This blog includes posts on lead generation, eMarketing, Web Marketing, SEO and other leading edge marketing techniques.
-Alan Blume
Archive for the 'Entrepeneurship' Category
My 2011 Reading List In Retrospect, Shall We Call It “Dark Unbroken Amazonian Hornet’s Nests with Coke”?
Posted on December 17th, 2011 by Alan Blume
As an early adopter of the original Kindle, and the new and improved Kindle Fire, I find it faster, easier and more convenient to read. As noted in blogs of days gone by, I try to read a mix of books from business topics to inspirational stories to those offering rewards merely from an entertainment perspective. I like to read at least a book a month, I read 15 this year, a dozen of which are listed below, in no particular order.
- The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, Millard, Candice
- 50 Ways To Love Your Startup, Mancinelli, Bruce
- Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder, Tracy
- Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, Puleo, Stephen
- Google Places Success, Towland, Chris
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Hillenbrand, Laura
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin, Benjamin
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Larsson, Stieg
- The Coke Machine, The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink, Blanding, Michael
- The Secret Life of Houdini, The Making of America’s First Superhero, Kalush, William and Sloman, Lary
- A Splendid Exchange, How Trade Shaped the World, Bernstein, William
- Sell More & Work Less, Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use, A. Blume, J. Scranton, M. Lauducci, A.J. Blume
These books range from truly inspirational stories of triumph over hardship (Unbroken and River of Doubt for example) to small business best practices (50 Ways to Love Your Startup). Some were fast and easy reads like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, while others like Franklin’s autobiography and Houdini’s life offered granular detail amidst historic context. Dark Tide and Unbroken fall under their own unique category as in, “are you kidding me – do these things really happen”? And my most recent read arguably falls into the same genre, with Roosevelt’s (of the Bull Moose variety) journey through the Amazon. The book I spent the most time reading this year, was the book which I was writing this year. With the assistance of three colleagues, we put the finishing touches on Sell More & Work Less, Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use this past week and hope to see it finally hit the virtual Amazon book shelves in January. Writing and publishing requires multiple read through cycles, and I expect the final cycle to happen this month. Sell More & Work Less is just over half the number of words when compared to my first book, Your Virtual Success, but the reading cycles were certainly comparable. The latter was over 60,000 words while the former, a more succinct “web selling tips book”, is only 35,000 words.
My recently purchased Kindle Fire helped me rip through The River of Doubt, the crisp text and improved user interface makes it really fast and easy to read (at least for this user). These days, I find both reading and writing enlightening and cathartic and wished that I read more when I was younger, compelling me to think of the famous Shaw quote, “youth is wasted on the young”. Will the day come that most of youths will be using Electronic Reading devices? And upon such a day will that help them read and assimilate more information? Only time will tell, then again technology may be an enabler, but it isn’t necessarily a motivator.
Three of these books were gifts (The Coke Machine, The Secret Life of Houdini and A Splendid Exchange) of the “paper” variety, the rest were downloaded to my Kindle. I can recommend all of the books on this list, though my favorites were Unbroken, River of Doubt and Dark Tide). And it is with obvious prejudice that the last item is even included on the list. As my years progress, I’m gaining momentum with writing and hope to publish another book around the end of 2012, then a novel in 2013 or 2014. The novel would be a departure for me as most of my works have been in the business genre. It’s a challenge I look forward to, mundane in comparison to the challenges faced in Unbroken or River of Doubt (or Mountain’s Beyond Mountains), but a challenge nonetheless. Sell More & Work Less will be available in January.
Have You Tried The Prospect Scorecard?
Posted on September 1st, 2011 by Alan Blume
The Prospect Scorecard
The Prospect Scorecard offers salespeople, sales managers, entrepreneurs, sole proprietors, insurance agents, realtors and other business people a simple and easy way to qualify, track and rank your best prospects. Salespeople often refer to prospects in vague terms such as: new, warm, hot, cold, likely, qualified, etc. These terms do little to better understand a sales pipeline or convey likelihood of purchase to other members of the team. The Prospect Scorecard resolves this issue, simply, quickly and easily for any salesperson or business.
