Marketing to Entrepreneurs in the UK - how you can sell products and services through email, phone, and postal marketing

You can sell your products and services to budget-holding, decision-making entrepreneurs using direct marketing.

To help you make quick sales, we want to show you why you should promote your small business using what some would consider an old-fashioned approach – direct marketing.

Let’s put aside building a brand awareness and market positioning for a moment. Instead, we want to get you to focus on three traditional marketing channels – email marketing campaigns, telemarketing campaigns, and postal campaigns.

What makes direct marketing unique

Direct marketing allows you to choose who you market to (by company type and job title), what people see, and how they receive your message. Direct marketing can lead to purchases from entrepreneurs instead of waiting for enquiries to come through your website.

You have more control over the sales process. While we live in the digital era, marketing your products and services directly to B2B decision-makers provides the best return on investment for advertising.

So why does direct marketing activity continue to be successful?

Marketing and selling to entrepreneurs using traditional marketing methods

In direct marketing, you select the product or service first. Then, you choose the audience you want to target.

Your next step is to choose the method – email, telephone, or post. Finally, you choose when the campaign runs.

You’re in control at all times. With direct marketing, you can reach entrepreneurs who may have never heard of your company directly.

The main three direct routes to market are:

• email advertising
• telephone campaigns
• postal marketing.

A successful direct marketing campaign involves several steps:

• Choose the businesses likely to become your customers,
• Find out how your product or service solves a problem or offers an opportunity to potential customers,
• Build a list of entrepreneurs with budgets to buy from you,
• Send targeted messages to entrepreneurs you want to sell to
• Follow up on your leads.

What is entrepreneurial marketing?

Marketing to entrepreneurs emphasise the opportunities offered by a particular product or service to get from point A to point B more quickly and cheaply.

Who is your audience and what should you say to them?

First step – Market research

To develop a successful direct marketing strategy, you must know what added value your products and services offer. You also need to identify any small business owner who will benefit most from this value.

Some of what you sell will appeal to businesses in a wide range of sectors, and, other times, what you sell will appeal to a very limited number of businesses. Direct marketing campaigns succeed when you identify and select those entrepreneurs who benefit the most from working with you.

We can help you identify the types of entrepreneurs for whom your product or service is highly beneficial. With lower costs and more precise targeting, your chances of receiving quality and closeable leads and your ROI go up.

What information does More Than Words hold on UK entrepreneurs?

Choose by line of business, geographical area, and company size (up to £10m turnover), we can put you in touch with:

• 212,564 entrepreneurs with our B2B email database ,
• 152,641 entrepreneurs with our B2B telemarketing data , and
• 212,564 entrepreneurs with our business to business mailing list .

Second step – Learn how your product or service solves a problem or presents entrepreneurs with an opportunity

Entrepreneurs buy the products and services of other companies only if they deliver one or more of the following:

1. Competitive advantage

What is the advantage your product or service gives entrepreneurs?

2. Cost reduction

How can you help your clients save money or become more efficient?
We need to emphasize that what you offer won’t restrain company resources or take up their free time.

3. Improved profitability

Can you offer something they already buy but at a lower price and similar quality and efficacy?

A direct marketing campaign must quickly quantify how your products and services add value to the entrepreneurs you are targeting in some way.

Third step – Separate the benefits from the features

Features are qualities a product or service has, and benefits are advantages it offers. 

Benefits are always easier for prospective customers to grasp and appreciate than features during the sales process.

However, features can be helpful for more complicated products and services marketed at technically-sophisticated audiences.

B2B marketing isn’t about selling. The message is delivered to target entrepreneurs to generate leads. After that, it’s the sales team’s job to close the deal. 

If you want the most leads from your marketing efforts, you must make the benefits clear and understandable to non-experts.

Fourth step – Build your social influence

More Than Words has helped customers find a new potential customer base across over 17,000 different companies. Through More Than Words, you can reach over 3,300,000 UK budget-holding decision-makers.

A good way to advertise to entrepreneurs is to show how your products and services helped similar businesses overcome obstacles or exploit opportunities. Your target audience will know you have the tools, the insights, the experience, and the expertise to help them.

Are you able to provide a video testimonial from customers in the same industry? 

Can you provide blog posts and case studies describing your solutions’ bespoke nature and showing that you are not a one-size-fits-all provider?

If you do, focus on reusing and repurposing those that satisfy the needs and interests of the customers you’re targeting. If you don’t have them, we can create them for you.

Finding your audience with direct B2B marketing

Types of companies

To create your direct marketing campaign, you’ll need to collect data on the entrepreneurs you’re targeting. Moreover, you can select your target entrepreneurs by location, number of employees, or turnover.

Types of buyers and how to pitch them

The owner and the business are often one and the same in the case of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial buyers might be more receptive to a pitch that demonstrates how you alleviate their problems or pain points.

Typically, an entrepreneur’s senior contact is responsible for all purchases. Decisions are often aided by the business owners. Create different marketing campaigns for business owners, finance directors, and sales directors in medium-sized or larger companies.

Choose your contact method

You should promote to entrepreneurs through all three main direct marketing channels – telemarketing, email, and postal marketing.

Digital email marketing to entrepreneurs is the most affordable and responsive of the three, followed by telemarketing and direct mail.

How to use direct marketing’s three channels

1. B2B email marketing to entrepreneurs

According to the UK Data and Marketing Association, email marketing offers an average return on investment of £42.24 on every £1 spent.

To have the greatest chance of attracting entrepreneurs, your email should include:

• a subject line which attracts attention without being too salesy,
• easy-to-read email content which includes a call to action and delivers valuable information,
• an elegant, minimalist design focused on readability and optimised for mobile.

What should I do when a marketing campaign is over?

We recommend running a report within 72 hours of the send. You will get valuable marketing insights from each report. Consider telemarketing follow up with the entrepreneurs that open your emails and click through to your website the most.

2. Successful telemarketing to entrepreneurs

According to the UK Data and Marketing Association, telemarketing returns £11 worth of turnover for every £1 spent. Telemarketing allows you to open a two-way dialogue, book appointments, and find out important marketing information on each of the businesses you reach.

When should I contact potential customers by phone?

When they’re at work. As entrepreneurs, this won’t put additional demands on their personal time. 

It’s generally easier to get in touch with business owners at the very start or end of their day. 

B2B telemarketing is particularly useful for those sectors of industry that work non-office hours.

Follow-up email containing contact and social media details

Every time you’ve spoken with a decision-maker, you should follow up with an email thanking them for their time. Your email should contain your direct contact information, and an invitation to follow you on social media.

How often should you engage with entrepreneurs by phone?

A good strategy is to stay in touch with entrepreneurs by phone at least twice a year.

3. Lead generating direct mail campaigns to your target market

The most expensive method of marketing is direct mail marketing.

Mail, on the other hand, provides something physical and of excellent quality. This opens more doors than email or telemarketing, especially for high-ticket items and content that is crucial to an entrepreneur’s success.

Postal marketing has a response rate of 4.4 percent, according to the UK Data and Marketing Association. In comparison, email marketing has an average response rate of 0.12%.

To produce new leads and revenue, how often should I employ postal mail campaigns?

Because postal mail marketing is more expensive, you should do it as often as you can afford to obtain the best results.

Even more than with email and telemarketing, you must change the message content between mailings to maintain higher returns. Copywriters and designers will be more expensive as a result.