The Cold Calling Conundrum

Tweet

 

While the world has “gone digital,” cold calling is out of date to say the least. However, there are cold calling statistics that make me wonder; well sort of; it’s a bit of a conundrum actually.

In the past I posted articles relating to the cold calling marketing strategy. One article alluded to the fact that cold calling has definitely had its day; another stated that the marketing shift caused by technology has left even the best cold calling sales people wanting, and another still that bashed the “training systems” still being marketed on the net.

In my training workshops, I speak to professionals and discuss cold calling and their reluctance, if not abhorrence of the concept, you can read more here.

There are competing sides to the story, so to speak.

I have found that most traditional sales managers cling to cold calling, despite its decline, for the frank reason that it’s all they have ever known. When they were the sales person, they were forced to cold call, and eventually got good enough to be promoted to sales manager. I spoke about so-called training systems that are still to be found online in an article last year, which can be found in the blog archives.

Today’s consumer has all of the disruptive marketing shields; caller id, voicemail, Tivo or the DVR, Serius Radio, ad free digital news media. I wrote about this before. Every person I know hates telemarketing pitchmen. You as an executive shield yourself from unsolicited calls too. Knowing all that, why do business owners still choose to use cold calling despite all of the negatives associated with it?

The truly candid rationale I come up with is “I don’t have to learn any new strategies or tactics to get what I am after.” It’s true, inbound marketing takes time and a bit of education. Sure you will need to know how to effectively create email marketing campaigns, online lead generation and nurturing and a host of other methodologies. It is also true that cold calling is the most challenging of marketing tactics, and very few are actually good at it; that is why the stats are what they are; a whole lot of efforts for 1-3% return at best.

In the Zen Blog Archive, there are a host of articles regarding inbound marketing, and the proven fact that it costs less than traditional marketing by as much as 60%. The fact that inbound marketing is growing at such a drastic rate is because it works. But you decide.

Here are the pros and cons I was able to come up with to attempt to offer both sides of what I see is an issue facing a lot of businesses, especially this close to tax season.

PRO
On one side of the debate as to its worthiness, cold calling is a revered, yet out-dated sales generation methodology. The Direct Marketing Association study in June, 2010, noted an average of their constituents yielded a 6.1 customer to cold call ratio. With the nation’s average shrinking annually from the 1-3% average return, this is surprising. Remember though, these are a minimum of two year old statistics.

CON
The other side on this cold calling issue, which comes to us from Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina:

Cold Calling Is Dead- "Over 80% of decision makers absolutely will not buy from a cold call."

PRO
May 2011 – B2B Marketing Zone – More than 70% of all US employees are not engaged, so it is important to keep inbound sales people active through innovative games, contests and ongoing training. This article earned 7 Tweets

CON
On the same page of the B2B blog report, a Hubspot article stating, “So, why do we take our expensive salespeople and insist they must be good at "cold-calling" when the buyer doesn't want anything to do with this?”
Jan 2011 – This article earned 299 Tweets

PRO
The afore mentioned Houston Chronicle article, written by Miranda Brookins of Demand Media gives a complete explanation of cold calling, how it is done, and boasts the statistics from sources in favor of it.

CON
That same article was sponsored by an online public relations firm. Additionally, when looking up exactly what Demand Media does, the very first words on their site are “At Demand Media, we live up to our name by first listening to what our more than one hundred million monthly visitors want and then delivering the content and rich online experiences they crave.” You discern the true meaning of all this.

QUESTIONS

• Now if it is true that more than 80% of company executives want nothing to do with a cold call, why would they invest valuable resources using a method they despise? 
• When was the last time you accepted an unsolicited phone call from a stranger?
• If the national average success rate for cold calling is between 1.3 and 3%, the Direct Marketing Association claims their members (who happen to be the best trained cold callers in the world) reach 6.1%, what can you expect in terms of results?
• What amount of resources are you willing to invest for your expected return?

In the past I have done a pretty good job of bashing cold calling, but the aforementioned facts and suppositions speak otherwise to a degree. It is up to the individual executive to determine the marketing path they will pursue. Cold calling may have one time been the preferred choice of marketing tactics, but is it in this digital world today?

Inbound Marketing is Cold Callings Best Friend

Tweet

 

What inbound marketing does really, really well is eliminate the cold call. After all, when you have scores of interested people taking the time to visit your landing page or blog and then leaving you their contact information the odds are pretty good your call will be taken.

This behavioral bridge is amplified when they have taken advantage of a download (white paper, case study or some other relevant piece of information) and have something really tangible... and it has your brand on it!

What we are actually describing is an effort to create a warmer environment and avoid a cold one. To accomplish this a good sales professional will usually "prime the pump" with an introductory letter (print or e-mail) to make his/her reason for contact known, introduce his/her product or service, present his/her company's value proposition, and set up the real objective... getting an appointment.

Landing pages can play a large role in this, and a good letter is designed to trigger a visit to a dedicated landing page. The landing page can provide a lot more information (testimonials, images, product reviews) than a single letter can (or should!). And the right marketing platform (we use and recommend Hubspot©) makes creating and deploying landing pages quick and painless.

