Sample B2B Sales and Marketing Plan

I wrote this business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing plan a while back. All identifying information has been redacted. I hope you find it useful!

Contents

Introduction

Objectives

Core Values

Timeline of Goals

Competitor Analysis

Guzzle

Entertainer

Zomato Gold

SWOT Analysis

Value Proposition

Packages

Silver
Gold
Platinum

Gamification

REDACTED Pitch

Comparison between REDACTED and print/web advertising

Print
Web
Facebook and Instagram
Twitter
Summary

Sales Process

Step 1 – Lead Generation

Step 2 – Initial Contact

Step 3 – Pitch

Step 4 – Follow-up

Conclusion

Introduction

REDACTED is a free smartphone app that helps users find the best deals and events at local bars and clubs. The goal of this report is to develop REDACTED into a B2B sales product to generate revenue from establishments and not the end users, thus keeping the app both free and subscription free.

Business to business sales are different than business to consumer sales. While consumers are often influenced by emotion, professional buyers are most interested in the return on investment. More simply put, if you can convince the buyer that buying your product or service will make money for the business they work for, the sale will proceed if they are currently authorized to buy.

Objectives

The main objectives of this plan is for REDACTED to sign monthly contracts with 10, 50 and then 100 local establishments. This will generate a consistent monthly revenue stream. A large part of the success of the app for B2B sales and monthly renewals will be app installs. These objectives and goals are listed in the separate REDACTED Timeline PowerPoint.

Initially I recommend we go after smaller/independent bars/hotels/clubs as they will have less resistance to buying and their buying functions will be in-house. They also have a much more difficult time advertising. We can think of them as a warmup to large restaurants and hotels with buying and marketing functions separate from their actual bar operations.

Core Values

REDACTED’s team abides by three core values which are important for businesses to know—it shapes our interactions with them:

#1 Value – “The extent to which a good or service is perceived by its customer to meet his or her needs or wants, measured by customer’s willingness to pay for it. It commonly depends more on the customer’s perception of the worth of the product than on its intrinsic value.”

The team at REDACTED’s #1 goal is to deliver value through ensuring the core functions of the application are completely free. Revelerse pay enough to socialize in Dubai already so why should they  have to pay for a subscription to an application as well? REDACTED remaining free will help it overtake its competitors.

#2 Gamification – “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.”

REDACTED is not just an app to claim deals with. We at REDACTED have huge plans to integrate gamification into our bar-hopping users’ experience.  Gameification is the next step in the evolution of tech and socializing with alcohol.

#3 Social Community – “A community is commonly considered a social unit (a group of people) who have something in common, such as norms, values, or identity. Often—but not always—communities share a sense of place that is situated in a given geographical area.”

Known as Redacteds (Retacted), the REDACTED community gets exclusive privileges for being members. These include drinks and entertainment offers, weekly newsletters showing all the best deals and the ability to access the complete range of future functions of the REDACTED application. Can you afford to not be involved when your competitors are?

Timeline of Goals

(See REDACTED Timeline document)

Competitor Analysis

Guzzle

  • All 2 for 1 deals—Guzzle is subsidizing the users through their membership
  • Offers separate advertising packages
  • Expensive for businesses to advertise through
  • Paid membership option for users makes it more like Groupon

Entertainer

  • All 2 for 1 deals
  • Multiple categories
  • Offers generally require two people to redeem
  • Complex PIN system
  • $30 a month paid membership (low end)
    • https://www.theentertainerme.com/products2017

Zomato Gold

  • Double 2 for 1 deals
  • $30 for 3 month membership

SWOT Analysis

  • Strengths
    • Useful app—saves money for the consumer
    • App users are ready to drink
    • Potential upside for bars that advertise through it is large
    • Free
    • Small team can implement changes and feedback from B2B partners quickly
  • Weaknesses
    • No established brand yet
    • Small team
    • Capital
    • Small user base
  • Opportunities
    • Low competition in target market
    • Developing market
    • Growth industry
    • Competitors are very expensive and limiting
  • Threats
    • Packaged travel/drink/deals
    • Competitors with a larger customer base
    • Local laws

Value Proposition

Becoming part of the #Redacted community is the easiest and most cost-effective way to grow the number of customers at your bar during happy hour and events. REDACTED has a clear ROI—active purchasers are directly presented with the opportunity to redeem a deal or take advantage of special pricing. REDACTED’s users are in the area and actively looking to drink. This gives REDACTED a large advantage over traditional advertising methods. In fact, REDACTED costs half as much per impression as traditional print, web and social media advertising in Dubai with a definite, provable user intent.

