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b2b Lead Qualification Process Trial Offer

Qual­i­fy­ing your prospects…then build­ing strong rela­tion­ships with the key deci­sion mak­ers takes time. My trial offer may help you close more sales faster.

New cus­tomers are the lifeblood of your busi­ness. But how do you find and develop new prospects…then con­vert them into pay­ing customers?

Your Prospect Call List

Start with prospects your sales team has been mean­ing to con­tact…but never get around to call­ing. This is your prospect call list…or your house list of exist­ing prospects.

But chances are these prospects are often neglected. Some­times it’s because sales and mar­ket­ing wants only the “hot” leads that are ready to close. Or per­haps it because you’re too busy tend­ing to your pay­ing cus­tomers. But at the end of the day, you need to find time to make those calls and qual­ify each lead.

That’s where my TRIAL OFFER comes into play. Here’s how it works. Select the prospects you want con­tacted. Keep this list small and focused. EXAMPLE: Select 30 prospects already famil­iar with your com­pany or service…but who you have not heard from or con­tacted in per­haps 90 days. I teleprospect this list for you. I speak directly with the key deci­sion mak­ers (no gatekeepers!)…then—by ask­ing very focused ques­tions which allows the prospect to do most of the talk­ing — I find out their REAL inter­ests and/​or objec­tions. This is NOT one call tele­mar­ket­ing. It’s a method­i­cal process that estab­lishes good rapport…forwards the sales process…and gen­tly prods the prospect to becom­ing involved with your com­pany. It takes time and effort…but it PAYS as hit-​or-​miss tele­mar­ket­ing never did.

Lead Qual­i­fy­ing Made Simple

Phone prospec­tors — the really good ones — can work any indus­try. Tech­ni­cal data and indus­try buzz words are help­ful. But over the phone skills —gen­uine friendliness…business savy…good eti­quette — are even more impor­tant. That said, the more infor­ma­tion I have about your busi­ness and indus­try the better.Building strong rela­tion­ships on the phone is what I do best. A busi­ness that sac­ri­fices cus­tomer loy­alty for short term gain is NOT a good match for Mar­ket­ing Direct. My clients put their cus­tomers first. If that sounds like you, I can help you and your sales team “cul­ti­vate” key seg­ments of your cus­tomer and prospect base with niche spear­head projects that add value for your cus­tomers and make you out­shine and out sell the competition.

New cus­tomers are the lifeblood of your busi­ness. But how do you find and develop new prospects…then con­vert them into pay­ing cus­tomers? Give my TRIAL PROGRAM a test drive. I’ll prove what I can do for you.

Email the con­tact form below…and I’ll answer what­ever ques­tions you have. I look for­ward to hear­ing from you!

“Always do right. It will please some peo­ple and aston­ish the rest.” …Mark Twain

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Marketing Strategies

Which ads attract new cus­tomers? Does repeat­ing the same ad pay? Do ad slo­gans help a prod­uct launch? Are head­lines in ads impor­tant?

You have a prod­uct or ser­vice you want to launch. How to do it? Hire an adver­tis­ing agency? Their mar­ket­ing strate­gies of clever slo­gans and big prod­uct launches work some of the time for some of the clients. But for YOU — the small busi­ness owner — those big ad bud­gets get mighty expensive.

Wast­ing money on adver­tis­ing is easy. But there is a cost effi­cient mar­ket­ing alternative.

• Test Cam­paigns: “Almost any (adver­tis­ing) ques­tion can be answered cheaply, quickly and finally by a test cam­paign. And that’s they way to answer them — not by argu­ments around a table.”

From radio ads to direct mail to inter­net adver­tis­ing to print ads, test your ads on a small scale before spend­ing money on a big scale. Test every­thing you do — headlines…offers…body copy…illustrations…price points, etc.When tested and mea­sured by response rates rather than by per­sonal opin­ion you will be shocked how often ads you think are win­ners are duds…and vice versa. EXAMPLE: The most graph­i­cally gor­geous and clever sales lit­er­a­ture will fail…unless it appeals to valid needs of your cus­tomer. A sim­ple let­ter — black and white —address­ing these needs will out pull slick mail­ings that miss your customer’s “sweet spot”

• Things Too Costly: “Many things are pos­si­ble in adver­tis­ing which are too costly to attempt. That is another rea­son why every project and method should be weighed and deter­mined by a known scale of cost and result.”