However, this article is intended to remind us of some best practices from the past. I would like you to consider one important but often overlooked aspect with the introductory letter tactic...

The quality of the paper that you use, the design of the letterhead that you use, the ink on the page... all of these come into play and can separate the wheat from the chaff! Want some proof?

We were retained to redesign an existing corporate identity package for a prospective client, and to prove the best efficacy we ran a test. 400 introductory letters were crafted and distributed to a totally cold list, a B-to-B list which we purchased. All of the companies played in the professional services arena and all were privately held companies. All of the letters were identically messaged, with the call to action being a visit to one of four landing pages for a complimentary report download (which, thanks to our Hubspot© platform, we can easily build effective landing pages and track them back to the respective letter).

Here is how we constructed the mailing:

• 25% were printed using a solid toner Xerox Phaser printer with 32-lb HP Premium Choice paper (great hand-feel and very bright). We used a full color letterhead design (which we designed and were striving to get client adoption of) - variation A
• 25% were printed using an HP Officejet Pro Inkjet with 24-lb Hammermill paper (still better than almost anything else), using the same full color letterhead design - variation B
• 25% were printed using a monochrome Dell laser, with a store brand 24-lb laser paper on the identical but preprinted full color letterhead - variation C
• 25% were printed using a monochrome Dell laser, with a store brand 24-lb laser paper on the client's existing one-color letterhead - variation D

Here are the results:

Variation's A and B more than doubled the response rates of C, and had far better response rates than D. Variation A was slightly better than B but the difference in the paper quality is mostly in weight and unless compared side by side the difference isn't really appreciated. But I do enjoy watching people run their hands over a report I've brought to a meeting having used the combinations found in variation A.

So when you are using a introductory letter campaign to support a call-based sales tactic consider the design, the printing, and the paper because it does have an effect on the behavior you wish to drive in the recipient.

By the way, 69 recipients downloaded the report, 18% overall (net of the bounces, but that is a matter for another post all together, isn't it?).

Reverse Cold-Calling, or How to Lose a Customer in 10 Seconds or Less

Tweet

 

We know it as Cold Calling 2.0 (in our office we refer to it as interruptive sales) but there is a tactic in telemarketing and phone sales that is guaranteed NOT win the hearts and minds of your potential customers. Don’t know to what I am referring? Reverse – cold calling is the act of trickery in getting someone to phone you. Here’s an example:

“Hello, is Mr. Jones in?” “Will you please leave him a very urgent message about a significant purchase we would like to make?”

Obviously, when Mr. Jones returns to his office and is told by his secretary that a very important call may mean a big sale. Of course Mr. Jones will call you back immediately. In this tumultuous economy, every chance at a sale is a big deal.

“Mr. Jones, thank you for calling me back. I really don’t need to purchase anything from you; I just wanted you to hear me out, blah, blah, blah.”

Can you hear the irritation in Mr. Jones’ voice? The angry breathing? The sudden slam of the receiver hitting the base of the phone? Without a doubt, that is the last time you will ever hear his voice again, unless you face him in court.

There are a lot of ways to trick someone into calling you back, or, even better, to ask for a fraudulent name you know won’t work, and when the response is that there is no person by that name; you ask for the person that does. This manipulation is the types of “cons” that have been used by swindlers and “magic beans” sales people have used for centuries, only now it can be performed on the telephone or the internet.

There are business owners trying reverse cold calling every day in this country, and the chances of this working are even less than actual cold calling itself. Cold calling 2.0, or what ever you wish to call it is not only unethical, it borders on fraudulently conducting a business enterprise, which by the way is illegal. Wikipedia doesn’t even have a definition for either of these “new and improved” methods of telemarketing.

It has been my experience that this type of deception is typically used when sales people are pressured for a certain number of call backs or appointments set; results only responses. These people are “smilin’ and dialin’” as quickly as they possibly can, so any technique can be rationalized and a perfectly acceptable business practice in their minds.

I sincerely hope my readers do not participate in these sorts of shenanigans, and I’ll leave it at that. There are other ways of growing your customer base without the need to stoop as low as trickery and manipulation.

The Art of Persuasion……Building a Relationship

The best sales people, or the folks responsible for sales are best served using the age old art of persuasion: Win Friends and Influence People. Despite the methodology of marketing; traditional or digital, the highest success will come to those that practice ethical, customer centric relationship building tactics.

The economic storm we continue to live within shows little signs of recovery, and therefore every penny a company invests in growing their enterprise must produce ROI in one form or other. Telephone sales no longer works, unless the prospect is calling you from some other form of marketing has captured your attention. It should never be the result of some form of trickery or deception.

Your marketing efforts to generate leads may comprise of a variety of “offline” methods, which is fine if they’re ethical. They can be augmented with online “inbound marketing’ strategies, which are performed via the internet and email. It may be in the form of a blog, or series of articles, eBooks, White Papers or other digital products. These content pieces should be designed to impart sincere, relationship building information that will help people. That is the way marketing is performed today. The slash and burn methods of the past are no longer effective.

