getting yourself or your senior salespeople in front of a decision-maker to pitch your value proposition? Post-COVID, target prospects are not as eager to meet in person or attend trade shows. To engage prospects these days, you have to be able to get in front of them via digital channels. This can be hard. Pinning down target prospects for a 30-minute demo is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive, but it’s essential for driving sales in many businesses.
Calculating the Cost
Calculating the cost to get in front of target prospects is pretty straightforward. As part of their lead generation strategy, most companies use Business Development or Sales Development Reps to curate lists and reach out to book meetings with cold targets. So how much does it cost you to get in front of a qualified target prospect for 30 minutes? For a rough cost estimate, simply divide the average number of meetings each SDR books by their monthly salary. Figuring out the cost per meeting generated by your marketing efforts can be a little trickier. Regardless, the cost to book 30-minute demos or drive a target prospect action like downloading a free trial can be substantial. Depending on what you are selling, the cost can vary. I have seen SaaS companies selling enterprise solutions pay anywhere from $500 per booked meeting to as much as $2000.
Addressing Budget Constraints
These growing costs are putting downward pressure on lead generation budgets, making it harder for Sales VPs to deliver sales within these constraints. In this article, I am going to outline an effective strategy to get people to take action quickly. I learned this while working with some of the largest consumer brands in the world, with the biggest budgets and some of the most advanced digital marketing teams. It was quite simple really: we learned that if you incentivize people to take action, they will. The larger the incentive, the more people will act. This is the driving principle behind rewards programs. They are ubiquitous because they work.
Implementing Incentives
You may not have the budget to launch a complex rewards program for your B2B SaaS targets, but you can still incentivize target prospects to act. Whether it’s to book a 30-minute demo, register for a webinar, download an app, or enroll in a free trial, if you provide an incentive to act, people will respond.
How Much to Incentivize
How much do you have to incentivize target prospects to book a meeting with you or take some other action? That depends on your target prospects’ demographics. If you are a typical SaaS company trying to get decision makers to act, you will have a significant budget for incentives. If you are paying your SDRs $50k per year and they book an average of 10 meetings per month, it is costing you at least $500 to book a meeting. That is a lot to work with. If you double the number of meetings the average SDR books by offering a $100 gift card (“to buy lunch for the team while they listen to the pitch…”) then your costs go from $500 per meeting to $350. That is significant.
The Effectiveness of Incentives
Do incentives work? What is the quality of target prospects that book a meeting with you for a $100 incentive? What about the people who just show up for the $100? These are important questions that global consumer brands face as well when offering rewards to consumers for buying. Yes, you do get some people who are not great prospects, but the reason why consumer rewards programs are alive and growing is because they work. The key is to target the right prospects with the offer. Providing a high-value incentive can differentiate you and be the catalyst to get your target prospects to act now!
By strategically using incentives, you can supercharge your lead generation efforts and make your sales process more efficient. Whether it’s a gift card, swag, or another form of reward, the key is to provide something of value that will prompt your target prospects to take action.
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About Rob Craig
Rob has spent his career entering cold markets in the U.S. and Canada to establish recurring revenue models and sell SaaS-based enterprise software and solutions to Fortune 500 companies and SMBs. He has founded and built four successful, sales-centric tech start-ups, including Stratford Technologies, ActiveStream, 3 Tier Logic, and AutoNow.
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