- Helps you create ideal attributes to form a buyer persona
- Creates a simple numeric system to leverage your buyer persona
- Assigns numeric values to rank your best prospects
- Helps you create a simple qualification acronym to determine likelihood to close
- Ranks your prospects by Prospect Score, Quality Score and Alphabetically
- Color codes your prospects into Green, Yellow and Red, displaying prospect categories
It’s a fast and simple way to understand, quantify and qualify your pipeline. The Excel version is available at no charge at: http://www.startupselling.com/sales-tools.html. Look for more information in our upcoming book, Sell More & Work Less.
Sell More & Work Less To Be Released in November
Posted on August 17th, 2011 by Alan Blume
Our new book, Sell More & Work Less, Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use, is expected to be released in November and is currently at our publisher. Offering 101 Internet Sales Tips stratified across our 4-Phase Sales Process, Sell More & Work Less focuses on leveraging the web to help you sell better, faster and more efficiently.
Most sales cycles, particularly B2B sales cycles can be expressed in four distinct phases: Identify, Qualify, Present and Close. Each of these phases might have 5 or 10 steps, helping salespeople compartmentalize tasks, ensuring they are following a guide that helps them arrive at their final destination, a new client. The reason I refer to this as a “Virtual” Sales Process is that much of the work can or should be done virtually. Keep the car parked in the driveway, avoid planes and trains whenever possible, leverage Skype, GoToMeeting and other virtual selling tools.
Sell More & Work Less reviews many virtual sales tips and techniques including The Prospect Scorecard, a simple but effective pipeline qualification tool which can be used on a PC or mobile device. Sell More & Work Less will help sales people, business owners, sales managers and entrepreneurs focus on those activities which will optimize prospecting, qualifying and closing. For more information, read Your Virtual Success (www.yourvirtualsuccess.net), or in September, Sell More & Work Less.
A World Without Borders
Posted on July 24th, 2011 by Alan Blume
Virtual Business vs. Brick and Mortar
You’ve probably heard the recent news, Borders is closing all of its remaining stores and the company could go out of business by the end of September. This creates an interesting double entendre, thus the article title, a world without Borders. When I think of Amazon, a thriving non brick and mortar firm (at least non retail) it seems like they can sell anywhere, anytime, like a business operating without borders. Whereas, Borders, as in Borders book stores, a bastion of brick and mortar, will now vanish from the world. Today this obvious metamorphosis deserves both mention and contemplation.
Retail is a tough business for any line of products or services. The creeping incremental costs and overhead of retail stores insidiously and perpetually attack retail profits. The list of retail bankruptcies and closures is long, with well know names Hollywood Video and Blockbuster, Tweeter, Ritz Camera, CompUSA, Tower Records, Linens ‘n Things, Circuit City, etc. When it comes to industries or niches that can morph to virtual or digital, traditional brick and mortar businesses must transition very quickly or face a certain fate. This is an Amazon versus Borders and Netflix versus Blockbuster story. Barnes and Noble, the surviving big box book store still remains a question mark in my mind. Every time I wander into their local store I witness a retail paradox. In the huge bookstore section there is usually a modest number of people browsing, with perhaps one or two buying, and rarely a line at their register. However, in a tiny corner of their bookstore is a coffee shop we all know called Starbucks. I’d estimate Starbucks represents 5% of the total space, yet there is always a line at their register even though they are well staffed, and well run. Furthermore, everyone in Starbucks is buying, as opposed to browsing. Perhaps this model is working in reverse, the Starbucks store could be much larger, and the bookstore area much smaller, offering a plethora of digital book samples, or a computer kiosk point of sale for traditional books, allowing shoppers to sip their latte’s and order the books online.