Packages

Silver

The entry level tier, silver starts at $299 per month. This package includes a basic listing in the REDACTED database and limited social media marketing. The limited social media marketing includes one customized, promotional post to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It also includes an offer post to those social media channels once a month as well.

For this package level the establishment will only receive analytics on the number of REDACTED users who were at or nearby, and on a monthly basis. Higher package levels include more advanced analytics. This level also does not include customized offers in-app. It is possible we can put in a standard redemption for this tier—this will cut down on implementation time for these establishments. Perhaps a 2 for 1 redemption, fixed price discount off of a drink or a well drink for a certain price—we will have to speak to bar managers to see what is cost effective for everyone.

I recommend that this tier includes a “free” social media and marketing evaluation of approximately 30 minutes. We can use this information to try to upsell them to the Gold tier with a customized offer.

Requirements for the bar:

A high-quality image and short description of the establishment. All business social media profiles. Also, all updated contact information, hours, happy hour times, men’s night times, ladies’ night times and quiz times.

Gold

The mid-tier plan, gold starts at $999 per month. This package includes everything the silver package does plus more. Four promotional posts to twitter, Facebook and Instagram a month. Also, four exclusive REDACTED offer posts to the same social media channels. Includes inclusion in a monthly REDACTED email. This offer/plan feature includes the analytics from the gold plan, showing traffic to the bar and local area plus a monthly report on the number of offer redemptions.

This plan can be customized to include marketing features from the platinum plan but the platinum plan only can fit 4 establishments a month. As REDACTED grows in popularity, prices will have to rise for the platinum and custom gold plans.

Requirements for the bar:

Three high-quality images and short description of the establishment. All business social media profiles. An exclusive offer for REDACTED to promote and REDACTED users to redeem in-app. REDACTED will need a week’s notification if the offer will be updated. Also, all updated contact information, hours, happy hour times, men’s night times, ladies’ night times and quiz times.

Platinum

The highest tier, platinum starts at $1,499 per month. This is the highest-level package and can be customized for an additional fee. Includes everything the silver and gold plans do plus more. Features eight social media promotion and eight social media exclusive REDACTED offers posts to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram per month, spread out. Includes inclusion in a monthly REDACTED email. This plan also places the establishment on the REDACTED home page at all times—making it a highly effective advertising solution. Finally, this plan features interviewing the bar and writing a featured blog post about it that then goes on the REDACTED website.

Requirements for the bar:

Three high-quality images and short description of the establishment. All business social media profiles. An exclusive offer for REDACTED to promote and REDACTED users to redeem in-app. REDACTED will need a week’s notification if the offer will be updated. Also, all updated contact information, hours, happy hour times, men’s night times, ladies’ night times and quiz times.

Gamification

A key part of REDACTED’s success will be gamification. For each redeemed offer, we should only reward the user with “points” if they share their progress on social media—redeeming a reward would require the user to choose a social media platform in-app and then successfully post that they’ve redeemed an offer with REDACTED. Only then will they get their points. We should track both current point balance and lifetime point earnings. I suggest we use something like 100 points per offer redeemed. Points can also be redeemed by reviewing an establishment. Every 1000 points would then be redeemable for a special offer through one of our gold or platinum plan business partners. As we develop relationships with local establishments, we can start to create events that award points for visiting a certain number of bars in an area in a “crawl.”

A level-up system will also be at play:

  • Level 1—Novice 0-1000 lifetime points
  • Level 2—Apprentice 1000-5000 lifetime points and one point redemption
  • Level 3—Journeyman 5000-10000 lifetime points and three point redemptions
  • Level 4—Expert 10000-20000 lifetime points and 10 point redemptions
  • Level 5—Master 20000+ lifetime points

Whenever a user reaches a new level, they have the option to post to social media. Users’ lifetime points earnings can also set them in competition with each other if user ranking system is setup. Special badges can be earned for specific actions like visiting all the bars in a certain area.