That’s espe­cially true when it comes to adver­tis­ing cam­paigns or prod­uct launches. You may “oh and ah” over the expen­sive graph­ics. But the final jury and the only jury that mat­ters is the cus­tomer. Do they buy it..or reject it. Does your ad make a profit for you…or for the cre­ative team you paid to cre­ate your adver­tis­ing? Do not rely on per­sonal opin­ions. Rely on mea­sured returns you can count. If your test fails you are spared the need­less expense of a big (and waste­ful) ad cam­paign. If suc­cess­ful, you expand your test…one step at a time.

• Good Busi­ness: “…most national adver­tis­ing is done with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. It is merely pre­sumed to pay. A lit­tle test might show a way to mul­ti­ply returns.”

Done right, any prod­uct or ser­vice can be mar­ket tested using this sim­ple method. Research proves that one ad can sell 151/​2 times more than another…that with small dif­fer­ences in copy or head­line one ad can pull FIVE times more orders than its com­peti­tor. But it wasn’t always so! In the early days of adver­tis­ing there was almost no research.

Then came the depression.…when cost-​conscious adver­tis­ers DEMANDED to know the fac­tors behind the suc­cess or fail­ure of adver­tise­ments. This is when mean­ing­ful, sci­en­tific adver­tis­ing really began. This is when WISE adver­tis­ers learned how to test and mea­sure the effi­ciency of their sell­ing efforts.

They learned what kinds of head­lines attract the most readers…why copy under pic­tures gets higher reading…which kinds of pic­tures get attention…how split-​copy adver­tis­ing works…which appeals succeed…which fail. They learned that almost any ques­tion about the effec­tive­ness of their adver­tis­ing could be answered cheaply, quickly, and finally by a test cam­paign. And that’s the only way to answer them — not by argu­ments among cor­po­rate deci­sion makers.

• “Adver­tis­ing is a busi­ness of words, but adver­tis­ing agen­cies are infested with men and women who can­not write. They can­not write adver­tise­ments, and they can­not write plans. They are help­less as deaf mutes on the stage of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera.” …David Ogilvy, OGILVY ON ADVERTISING
  

• “I do not regard adver­tis­ing as enter­tain­ment or an art form, but as a medium of infor­ma­tion.” David Ogilvy

• “Remem­ber that the peo­ple you address are self­ish, as we all are. They care noth­ing about your inter­est or your profit. They seek ser­vice for them­selves. Ignor­ing this fact is a com­mon mis­take and a costly mis­take in adver­tis­ing. Ads say in effect, “Buy my brand. Give me the trade you give to oth­ers. Let me have the money.” That is not a pop­u­lar appeal.” .…Claude Hop­kins, SCIENTIFIC ADVERTISING

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

Mar­ket­ing Direct, Inc.
1845 Sheri­dan Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103
619–692‑3110
(Monday-​Friday — 9:00am-5:00pm)
sales@​mardirect.​com

Email us or call us at 619–692‑3110 (Pacific Coast USA).

Test Lead Generation Outbound b2b Telemarketing

Launch sales lead gen­er­a­tion using one out­bound b2b tele­mar­keter. Do not get talked into using mul­ti­ple phone peo­ple for first test.

Because you con­trol who is mak­ing the calls and when they are being made, out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing costs are much eas­ier to con­trol than inbound costs. So keep it sim­ple. Does not mat­ter if you out­source to a call cen­ter or do it your­self in house, test b2b out­bound using one tele­mar­keter. Test on a small scale. Grad­u­ally expand your b2b out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing…but only when test results merit growth. By test­ing and mea­sur­ing lead gen­er­a­tion response rates you’ll know what’s working…and what’s not.

And care­ful who you hire!

The right tele­mar­keter will prove invalu­able. The wrong per­son can cause real harm. This check­list may help.

Lead Gen­er­a­tion Trial Project: Set a goal — say 30 days — for get­ting 50 new qual­i­fied b2b sales leads from out­bound b2b telemarketing .

• Have tele­mar­keter con­tact 100 prospects.

• Have some sort of prepara­tory mail­ing. Brief and intro­duc­tory. Test it two ways. (1) Call first…saying “I’d like to send you some­thing with your per­mis­sion and get back to you after you’ve had a chance to look it over. You’ll find you can save a lot of money with our ser­vices. In fact, we’ll give you a 30% dis­count on your first order”.
• Sec­ond way to test out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing is to call after the mailing…and not before.

• Both meth­ods min­i­mize intru­sion factor…making it eas­ier to “get in the door”. Saves time for telemarketer.

Your lead gen­er­a­tion ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

Outbound Telemarketing Metrics

B2B TELEMARKETING SALES METRICS

Out­bound B2B tele­mar­ket­ing costs depend on total dial­ings per hour…total deci­sion maker con­tacts per phone hour…and total qual­i­fied sales leads per phone hour.