The magazine area in this store is also a source of business fascination. There are often several people in this area, one of the busier sections of the store on many days, sitting on benches, reading through the litany of magazines offered. Arguably Barnes and Noble has a very worthy selection for their enjoyment, everything from automobile to fitness and gardening to zoology. When I stroll by, with my Starbucks coffee in hand, it reminds me of a library. I rarely to see anyone grabbing a magazine and walking toward the checkout counter, rather I see people reading, then returning the magazines to the stand. This model seems to be rewarding for the browser and even for the Starbucks consumers, but not for the bookstore. Whenever I stroll through this very nice bookstore, I do make note of interesting books, but then I download them on my Kindle, definitely not a shopping experience which will prove profitable for their brick and mortar infrastructure.
This by no means implies all retail is doomed. There are many retail operations which require infrastructure, from groceries and coffee to furniture, home repair and haircuts. When it comes to digital, however, a virtual spin on the business model or dramatically adapted retail will be necessary. What’s an example of dramatically adapted retail? Redbox comes to mind. At one time Blockbuster Video had a large store, let’s estimate six thousand square feet, about a mile from my house. People could browse their shelves and select a video in the traditional sense, carrying it home to watch on their DVD players. Redbox is a video store in a box, sitting inside 27,000 existing retail locations, like the grocery store I frequent. They rent movies for a $1 a day in a small kiosk that takes up 12-square feet. They advertise that these red boxes have up to 200 titles and 630 movies. Redbox is a fully automated video rental store, meaning no staffing and very limited labor (someone has to stock and service the machines). Compare that with 6,000 or 8,000 square feet consumed by a Blockbuster store, along with 15 hour a day staffing. Of course even the Redbox model faces the inevitable pure virtual and digital threat. After all, shouldn’t all video be truly digital, streaming directly to your TV or PC monitor? Those days are here for some, coming very soon for many, and it will be interesting to see if and how Redbox and Netflix adapt to this change.
The cheaper, faster and better distribution system will prevail. Whether we’re morphing from clipper ships to steam boats, from the horse drawn wagon to the locomotive, or from the retail bookstore to eReaders, the only constant in business, is change. Businesses must innovate or perish.
LinkedIn Tops 100 Million Mark
Posted on March 25th, 2011 by Alan Blume
On March 22nd LinkedIn reached a major milestone, eclipsing 100 million members worldwide. That’s a pretty significant number, one which according to LinkedIn is now growing at “roughly one million new LinkedIn members every week, the equivalent of a professional joining the site at faster than one member per second.”
LinkedIn sent me an email, noting that I was member number 356,048, an early adopter according to their email. I’m sure many of you reading this blog joined even earlier. The lesson here is about change, a roller coaster of change. Sometimes it takes a while for the coaster to make it up that big first hill, and then, it comes speeding down the track, weaving and winding its way toward a final destination. Of course on a coaster it is a known destination while on the internet, the horizon remains a vague blur. In both cases we can anticipate many unexpected (and sometimes thrilling) turns along the way. LinkedIn is now speeding down the track, and like any other roller coaster, and internet related things in general, don’t expect things to be in the same place very long. The internet is changing our lives and doing so quickly.
Many industries are in the process of climbing up that first roller coaster hill. And once they hit the peak, the subsequent velocity can be truly amazing. What’s changed so far? Social networking of course, trade shows, seminars, book publishing, etailing, newspapers, news reporting, public relations, marketing, banking, auctions and telecommuting to name just a few. Next up is movies and television. We’ve already seen some significant changes here – and we’re still climbing up that first roller coaster hill. Will traditional network TV be supplemented by a vast array of online, homegrown shows, or will it be replaced. Will individual reality shows be home produced and become the norm, or will the audience still prefer to see a professionally (if I can use that term) produced reality show? Will movies change, all but the mega special effect blockbuster replaced by indie movies, once pervasive and cheap internet distribution is available? Will we soon be watching news broadcasts and TV shows predominately on our Androids and iPhones? My eyes say no, though my brain says it will someday be likely.