Each of the posts to social media from the app for point related activities automatically create a link back to the REDACTED.ae homepage and tag the business in the post along with REDACTED.

The gamification should follow certain principles: “Take the “Ten Ingredients of Great Games” identified by Reeves and Read [58]: Self representation with avatars; three-dimensional environments; narrative context; feedback; reputations, ranks, and levels; marketplaces and economies; competition under rules that are explicit and enforced; teams; parallel communication systems that can be easily configured; time pressure. Each of these elements can be found outside of games, and taken in isolation, none of them would be readily identified as ‘gameful’, let alone gamespecific.”

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30609294/MindTrek_Gamification_PrinterReady_110806_SDE_accepted_LEN_changes_1.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1493099686&Signature=Df1rzpYpRZS5UpYhAiPAgbNVDaA%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFrom_game_design_elements_to_gamefulness.pdf

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/introducing-game-mechanics-for-gamification

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/measuring-the-mechanics-in-gamification

http://uxmag.com/articles/a-gamification-framework-for-interaction-designers

REDACTED Pitch

Bars lose money when they are not busy—REDACTED is the solution. Cheaper and more effective than print, web or social media advertising, REDACTED also brings gamification of nightlife to the table. The virtual bar crawl is real. The company’s core values—value, gamification and community—make REDACTED a valuable partner in the Dubai tech, advertising and hospitality/entertainment/nightlife space. Bars can be tech companies too now—technology is the key to get ahead in Dubai’s crowded market and make your bar or nightclub stand out. The ubiquity of smartphones makes this possible.

Every 10 additional patrons a bar receives a day that average 3 drinks (at $15 a drink) can add up to an additional $450 a day in revenue. Multiply that by a month and you get $4,500. A year adds up to $164,250. Change the number to an additional 30 drinkers a day and the math adds up to $492,750. Can your bar afford to pass up half a million in annual revenue?

Key points:

  • Gamification—tech can set your bar apart and amplify your social reach
  • $500,000 in potential yearly revenue from only an additional 30 patrons a day
  • Lowest advertising rate–~700% lower than print and 300% lower than web advertising
  • REDACTED is bespoke advertising with user intent for bars in Dubai
  • Specials redemption does not require a complicated PIN
  • Assistance with social media marketing

Comparison between REDACTED and print/web advertising

Print

With print prices starting at around $2,500 per week, print advertising in Dubai is very expensive. In fact it works out to nearly 700% more than advertising with REDACTED on a platinum plan.

Web

Web advertising in Dubai works out even higher–$65 CPM with no user intent or targeting except English. For comparison, with 80,000 home screen views per month in REDACTED at $1,499 with the platinum package, works out to an $18.75 CPM with user intent.

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook and Instagram work out to $0.79 CPM for men and women 21+ in Dubai. However there is no user intent and you cannot advertise drink specials on Facebook in Dubai.

Twitter

Advertising on Twitter can be cheaper at $8.00 CPM for people in Dubai who understand English but there is still no user intent.

Summary

The difference between advertising in print, radio, tv, web, etc. and advertising via REDACTED is user intent—people using REDACTED are looking for a bar to go to. People seeing an ad are not.

10,000 installs used 8 times a month, each = 80,000 launch impressions of the 4 landing page bars.

I am against using a PPC model at least in the first 3 months of the B2B sales as they will not pay nearly as much as CPM deals. Charging for impressions is generally more profitable than charging for clicks. At 10,000 app installs and 8 uses per month per install, the CPM for the platinum bars is $18.75. Estimating that the click-through-rate for a bar on the home screen is 10% (not especially higher or low for PPC advertising and we are charging $0.10 per click, with 80,000 impressions available our monthly revenue only works out to $800 this way. Charging by CPM, we are also charging for just seeing the bar’s picture and name. With only 4 platinum launch partners this should be good.