Full time out­bound tele­mar­keter in busi­ness to busi­ness tele­phone pro­gram can make 25–30 com­pleted calls per day — i.e., call in which deci­sion maker is reached. In part-​time effort, 5 to 7 com­pleted calls in an hour are gen­er­ally attainable.

Deter­mine (1) cost per out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing phone hour, (2) cost per out­bound call, (3) cost per qual­i­fied sales lead, (4) cost per order (or appoint­ment). Con­trol of these out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing sales met­rics is vital to any call center’s success.

• Deter­mine break-​even points based on out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing sales met­rics includ­ing …prod­uct mar­gins…real­is­tic close ratios from qual­i­fied sales appointments…realistic aver­age orders…buying cycles — both fre­quency of pur­chase and likely dol­lar amount of repeat orders.
• Include costs for sales lit­er­a­ture. Test call scripts, follow-​up sales let­ters and those all impor­tant lead nur­tur­ing call backs to improve effi­ciency of your sales mar­ket­ing lead gen­er­a­tion efforts.
• Track results. Set real­is­tic goals. Include num­ber of com­pleted calls per day.…..number of qual­i­fied sales leads per day…dollar value of sales per quar­ter.…appoint­ments made by phone and results of these appointments.

Your out­bound b2b tele­mar­ket­ing ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

call 619–692-3110 or fill out and email the con­tact form below.

Market Testing Ad Strategy

George Clay

Com­mon Mis­takes, Costly Mis­takes In Advertising.

This Mar­ket Test­ing Guide Shows Most Com­mon Mistakes!

• Test Cam­paigns: “Almost any (adver­tis­ing) ques­tion can be answered cheaply, quickly and finally by a test cam­paign. And that’s they way to answer them — not by argu­ments around a table.”

• Just Sales­man­ship: “Adver­tis­ing is sales­man­ship. Treat it like a sales­man. Force it to jus­tify itself”.

• Good Busi­ness: “…most national adver­tis­ing is done with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. It is merely pre­sumed to pay. A lit­tle test might show a way to mul­ti­ply returns.

• Things Too Costly: Many things are pos­si­ble in adver­tis­ing which are too costly to attempt. That is another rea­son why every project and method should be weighed and deter­mined by a known scale of cost and result.”

• Let­ter Writ­ing;“Let­ters to inquir­ers, follow-​up let­ters, when­ever pos­si­ble they should be tested. Where that is not pos­si­ble they should be based on knowl­edge based on tests.”

• Offer Ser­vice:“Remem­ber the peo­ple you address are self­ish, as we all are. They care noth­ing about your inter­ests or your profit. They seek ser­vice for them­selves. Ignor­ing this fact is a com­mon mis­take and a costly mis­take in advertising.”
• More MARKET TESTING TIPS …read on line.

The author is Claude Hop­kins. As an adver­tis­ing copy­writer, he was tired of the plat­i­tudes and puffery of most national adver­tis­ing cam­paigns (like John Wanamker, he believed much adver­tis­ing was a waste of money). For Claude Hop­kins, if you aren’t test­ing the mar­ket by mea­sur­ing how well (or poorly!) your ads are doing then your adver­tis­ing strat­egy is a hit or miss gam­ble.

In his book SCIENTIFIC ADVERTISING he shows you how to remove this gam­ble from your busi­ness mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing. It’s all here. From mak­ing small con­trolled tests with a lim­ited bud­get to split copy test­ing of head­lines and short copy vs. long copy. Not just another mem­oir of adver­tis­ing strat­egy and per­sonal opin­ion. Regard­less of prod­uct or ser­vice, this is mar­ket­ test­ing wis­dom that has stood the test of time. Indeed, what you get today from any of the notable direct response mar­ket­ing gurus is sim­ply a repack­ag­ing of what Claude Hop­kins said nearly a cen­tury ago.

Small Busi­ness Own­ers! Claude Hop­kins mar­ket test­ing ad strat­egy book FREE.

You will never again waste money on any form of mar­ket­ing or adver­tis­ing cam­paign decided by per­sonal opin­ion rather than mea­sured returns.…especially with adver­tis­ing agen­cies that cre­ate your adver­tis­ing with big ads and big ad bud­gets. That ad strat­egy works — for them! But for the small busi­ness owner those big ad bud­gets get mighty expen­sive…espe­cially in this economy!