Marketing has already hit the top of the hill and is changing rapidly. Telemarketing is on the decline, search marketing optimization, blogging, ePublishing and social media marketing are becoming mainstream. What’s the next big change we can expect to see? There are many expected, and they will likely change our lives, and optimistically I’d like to say for the better. Congratulations to LinkedIn on achieving this significant milestone, I use it (and so do many of my colleagues) every day – and it sounds like many, many others are finding value with this new network too.
The Virtual Storm Changing Marketing And PR
Posted on February 3rd, 2011 by Alan Blume
Web-based Strategies
There is a new approach, a new way, a virtual storm of change swirling around marketing and PR. Take for example, the new reach of internet based PR methods including free PR websites, social media marketing opportunities, RSS feeds, blogging best practices, and pod casting. These are just a few of the innovations changing the landscape of publishing, journalism and public relations, a virtual storm within which we all now live, as the winds of change continue to alter the business climate.
These winds can be highly favorable to many businesses, including smaller and midsized companies, offering an opportunity to level the playing field regardless of employee count or cash reserves. The business world continues to experience a virtual evolution; some might argue it’s more akin to a virtual revolution. One of the dynamically changing elements encompasses the evolution of public relations. With inexpensive and even free PR sites available to any business; it’s fairly easy to create and implement an effective PR strategy, and carry the message to millions. This opportunity is compounded when leveraging social networking sites such as LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter. And businesses can take advantage of these new virtual opportunities while simultaneously helping their SEO and Search Engine Marketing.
There are many good sites to choose from. Some of these are free, some have a modest annual fee, others charge on a per press release basis and some offer all three of these options. The big difference between the free and fee based press releases revolves around the appearance of the actual release. Free sites typically incorporate ads around the press release in a similar way to article directories or search engine results pages (SERPs). This is essentially a PPC strategy whereby these free press release sites derive revenue from traffic and clicks. Fee based sites eliminate the ads, create a more attractive and professional release, and derive revenue for the fees. And some sites offer a combination of both offerings.
There are many press release sites available for use. Two of the sites I have recently used include:
Both sites work well, distribute the press releases promptly and do so to a wide audience, send a confirmation email once the release is accepted and distributed and offer a link to the posted release. Of course there are a plethora of other sites available including: PR.com, 1888PressPrelease.com, TheOpenPress.com, FreePressReleaseCenter.info, Information-Online.com, OpenPR.com, PR-Inside.com, PRdb.net, PressAbout.com, PressMethod.com, PressReleasePoint.com, YourFreePressRelease.net, BusinessWire.com, MarketWire.com, PRWeb.com, eWorldWire.com, PRLeap.com, eReleases.com, PRBuzz.com andPRNewsWire.com to mention just a few of the choices your business might consider. PR sites are often measured by page rank and Alexa rank. These are relevant in so much as a higher ranked PR site theoretically packs more internet punch than a lower ranked site. However, your results may vary based upon your industry, niche and specific PR strategy.
Which one is right for you? That depends upon your goals. Is your business trying to drive traffic to your website? Is your goal primarily SEO based as you try to move your business up in the rankings? Are you seeking to capture the attention of a highly specific audience? Is your goal to merely augment your search engine marketing strategy? Are you seeking highly tailored, branded results and wish to ensure there are no PPC ads on your releases? Do you need more advance functionality for tracking and monitoring your prior releases or scheduling upcoming releases? Predicated upon your goals, your business can determine which site(s) are most appropriate and if you need free PR, fee based PR or some combination of both. The level of marketing proficiency to submit consistent press releases for your organization is relatively low. That said the level of marketing discipline to do so often remains beyond the reach of many small businesses, usually the result of a lack of personnel, thus offering a relatively painless outsource opportunity for those companies which just can’t get the PR job done. For more information read Your Virtual Success (Career Press)or contact StartUpSelling: http://www.startupselling.com/contact.html
An Inexpensive Sales & Marketing Approach for Startups and Emerging Companies
Posted on September 20th, 2010 by Alan Blume
How can an entrepreneur find competent, cheap and effective sales and marketing resources? This is a question that many startup companies and emerging companies must ask themselves every day. It is especially true for the bootstrapped, or simply cash strapped entrepreneur. In many cases the founders of these companies might have great development or operational skills, but lack the sales or closing genes necessary to bring in the business. Thus the dilemma, an entrepreneur has a great product, service or solution, but they don’t have the knowhow or sales and marketing team to build a pipeline and convert suspects to prospects, and then to new clients.