References:

http://www.thenational.ae/advertise-with-us

http://www.thenational.ae/business/media/big-advertising-billboards-make-a-comeback-in-dubai

http://www.thenational.ae/assets/otherimages/The-National-Digital-Rate-Card-2017.pdf

http://blog.digitalnexa.com/the-cost-of-social-media-marketing-in-dubai-abu-dhabi-and-doha

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/advertise

http://www.shura.com/blog/2017/03/how-much-does-it-cost-to-advertise-in-dubai.html

http://leadsdubai.com/advertising-business-in-dubai-uae-is-it-working/

http://leadsdubai.com/advertising-in-dubai-return-on-investment-roi/

http://www.cpimediagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Network_MediaPack_2010.pdf

Sales Process

This section outlines the REDACTED sales process. Replicable results are key to hitting the 50 and 100 B2B contracts goal numbers.

Step 1 – Lead Generation

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/REDACTED

The lead generation process can start with importing all the bars currently in the REDACTED database into the Google Doc. Then contact information needs to be filled in – the bar manager’s name, email, phone, and mailing address.

Step 2 – Initial Contact

An initial introductory sales letter is the best way to break the ice and introduce REDACTED. See the REDACTED Sales Letter Word document.

After the introductory letter is sent, a follow-up email is sent a week later introducing the salesperson and trying to get an in-person meeting. A week after that, a phone call to the establishment is then done to try to contact them directly. If still no response then that the establishment is placed on the back of the list with their non-response or objections noted.

The first step when setting up a meeting is to find out who is authorized to buy. Who at the establishment can actually sign the contract with REDACTED. Sometimes you will have to talk to more than one person to a) find out who is authorized to buy and b) get an opportunity to actually talk to them. No one wants to bother their boss to listen to a sales pitch unless they think it is a legitimate opportunity.

Once you have actually made contact with someone authorized to sign a contract with REDACTED, the real sales pitch can begin. However even the best sales pitch in the world will not work if the buyer is not currently authorized to buy. Perhaps they exhausted their advertising budget this month or quarter already. Or they are on a buying hold. If that is the case we should note in the B2B sales spreadsheet what the problem was and when they will be open to buy again.

Step 3 – Pitch

This is when the sales pitch is made in person with the sales deck—preferably on an iPad. After starting the pitch to the buyer, look for the moment to close the sale. Discover their aversion to buying (signing a contract) from REDACTED. Assure them and reiterate the ROI that REDACTED offers. Can they really miss an opportunity to potentially increase net revenue by $500,000 a year? Once you feel like they are open to the idea of buying from REDACTED, start a soft close—ask them what they think of REDACTED and if it will fulfill their needs. If they don’t start backpedaling, then it is time to close. Present them with the contact for the package level they are most interested in and start filling it out and giving them the list of things they need to provide.

Step 4 – Follow-up

If a sale is not made after the pitch, this is where a follow-up email or letter is sent. Then the establishment is sent to the back of the sales list and another follow-up can be done in 3 months.

If a sale is made after the pitch, the implementation process begins. The establishment needs to provide the images, text, social media account information, offers etc. that their package plan requires. Then the staff needs to be trained on what REDACTED is and how it works. Once all those steps are done and the establishment is added to the REDACTED database, then the deal can begin. Basic account management also has to be done.

Conclusion

Through gamification to amplify establishment’s social media presences, redeemable specials, and very low advertising rates with user intent, REDACTED is in a position to succeed with B2B sales and be a vital part of local drinking establishment’s marketing mixes.

The key will be to make sure enough bars are contacted to hit the sales goals. Probably at least 10 bars will need to be pitched to make one sale. This means about 1000 bars will need to be contacted to hit the 100 sales goal. A slow, steady, replicable process will win the race. Focus should be how by attracting only 10 more customers a day, a platinum REDACTED plan has a nearly 700% return on investment. This is a very realistic goal when the user number hits 10,000.

Mont Cessna on LinkedinMont Cessna on Twitter
Mont Cessna
Mont has 10+ years experience in digital marketing. Experienced with LAMP, CMS and HTML5/CSS3 website development, Mont also excels at math and C/C++/C#. He has managed multi-million dollar media buys though Outbrain, Facebook, Taboola, Yahoo Native, Google AdWords and a number of other display advertising vendors. Mont's written work has regularly appeared on the first page of Google News results and the homepage of Yahoo! He has a B.Sc. in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Drexel University.