George Clay

Can Email Mail Marketing Campaigns, B2B Podcasting and  Webinars Help You Build Your Prospect Base, Get Closer To Your Customers  And Close More Sales Faster?

Sales people who never before had to make an appointment need to learn how to build their own b2b prospect lists, develop distance based relationships with these prospects.… and then convert the best prospects  into customers.   B2B sales technology can help you accomplish this faster and more efficiently…allowing you to leverage your  time so you work smarter…not harder.

And it all starts with your telephone. The key is working your prospects into your sales funnel…then cultivating them — over time —with automated follow-ups via email marketing campaigns, web conferencing, and podcasting.  You still need to make those follow-up calls.    But you’ll make more sales in less time if you add email marketing campaigns, pod casts and webinars to the mix. You can do it…without hiring outside help. My email updates will show you the painless way to make this happen…generating your own gold mine of relationship building b2b sales leads and money making appointments.

Important: This will be exclusive content…not available on my blog.  Subscribe Now.  Hey, it’s free! If you don’t like what you get…opt out and go your own way! No problem.

George Clay

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.

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.

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

Not quite ready for a test drive of my TRIAL PROGRAM? Subscribe to my Blog. Learn more about getting and keeping customers via your phone.

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

George Clay

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.”

The Depression Changed Marketing

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).

George Clay

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.
• B2B Lead Generation vs. Appointment Setting. Make certain your phone people know the purpose behind their calls. Setting appointments vs. qualifying their prospects for future contact. Best to qualify prospects for future contacts BEFORE trying for appointments. Learn more on this crucial  point. Watch this two minute video!

• 

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrUaBAk58Yo

Related Posts:

Telemarketing Metrics

Marketing Testing Strategy

George Clay

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.
• Want to learn how to write & deliver an effective lead generation-prospect qualifying script? Go here.
• Want to learn more? Sign up for my blog.

George Clay

“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 some where else.”                                                                                      .…Sam Walton

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

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.

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.

[contact-form]

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

George Clay

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

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

George Clay

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.

Related Posts:

Email Subscription Offer

Outbound Sales Call Strategy

Customer Experience In A Slumping Economy

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.

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