Of course, simply stated, the dilemma above actually represents two distinct issues, driving leads into the sales funnel (a marketing function) then qualifying and closing these leads (sales function). There does appear to be an answer to this question, with a new spin on an old methodology, the independent sales agent model. There are now opportunities for entrepreneurs to outsource the lead development and sales process using a virtual sales and marketing approach, thus conserving cash and mitigating startup risk. This model results in a true “reap what you sow” relationship, which emerging companies seem to like. In these cases, even a modest budget might be sufficient to pilot this model.
Why would this new virtual marketing and sales agent model work for a startup, entrepreneurship or cash strapped company? Hiring a great sales person, let’s say his name was Tom, even on a highly leveraged commission plan, with benefits, training and management time would cost at least $5,000 per month for most industries, and this is before any commissions or marketing costs are added. Because of our virtual approach, we were able to provide both the sales capacity AND the marketing for half the cost of a “Tom”. We think it is only possible to do this using a virtual, no overhead, internet based tools approach.
Virtual Sales & Marketing Solutions
Though the sales agent is not typically full-time, the results are can be far superior because the management time, reporting, sales skills, marketing and lead generation are all incorporated into one streamlined, cost effective, outsourced solution. This concept may take a while to catch on with some emerging companies, but it is, in many ways, a better approach to the traditional path of securing large loans or a second mortgage, angel funding, or venture capital funding. And there is a hidden bonus, if the salesperson leaves, there is no need for a new hiring process, they are replaced under this model with another sales agent, trained and brought up to speed without cost to the entrepreneur.
This model eliminates the need to find the sales closer that can “do it all”, find and cultivate leads, follow-up on pipeline worthy accounts, provide marketing materials and presentation materials and finally close new business. It also reduces cash flow needs, venture capital or other funding requirements. All of these services can be provided together, at a lower cost than the traditional brick and mortar model. Perhaps it sounds too good to be true, but I think that is because this is a new approach to an old problem. This new approach, leveraging the virtual model, internet tools and an outsourced contractor methodology can deliver better results than the old-fashioned, hire a brand new internal sales and marketing team and hope it works, brick and mortar approach.
For more information, read Your Virtual Success (Career Press) or go to: http://www.startupselling.com. StartUpSelling provides outsourced marketing, sales and lead generation services focusing in the areas of eMarketing, telemarketing, SEO, insurance agency social media marketing and website development. StartUpSelling specializes in innovative entrepreneurial marketing and sales concepts.
It’s All About Your Close Ratio
Posted on August 12th, 2010 by Alan Blume
Do you track the ratios of your prospects to presentations to proposals to closes? These simple ratios can offer tremendous insights into the health of your sales and marketing engine. Further, they can elucidate specific challenges in your business. For example, let’s say that you offer monthly web seminars which result in 100 registrants per month. Of these 100 registrants, 10 move further down your sales funnel (see blog entry called The Prospect Scorecard) and result in individual presentations (10%). Of these 10 presentations, five request proposals (50% of presentations or 5% of webinar registrants), and are deemed “proposal worthy” through your well defined Prospect Scorecard or other measuring system which your company has in place. Lastly, of these five proposals, two close, or 40% of proposals or 2% of the original 100 webinar registrants.