• “After I read his book, my eyes have been opened to all the com­pa­nies around that are wast­ing money on inef­fec­tual give­aways and pro­mo­tions.” …Return Cus­tomer

• “This will be a ben­e­fi­cial read for any­one in mar­ket­ing or sales. Even though this book was writ­ten 90+ years ago, most of the prin­ci­ples dis­cussed are still rel­e­vant today.” …The Book Reviewer

• “If you’re seri­ous about learn­ing about mar­ket­ing that really works, get this book.” …MarkAt​wood​.com

• “Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have any­thing to do with adver­tis­ing until he has read this book seven times.” -David Ogilvy

Meet David Ogilvy — his mar­ket­ing advice will help you!

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

call 619–692-3110 or fill out and email the con­tact form below.

Customer Experience In A Slumping Economy

In this mar­ket any­one with money to spend should be treated like a king.

Is your com­pany get­ting it right…giving your cus­tomers more atten­tion… bet­ter service…better quality…and greater value for their money?

“There is only one boss. And he can fire every­body in the com­pany from the chair­man on down sim­ply by spend­ing his money some­where else.” … Sam Wal­ton

Com­ing After Your Customers

Tar­get­ing your cus­tomers are the price dri­ven bot­tom feed­ers. Because their mar­kets have van­ished these preda­tors have rein­vented them­selves as “experts” in your niche field. Their strat­egy for get­ting your cus­tomers is sim­ple: Beat any price. But trad­ing mar­gins for vol­ume —- unless checked —-can can­ni­bal­ize a market…turning once prof­itable busi­ness mod­els into ship­wrecks. Take note: Stud­ies show it takes seven years for a brand to recover its value once it’s been dis­counted. Seven years! Cus­tomer Ser­vice means sur­vival. If you don’t love your cus­tomer, get another cus­tomer. If you can’t find a cus­tomer to love, get another business.

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

call 619–692-3110 or fill out and email the con­tact form below.

Direct Marketing Winner

Out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing deliv­ers high­est response rates of all media.

So says the 2009 Response Rate Report (March 2009) by The Direct Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (DMA). Some find­ings from the report:

• In the direct order sec­tor, out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing had the high­est aver­age response rate among all media (4.41% for house lists and 2.92% for prospect lists), fol­lowed closely by cat­a­logs (3.95% for house lists and 1.85% for prospect lists) and direct mail (3.65% house lists and 1.65%-prospect list).

• Response rates were higher than in pre­vi­ous years, per­haps as a result of bet­ter list man­age­ment and more sophis­ti­cated targeting.

• The Cat­a­log and Retail seg­ment out­per­forms other indus­tries in direct mail response rates.

DMA’s Response Rate Report was con­ducted through a sur­vey emailed in Decem­ber 2008. When the sur­vey was closed, 1,175 responses were received. Although the report sur­veyed twenty-​four major indus­tries, only thir­teen are cov­ered in-​depth in this report.

For Win­ning New Cus­tomers: You’ll find direct mail and email short­ens the sales cycle of almost any tele­mar­ket­ing program…especially when it comes to win­ning NEW cus­tomers. Test scripts, lit­er­a­ture offers, and call back pro­grams to improve response rates. When han­dled prop­erly, out­bound tele­mar­ket­ing can deliver sales con­ver­sion rates much higher than the response rates from direct mail or email cam­paigns that are not sup­ported by follow-​up calls.

For Launch­ing New Prod­ucts: Now you can have in a well planned tele­mar­ket­ing pro­gram an effi­cient way to tell prospects and cus­tomers about your new prod­ucts and ser­vices. But with­out any costly travel or wasted com­mut­ing time. A well exe­cuted tele­mar­ket­ing pro­gram will accom­plish this — it’s good busi­ness because it will improve effi­ciency, boost sales and deliver cus­tomer care that keeps your cus­tomers from drift­ing away.

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

call 619–692-3110 or fill out and email the con­tact form below.

Outbound Sales Call Strategy

Make out­stand­ing ser­vice to cus­tomers and prospec­tive cus­tomers your goal with each out­bound sales call.

When prospects and cus­tomers receive great cus­tomer ser­vice, they reward you with repeat busi­ness and more sales refer­rals.

• Be on time with your follow-​up sales calls. Prompt follow-​up sep­a­rates you from the com­pe­ti­tion and helps build long last­ing busi­ness rela­tion­ships.“Profit in busi­ness comes from repeat cus­tomers, cus­tomers that boast about your prod­uct or ser­vice, and bring friends with them”. —W.Edwards Dem­ing

• Boost your cus­tomer ser­vice by hav­ing sales rep and tele­mar­keter work together…as a sales mar­ket­ing team. Exam­ple: When cross-​selling lead gen­er­a­tion devel­ops have your sales rep off-​load the sales lead to your telemarketer…who then makes follow-​up call to the prospect. This gives field sales more time to develop new sales leads and boost sales of their bread-​and-​butter accounts. Also, this dia­log expands prod­uct knowl­edge and prospect call list for tele­mar­keter. Best of all, your prospect enjoys excep­tional cus­tomer ser­vice by get­ting lots of follow-​up service!

