Two Manchester-based entrepreneurs have launched a new assessment-based marketing and technology company to help service-based and consultancy businesses streamline their business development.

Lee Ali, MD of global exhibition engagement company Expo Stars, and Mike Pye, MD of marketing consultancy Mike Pye + Co, developed the business, E5 Interactive, to support businesses in generating better qualified sales leads.

Based on five core factors of successful sales and marketing campaigns – end game, emotion, empathy, education, and energy – E5 Interactive develops a bespoke, interactive scorecard for each client, which is hosted on the client’s website, social channels or can be used in face-to-face scenarios, such as trade shows or virtual meetings. Prospects answer a number of questions before receiving a personalised report. Designed to be a powerful lead magnet, the scorecard helps businesses generate and qualify valuable sales leads, as well as educate and inspire their potential customers.

Mike said: “Over the last two decades, Lee and I have worked with an array of professional service-based businesses who struggle to differentiate their business, demonstrate their value and drive highly qualified leads. At the beginning of lockdown, we met to discuss what problems we knew service-based and consultancy businesses often faced and saw an opportunity to help them demonstrate their expertise and set themselves apart from their competitors.”

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Lee added: “Businesses such as accountants, HR consultants, recruitment, marketing, or learning and development, often struggle to differentiate in a very crowded market. Because these types of companies tend to offer comparable services and have similar backgrounds, prospects often end up making a decision based on price rather than the value they will receive. Assessment-based marketing solves this challenge. It enables businesses to demonstrate their expertise and offer real tangible value, while helping them to learn more about their prospects. It opens the door to proactive and highly valuable conversations with potential customers who are already pre-sold and emotionally invested in the business.”

Lee has already achieved global success with his company, Expo Stars, helping clients proactively engage leads at trade shows and live marketing events across the world for over a decade. Mike worked in marketing for 14 years, both agency and client side, before starting his own business at the end of 2015 and specialising in working with consultancy and service-based businesses, helping them differentiate and attract new leads.

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