Now that you’ve established your ratios, are you happy with them? If you are, then you may want to increase webinar registrants, allowing more prospects to cascade down through your funnel. Or, perhaps you think that a 10% conversion rate from webinar registrants to individualized presentations is too low. You would then need to determine what should be done to influence that metric. For example, perhaps your webinars need a more compelling call to action, a special offer to move to an individualized presentation, or you could make it easier for the prospect to meet with you by offering an abbreviated one to one web meeting or conference call. There are actually many things you could try to refine your ratios, of course you have to have these in place to do so.
Your company now has simple and easily measurable metrics for your sales process. Extending these measurements to your marketing engine, in this particular case, can be as simple as measuring where webinar registrants arrived from (LinkedIn or other Social Network, ePublishing, eMail Marketing, Referral, etc.) and then tracking the resulting prospects through the sales funnel mentioned above. Many small businesses fail to measure these key metrics, which is really very simple to accomplish. We track all of these for our own sales and marketing efforts at StartUpSelling, Inc. You can read more about this on our website, or in my recently released book, Your Virtual Success: www.yourvirtualsuccess.net.
A Small Business Marketing Plan for the Web Centric Marketing Era
Posted on August 4th, 2010 by Alan Blume
Small Business Marketing Plan, Insurance Agency Marketing Plan
What type of marketing plan does your small business create each year? Is it a comprehensive and detailed plan that is 10 or 20 pages long or a more concise one to five pages? Is it part of an annual business plan or a five year strategic plan? Companies approach business planning, budgeting and marketing from a wide variety of perspectives. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to drill down to a marketing specific plan, then further to a web centric B2B lead generation plan.
There are many marketing related activities which fall under a small business marketing plan umbrella. Some of these (listed alphabetically) include:
- Association Memberships (Chamber of Commerce, etc.)
- Blogging
- Brochures
- Client Testimonials
- Club Memberships (Golf, Tennis, Other)
- Direct Mail
- eBrochures
- eMarketing
- ePublishing
- Events (for both clients and prospects)
- Networking Organizations
- Newsletter
- On-site Seminars
- Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns)
- PR and Client Testimonial Creation
- Promotional Items
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Telemarketing
- Trade Shows
- Traditional Advertising (Magazines, Yellow Pages, Radio, TV)
- Web Seminars
- Website
- White Papers
That’s already a long list, and we’re just getting started. Small businesses can’t tackle all of the activities above, in fact, they should only focus on a few of these each year, and many would agree that they should focus on lead generation oriented activities which will help keep their pipelines full and active. Let’s review some of the better lead generation activities from the list above:
- Direct Mail
- eMarketing
- Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Telemarketing
- Traditional Advertising (Magazines, Yellow Pages, Radio, TV)
- Web Seminars
- Website
Granted, networking oriented activities can generate leads, though these should be pursued in the normal course of business in a manner most comfortable to the individual salesperson. Thus we are focusing on quantitatively oriented (easily repeatable and highly measurable) lead generation activities. This list is more manageable, but still needs to be culled to ensure proper focus on the respective lead generation activity. A decade ago, traditional advertising, telemarketing and direct mail might have been the preferred path for most businesses. Today, only one of those activities should remain on our list, and as you will see below, the remaining items are all web marketing centric.