• Cus­tomers First. Focus your ser­vice strat­egies on what’s most impor­tant — the wants and needs of your exist­ing cus­tomers. Sure, get­ting new cus­tomers is impor­tant. But so is keep­ing your com­peti­tors from steal­ing your exist­ing cus­tomers! Tele­mar­ket­ing done with the right per­sonal touch is a great way to renew rela­tion­ships with lapsed clients and build your cus­tomer base.  Make calls to your prospect base . Add rou­tine emails and per­son­al­ized First Class follow-?up mail­ings to these folks. Tar­geted sales mar­ket­ing projects like these help cul­ti­vate your cus­tomer and prospect base…spreading good will and show­ing them you care.

• It’s About The Cus­tomer, Stu­pid! The most graph­i­cally gor­geous and clever sales lit­er­a­ture will fail…unless it appeals to valid needs of your cus­tomer. A sim­ple let­ter — black and white —address­ing these needs will out pull slick mail­ings that miss your customer’s “sweet spot”. Write your own sales let­ters and follow-​up notes. You can do it! What’s more, by using tele­mar­ket­ing to follow-​up those let­ters you’ll boost your response rates. Here’s good advice on mak­ing those sales and busi­ness let­ters work for you.

SALES MARKETING ACTION PLAN: Sit down with sales mar­ket­ing team. Explain how your phone sales per­son or call cen­ter will help build cus­tomer ser­vice by improv­ing lead nur­tur­ing and the over­all lead gen­er­a­tion process. Share results from your out­bound B2B tele­mar­ket­ing met­rics so they grasp the num­bers and under­stand the effi­ciency of crm done right.

There Is Only One Boss. The Customer!

“There is only one boss. The Cus­tomer. And he can fire every­body in the com­pany from the chair­man on down sim­ply by spend­ing his money some­where else.” … Sam Wal­ton

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

call 619–692-3110 or fill out and email the con­tact form below.

Customer Experience Game

Now that cus­tomers are fewer, their loy­alty shorter, and their demands greater, the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence game has changed. Up for grabs is any­thing that moves — includ­ing your cus­tomers. To build a sta­ble and con­sis­tent client base and keep your cus­tomers from drift­ing away the fol­low­ing crm strat­egy may help your sales mar­ket­ing team enhance cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and build cus­tomer loyalty.

• Auto­mate Your Sales Process. Is your prospect list scat­tered about on slips of paper, busi­ness cards or sticky notes? Get orga­nized. Auto­mate your sales mar­ket­ing process so you can build your prospect list and have more time to con­tact new cus­tomers and bet­ter ser­vice the ones you already have. See the photo below? Those were the days before crm soft­ware changed the play­ing field.

• The right CRM soft­ware (ACT is a pop­u­lar CRM soft­ware. My favorite, how­ever, is TELEMAGIC) will sim­plify every­thing you do.…adding speed and pre­ci­sion to your mar­ket­ing efforts.

• EXAMPLE: Send prospects you’ve vis­ited or called in the last week per­son­al­ized, first-​class follow-​up let­ters detail­ing key points of your dis­cus­sions. Prompt fol­low up always wins…and makes YOU out­shine the com­pe­ti­tion. From lead track­ing to to get­ting appoint­ments — crm done right will change your life and keep your cus­tomers smil­ing. Don’t leave home with­out it.

• Get Closer To Your Cus­tomers. Use your phone! No other mar­ket­ing medium — not tele­vi­sion, not radio, not direct mail, not print adver­tis­ing, not email —- gives you such a pow­er­ful, per­sua­sive, and cost effi­cient person-​to-​person sell­ing medium as tele­mar­ket­ing. By speak­ing directly with prospects you can gauge each prospect’s inter­est level in your offer and thereby qual­ify your prospec­tive data­base. Done right —with­out the hype or pres­sure of an old way call cen­ter — there is real effi­ciency in tele­mar­ket­ing, effi­ciency you can use every day to build a tar­geted sales mar­ket­ing data­base to get and keep customers.

Famous Advertising Quote

“Half the money I spend on adver­tis­ing is wasted. Trou­ble is, I don’t know which half.” .….John Wana­maker

From inter­net adver­tis­ing to print ads to direct mail, do you know which of your ads are pulling the most busi­ness? John Wana­maker— an adver­tis­ing and mer­chan­dis­ing genius — strug­gled with this same problem.

