Achieved a 30% conversion rate to
business negotiations by acquiring
leads aimed at developing new business areas.

We interviewed Mr. Ryuta Yamaguchi, a team that plays the role of inside sales at the company, and Mr. Kazuki Arai, a marketing department, about the measures and results that the company has taken to acquire potential customers.

――What kind of organizational structure and division of roles does Vector Japan develop in sales and marketing activities?

Mr. Yamaguchi: Vector Japan has traditionally conducted sales activities as field sales by asking existing customers, mainly in the automobile industry, for their needs and proposing solutions.

Nowadays, we have added a role generally called inside sales, and in cooperation with the marketing department, we are working with new target groups such as aerospace, railways, ships, medical equipment, industrial equipment, and other mission-critical business areas other than automobiles. We are also strengthening sales activities in the form of acquiring leads and conducting lead nurturing to connect to business negotiations and projects for the industry.

Although we are well known and recognized in the automotive industry, there are many customers who do not know our name outside of that industry. I am also in charge of activities to make such customers aware of the name "Vector".

In addition to field sales targeting existing customers, strengthen the role of inside sales to develop new customers jointly with the marketing department.

With the TechFactory whitepaper download, we were able to get 50 leads in as little as 5 days. This sense of speed is extremely valuable. We also highly value the cost-effectiveness of the lead unit price.
(Mr. Ryuta Yamaguchi, Team Manager, Sales Department, Vector Japan Co., Ltd.)

――How do you evaluate ITmedia's lead generation service compared to other external service media and in-house events?

Mr. Yamaguchi: ITmedia Inc.'s lead generation service, I realized the speed. In the "Tech Factory" white paper download I used, I was able to get 50 leads in a short period of only 5 days. This sense of speed is extremely valuable. We also highly value the cost-effectiveness of the lead unit price.

In addition, although it was difficult to reach customers outside the automobile industry at our own event, we also appreciate that we were able to acquire leads for a new target group by using ITmedia's lead generation service.

――How do you manage the leads you have acquired? Also, how does the lead follow-up process work?

Mr. Arai: Originally, I would like to use marketing automation (MA) tools for lead nurturing and other initiatives, but due to the policy of the German headquarters, I have not introduced the tools at this time. Therefore, the lead information obtained from Tmedia's lead generation service is once written to Excel, customers in the target industry are extracted and managed as a house list, and then the sales department follows up by telephone.

Mr. Yamaguchi: Unlike the traditional outbound sales approach, by capturing leads, we are able to make first contact with customers by their personal names. The sales case rate of warm leads has also increased, and last year, we achieved a high level of success, with just under 30% of all leads turning into business negotiations. However, there are still challenges with lead nurturing, so we plan to flag which product genre our customers are interested in and work on individual lead nurturing.

Approaching "interested person" based on lead information,
By implementing outbound sales that utilize lead generation, less than 30% of all leads are turned into deals

――What kind of sales and marketing measures do you plan to work on at Vector Japan in the future?

Mr. Arai: Currently, regardless of whether it is the automobile industry or the non-automobile industry, new suppliers from different industries and other industries are appearing in the market one after another, and the number of customers we are targeting is steadily increasing. Meanwhile, the Vector Group is accelerating its M & A strategy, with an increasing number of new products / solutions.

In order to introduce these new products / solutions to Japanese customers, improve our visibility and recognition, and acquire new customers, we would like to further utilize the lead generation services of external media such as ITmedia.

Mr. Yamaguchi: We believe that the digitization of sales and marketing will accelerate further in the future toward the new normal era of after-corona. Online lead generation using media will continue to be utilized as one of such digital measures.

Online lead generation services allow us to capture a large number of highly accurate leads, so in the future we would like to accumulate information on leads that are not immediately converted into sales cases as important assets and actively engage in lead nurturing to contribute to the growth of our business.

* The information provided is as of July 2021.