- eMarketing/Web Seminars
- Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogging, ePublising
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Telemarketing (for smaller profile prospects)
- Website
Our small business marketing list has now been culled to a manageable level. You may have noticed that eMarketing has been paired with web seminars. This is because many small business marketing experts find a higher B2B response rate to eMarketing initiatives when leveraging educationally oriented webinars as the primary call to action. SEO, search engine optimization for Small businesses, results in the organic display of your business website at the top of the search engine rankings (Google, Bing or Yahoo search engine results). You probably noticed that this is now bundled with blogging and ePublishing, since those elements are often necessary to achieve page one search engine results. Organic SEO is a gift that keeps on giving; it does not require fees every time a prospect clicks on your name. PPC, or Pay Per Click ads, appear at the top and side of the Google results, and require that your business pays anywhere from $1 to $5 per click, depending upon the competitiveness of the search term. My recommendations for a B2B lead generation, web centric plan often focuses on the following:
- eMarketing/Web Seminars
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogging, ePublising
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Website
This is a manageable list for almost any business, and a cost effective outsource if the business lacks the internal expertise to accomplish these tasks. A professional up to date website is essential for any small business. The website should be optimized for your specific keywords (benefits, workers comp, truck insurance, etc.). Your small business SEO initiative may need to be regionalized or localized (workers compensation Massachusetts). Social media marketing, a presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is fast and easy for most businesses, a full blown social media initiative would require a greater investment of time (creating and managing a group, offering content, responding to discussion groups, etc.). Blogging and ePublishing are essential and extremely helpful for most businesses. Fortunately businesses can often leverage their blog content and publish it in well known, online article directories. Lastly, a successful eMarketing and Web Seminar campaign can often yield the best results for small businesses. An ideal series might have 5,000 0r 10,000 targeted prospect emails combined with a monthly webinar. Be wary of email list brokers advertising inexpensive email lists. We’ve seen business lists where the first and last names are merged into one field and many of the emails are info@ or sales@ type emails, a definite problem when it comes to professional eMarketing. EMarketing is both an art and a science, businesses must ensure it is done properly, professionally and obey the CAN-SPAM act.
Web centric small business marketing is now a critical foundation for any small business wishing to grow, your business should be well on the way to implementing these initiatives. That said, don’t attempt to do too many activities at one time, you’re better off doing a few marketing activities really well than accomplishing a dozen in a haphazard manner.
For more information on small business marketing read Your Virtual Success: http://www.amazon.com/Your-Virtual-Success-Finding-Profitability/dp/1601631014
Are the days of B2B cold calling/telemarketing over?
Posted on July 27th, 2010 by Alan Blume
My answer to this question is, “it depends on the industry and prospect profile”. Telemarketing (or cold calling) can be very effective when properly approached and applied to a specific niche and B2B target profile. There are many newer methods of marketing B2B products and services, but highly targeted, niche cold calling can still prove effective for your B2B business. Ultimately, however, the days of cold calling will come to a close as eMarketing, Social Media Marketing, ePublishing and other web centric methods prove to be more effective and less expensive. But today, cold calling or outsourced B2B telemarketing can still be highly effective for certain niches and prospect profiles.
For example, one of our clients is a truck insurance agency located in the southeastern U.S. This insurance agency focuses on smaller trucking firms with 2 to 50 trucks, though most of their prospects fall within the 2 to 15 truck range. We currently provide them with an average of 6 appointments per week in only 10 hours of calling per week. We have seen the scenario repeatedly for transportation insurance agencies targeting smaller profile trucking companies, and, we’ve seen it for B2B clients which focus on a vertical niche, everything from sales consulting, to CPA firms, from training companies to cloud computing software solutions.
Though our preferred approach revolves around a fully integrated, comprehensive and web centric approach to marketing, we have found consistently high yield results for these vertically oriented companies, which have seen returns anywhere from 2X to 10X on their telemarketing investment. Cold calling can also be done on a tailored basis by sales people, calling high in their targeted prospect accounts, which combined with a personalized email can yield effective results. We describe the difference between salespeople’s cold calling and telemarketing from a numbers perspective. Our appointment setters are expected to yield about 25 calls per hour, documenting changes in position, direct phone number and of course delivering pitches along the way. This means that in 60 hours of calling per month, the phone is dialed about 1500 times, or 18,000 times per year when fully extrapolated. Sales professionals time is much better spent on other activities, they do not have the time or patience to deliver this volume. Obviously, telemarketing is not just about volume: a well defined and consistently refined script is essential, resulting in an appointment every two hours, which is subsequently very worthwhile to the salesperson, CPA, small business owner or producer (using insurance agency jargon).
Thus, in our opinion, though the days of telemarketing are dwindling for many B2B companies and industries, there are still instances where it is highly cost effective, if done professionally and properly, where high quality B2B telemarketing can yield cost effective results.