In 1876 — a full cen­tury before Wal-​Mart or inter­net adver­tis­ing — he cre­ated the first Super­store in Amer­ica. Call­ing it “the largest space in the world devoted to retail sell­ing on a sin­gle floor”, he focused on high vol­ume and low costs. Indeed, before Wana­maker invented the “price tag”, most buy­ing was done by haggling!

Real­iz­ing the power of adver­tis­ing on con­sumers, Wana­maker wrote many of the ads himself…filling them with con­ver­sa­tional lan­guage that dis­cussed the bar­gains of the day. He was a man of integrity and insisted his ads be hon­est, with absolutely no stretch­ing of the truth. He used money back guarantees…fixed pric­ing (no haggling—-ever!)…and in Jan­u­ary 1878 launched the first ever White Sale. Although he was the first retailer to place a full page news­pa­per ad (1879), he adver­tised out­doors on bill­boards and on spe­cialty items such as pen­cils and bal­loons. His mes­sage got through. By 1881 his flag­ship store in Philadel­phia had almost three acres of sell­ing space on one floor, 46 depart­ments and more than 2000 employees!

But news­pa­per adver­tis­ing was where Wana­maker poured it on . He used bold, con­sec­u­tive full-​page ads which were like news items them­selves. So dom­i­nant and unprece­dented was this method of adver­tis­ing that it became known as the “Wana­maker Style” of adver­tis­ing. The style was copied by other retailers…and played a major role in the rapid rise of inde­pen­dent city daily newspapers.

Whether your adver­tis­ing is online or print, there’s lots to learn from Old John. But his quip “Half the money I spend on adver­tis­ing is wasted. I just don’t know which half” is per­haps the most valu­able les­son. Heed his words. Then read Sci­en­tific Adver­tis­ing. After only a few chap­ters, you’ll have a leg up test­ing which ads are working…and which ones are wast­ing your money.

b2b lead generation appointment setting

George Clay

Qual­ity Appoint­ments From A Sin­gle Cold Call Are Rare. B2B Appoint­ments Develop From A Lead Gen­er­a­tion Sales Fun­nel Of Qual­i­fied Prospects. Work Your Prospect List!

Q:Does B2B appoint­ment set­ting still work?

A: Because the infor­ma­tion age has lev­eled the play­ing field, the days of get­ting appoint­ments on the first call are over. Busi­ness mar­ket­ing by phone today is about qual­i­fy­ing prospects for future con­tacts. Get­ting appoint­ments from a sin­gle cold call does hap­pen. But a sales lead strat­egy built on that foun­da­tion will fail.

Q: What Goals Are Real­is­tic For B2B Appoint­ment Set­ting?

A: Once you real­ize that appoint­ment set­ting is not the goal of your first call, the mon­key is off your back. You are call­ing to get infor­ma­tion. That means find­ing out if a par­tic­u­lar prospect is suit­able for being added to your sales fun­nel. Pic­ture a crowded room. Your goal: find the folks inter­ested — more or less — in what you offer. How to do it? Ask for a show of hands. There, that’s the goal of your cold call — (1) find­ing the right prospects; (2) sep­a­rat­ing them from the crowd: then (3) qual­i­fy­ing their inter­est level. My good­ness — now you have three goals! Also, phone prospect­ing is a form of direct mar­ket­ing. And build­ing a highly tar­geted data­base is the key to any suc­cess­ful direct mar­ket­ing cam­paign. There­fore, view each call as a means for fine tun­ing your sales fun­nel data­base. It’s a work in progress that never ends!

Q: How Do I Pitch My Tele­mar­ket­ing Call?

A: Always use a script. It keeps you focused and in con­trol of the call. Make your intro­duc­tion short, sim­ple, to the point — some­thing you can deliver in twenty seconds…without being rushed.

Q: Does Hard Sell Tele­mar­ket­ing Work ?

A: Avoid scripts that force you to speak and act in a man­ner that makes you uncom­fort­able. Relax and be your­self. After that, the rest is easy! Remem­ber, the phone is a great way to build prospect lists, increase cus­tomer loy­alty and win sales. The secret is to keep your call relaxed, almost infor­mal tone.

Q: How Do I Qual­ify B2B Tele­mar­ket­ing Prospects?

A :  Con­clude your intro­duc­tion with a sim­ple “yes” or ““no” ques­tion. How your prospect answers will indi­cate if they are a qual­i­fied prospect…or a prospect you want to drop. Used early in your call this sim­ple ques­tion helps you spot good prospects from the not so good prospects. Remem­ber that crowded room exam­ple? Your ques­tion is ask­ing for a show of hands. Some folks will raise their hands, some will not. Your lead gen­er­a­tion and appoint­ments develop over time from the folks who raise their hands.

Q: How Do I know My Script Is Working?

A: That’s easy — deliv­er­ing your “pitch” with­out inter­rup­tions from your prospect is a sign that your script is work­ing — keep­ing you and your prospect focused on you.

Q: OK to Read The Script…or Mem­o­rize It?

A: Read­ing is fine. The secret is mak­ing your deliv­ery appear unre­hearsed. Fol­low Win­ston Churchill. His speeches are among the great­est in the Eng­lish lan­guage. He toiled end­less hours over their every detail. Yet when deliv­er­ing them he appeared com­pletely at ease… almost casual in his pre­sen­ta­tion.  Hence, his quip that “The very best impromptu speeches are the ones writ­ten well in advance.”

Get more straight talk about B2B cold call­ing, appoint­ment set­ting and b2b sales prospect­ing at Mar­ket­ing Direct website.

Your b2b lead gen­er­a­tion appoint­ment set­ting ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

Mar­ket­ing Direct, Inc.
1845 Sheri­dan Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103
619–692‑3110
(Monday-​Friday — 9:00am-5:00pm)
sales@​mardirect.​com

Email us or call us at 619–692‑3110 (Pacific Coast USA).

Lead Generation-​Qualifying Telemarketing Script

How To Write And Deliver An Effec­tive Lead Generation-​Qualifying Tele­mar­ket­ing Script

An effec­tive tele­mar­ket­ing script is a nav­i­ga­tional chart that helps you con­trol the progress and con­tent of your call. Done right, it ele­vates your call.…trans­form­ing it into pleas­ant, inter­ac­tive dialogue.

OK, I hear you — all the tele­sales cold calls you receive, you say, are not that way at all. The caller sounds “stiff”…the pitch awk­ward and the cold caller’s per­sis­tence becomes obnox­ious. That’s tele­mar­ket­ing done wrong. What fol­lows will help you avoid that train wreck…and make you a cold call­ing champ by using an effec­tive script and relaxed delivery.

• Say exactly who you are: The prospect you are call­ing is at a dis­ad­van­tage. He or she does not know your name or any­thing about you. Prospects will refuse to speak with you unless you imme­di­ately con­front these issues. State the exact rea­son you are call­ing. Make your intro­duc­tion spe­cific and brief…twenty sec­onds or less.

• Imme­di­ately hit upon a ben­e­fit to your prospect. A ben­e­fit can be a key word or phrase. It should trig­ger an inter­est in your prospect — i.e., make your prospect want to learn more about you.

• Be provoca­tive. Ask open ended ques­tions that can­not be answered “yes” or “no”. Your goal is to pro­mote interaction…and get your prospect to reveal information.

• Don’t inter­rupt. Let your prospect do most of the talk­ing.
  

• Take “No” for an answer. The num­ber one com­plaint of tele­mar­ket­ing prospects is that sales­peo­ple will not take “no” for an answer.

• Qual­ify your prospect for future con­tacts. Ask them to sug­gest what they would like you to to —- “when do you want me to con­tact you again?”. Drop those prospects who will not sug­gest a call-​back date. Your call is designed to gen­er­ate a b2b lead —- a prospect you can add to your sales fun­nel and recon­tact with a follow-​up call.

Lead Generation Marketing Strategy

George Clay

Has the reces­sion forced you to rethink your lead gen­er­a­tion strat­egy? Slick mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are out. Fru­gal mar­ket test­ing is in and the tested strat­egy of direct mar­ket­ing is once again in favor.

• These tested prin­ci­ples are not “stylish”.
• They are not “trendy”.
• And they are not “new”.

Devel­oped by adver­tis­ing giants like David Ogilvy (see video below), John Caples, Claude Hop­kins, and Max Sacheim these mar­ket­ing strate­gies are the result of spend­ing bil­lions of dol­lars over the past hun­dred years test­ing the sell­ing power of dif­fer­ent kinds of direct response ads, cat­a­logs, sales let­ters, direct mail and e commerce.

From these years of mar­ket test­ing come the meth­ods of suc­cess­ful direct marketing .

Clos­ing com­ments from a mar­ket­ing strat­egy guru: David Ogilvy.

Your ques­tions and com­ments are welcome!

Mar­ket­ing Direct, Inc.
1845 Sheri­dan Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103
619–692‑3110
(Monday-​Friday — 9:00am-5:00pm)
sales@​mardirect.​com

Email us or call us at 619–692‑3110 (Pacific Coast USA).

Market Testing Genius

Through­out this blog you’ll hear about this book — SCIENTIFIC ADVERTISING — and the man who wrote it, Claude Hop­kins. But for now, the core of the book and what it can do for you can be summed up in four words:

Spend less…Test More!

No mat­ter what kind of mar­ket­ing you use to get and keep cus­tomers — inter­net adver­tis­ing or print ads, direct response mar­ket­ing or mag­a­zine ads — the same car­di­nal rule applies: Make Your Mar­ket Test­ing On A Small Scale Before Spend­ing Money On A Large Scale.

• Start with small tests. Use them as a launch­ing pad for your prod­uct or service.
• Test one ad one time. Avoid the costly mis­take of repeat­ing your test ad. Save your money! Test your ad by run­ning it one time — and one time only.

Before expand­ing your mar­ket test­ing, track and mea­sure results. Is your ad prof­itable? Is it gen­er­at­ing qual­i­fied leads? Are these leads turn­ing into orders? Eval­u­ate your test by using the fol­low­ing metrics.

• Cost Per Order
• Cost Per Inquiry
• Con­ver­sion Rate
• Aver­age Order

Once you know these FACTS you’ll know if it pays to repeat your test.

List Building

What’s a sen­si­ble way to build a prospect call list? Last week this ques­tion came up…from a Mar­ket­ing Direct prospect in Florida.

His spe­cialty is SEO (Search Engine Opti­miza­tion). Before the reces­sion adver­tis­ing agen­cies payed him $5000 per month to opti­mize web­sites. But the reces­sion forced him to retool his mar­ket­ing plan. His new tar­get is small busi­ness own­ers will­ing to spend $500 per month for his SEO service.

But how and where to get a prospect list? My advice was sim­ple. Here it is.

• 1. Start list build­ing with small steps. A highly tar­geted list of per­haps 100 or 200 prospects can work won­ders. What­ever you do, do NOT get talked into a big list pur­chase for your mar­ket test­ing. EXAMPLE : Busi­ness own­ers buy­ing books on SEO might be a good start­ing point. To that list add busi­ness own­ers attend­ing sem­i­nars on SEO.
  

• 2. Boost your inbound SEO prospects via ppc (pay per click).

• 3. Test cold call to prospect list of per­haps 100 names. Include for­mer clients…those not now active. Tele­mar­ket­ing done with the right per­sonal touch is a great way to renew rela­tion­ships with lapsed clients and build your cus­tomer base. Have ready for follow-​up to these prospect an email let­ter. This let­ter emailed imme­di­ately after first call. Then, per­haps ten days later, follow-​up call. From 100 prospects, con­sider two to five con­ver­sions @$500 ea. Then con­sider follow-​up email to rest of list. Then a third call by phone to convert.

What­ever you do, you’ll need email follow-​up letter.

Also con­sider this let­ter sent via reg­u­lar snail mail. But the key is con­sis­tent follow-​up by phone to your call list. This list can be a 100 name data­base. For test­ing,  don’t get talked into buy­ing a large list of prospects. Start small…and grad­u­ally expand your call list..but only when con­di­tions war­rant growth.

Another tip: Win sup­port of your sales team at the very begin­ning of this pro­gram. Make tele­mar­ket­ing their part­ner — an addi­tional sales tool and NOT a threat to their job secu­rity. Prove it quickly. If your tele­mar­keter gets a “hot lead” on which a field rep needs to follow-​up on imme­di­ately, he or she can leave mes­sage for that rep…and rep can be in touch with that account the same day.

Like­wise, have field reps con­tact your tele­mar­keter when cross sell­ing lead devel­ops. This gives field rep more time to develop new accounts and increase sales of their bread and but­ter accounts. Also, this dia­log expands prod­uct knowl­edge of cus­tomer data­base for telemarketer.

That’s pretty much it. Noth­ing fancy. Just a sim­ple way to get off the launch­ing pad…without spend­ing big bucks to get airborne.

About Customers

Ques­tion: What’s the pur­pose of a business?

Answer: To get and keep customers.

Help­ing YOU do this for your busi­ness is the pur­pose of this blog.

The meth­ods dis­cussed here involve lit­tle risk . The focus is test cam­paigns…every­thing from prospect lists to phone scripts to follow-​up let­ters is tested on a small scale. The rea­son is clear.

If the test fails you are spared the need­less expense of a big ad cam­paign. If suc­cess­ful, you expand your test…one step at a time ( crawl before you walk).

Done right, any prod­uct or ser­vice can be mar­keted using this sim­ple method. So, if you want more bang for your buck, but with­out the risks, costs, and logis­ti­cal bot­tle­necks of “tra­di­tional” mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, this blog is for you.

Wel­come aboard!

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