Here at Zen Marketing we utilize relationship building as our foundation for all things marketing. As an inbound marketing agency, it is our job to not only develop comprehensive marketing plans, but in many cases, implement them as well. Some of our clients use us for everything, while others perform much of it themselves, and we fill in the gaps with which they are not comfortable with, or lack the resources to fulfill the task at hand.

I have mentioned this in the past, but it bears repeating. At Zen Marketing, we offer a no obligation marketing analysis of your present marketing methodologies, and offer you a solution based strategy to help you make an informed decision on how to proceed. While inbound marketing may rival traditional marketing methods in termns of investment, it offers measurability and processes that might replace everything you are presently doing. Traditional and inbound marketing integrate cohesively to increase your leads, improving your chances for sustainability and growth.

Give us a call to find out more.

Sales Team Motivation and Inbound Marketing

Tweet

 

We are approached by many companies who are looking to grow their revenue line, and in the process of understanding their approach to business development one question is universally asked - “How Do We Motivate Our Sales Team?”

First off- you cannot really motivate anyone. Motivation comes from within an individual. A person’s preference of behavior, both adapted and natural, really determines this. Having said that, we have enjoyed working with many good leaders, who have inspired a team of people to accomplish great things.

Second- a sales team is a group of individuals is not a collective or group mind set. Our workflow always involves the application of scientific online assessments to understand each sales person’s unique behavior and their motivators. When we understand a person’s preferences we can build a plan that aligns with that and truly engage their future drive to succeed… and drive greater results.

What drives motivation?

For some people it is purely money (and we screen for this especially where we are seeking people to fill commission based sales positions for a client).  There are several other motivators that can be measured using our assessment process. EG: You seldom see altruism as a motivator in business development profiles. So an understanding of a person’s unique behavioral and motivational preference can be a powerful dataset.

We also have an effective sales evaluation assessment, which measures a person’s understanding of the entire sales process. This valuable dataset lets us identify where a salesperson’s strengths lay, as well as where they might need additional coaching. It can be applied to an existing team or a potential new hire.

In other words, a plan that is broadly based is always going to be less effective than one that is built from the individual team member’s motivational perspective.

Give Them the Best Support to Really Drive Results

We then take this process one step further, by helping make the overall sales effort more efficient through the deployment of an inbound marketing process. If you want to see the batting averages of a sales organization skyrocket change the paradigm of cold calling into one where they are speaking to highly interested opportunities that, people that have the BANT necessary to insure success.

We use the term BANT a lot. This is an acronym for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline and all four of these conditions must exist for any salesperson to close a sale. Inexperienced sales people invest a lot of time in the sales process to learn one (or more) of these factors isn’t present and results in an investment of time and talent but no desired result. Experienced sales people know ways to navigate (or argue) their way around these factors but it can be very time consuming and not always fruitful.

Motivationally speaking, when a sales force knows the odds for success are higher with every phone call or email inquiry (because the inquiry has a high BANT probability) they approach the sales call more confidently. It is a lot of like athletics- players get into a cycle of success and that feeds more confidence and that usually leads to more success. Sales people also go through periods of ups and downs based on their close rates or the quality of the orders they are generating. A well orchestrated inbound marketing process can create this environment, one that drives better inquiries, improved lead conversion, and generates more success for the sales team... and the company.

Perhaps You Should Change Your Approach to Marketing?

With the proper application of a well defined plan along with a robust inbound marketing platform (we recommend Hubspot® and use it ourselves) you can consolidate almost all of your marketing endeavors into a single software-driven process. The advantages to this approach are:

• You will extend the reach of your company’s value proposition
• Your target audience will understand your company culture
• The value your company brings to your clients will be broadly and repetitively understood
• You will be able to quantify which tactics are most successful and where to shift your investment of time and talent

Perhaps best of all you will share that across a blog and different social media applications automatically and seamlessly. You will now have the ability to:

• Create and/or enhance the awareness in your brand that rivals the best public relations tactics
• Repetitively establish your credibility
• Provide opportunities for interested parties to become qualified prospects
• Maintain a high level of engagement over time
• Understand where in the sales process your investment in training and continuing education needs to be applied

Get the Facts

We have a comprehensive e-book that illustrates the inbound marketing process in great detail, and would love to share it with you. To obtain your copy, with no strings attached and no sales person phone calls, just complete the short form, above, right.

And if you would like to schedule an initial assessment of your current website and see an inbound marketing quotient just drop us an email and request a complimentary consultation.

How Architects Can Create Sustainability in Business Development

Tweet

 

Your business development or sales organization has been very busy. Think about all that time spent drafting emails, responding to voice mails, writing proposals with little or no real relevance, pitching to non-decision makers and not holding prospects accountable to commitments… in actuality that is a lot of time NOT spent selling, it is time spent chasing!

What percentage of the overall time of your sales efforts are actually spent actually selling with new prospects? And how does your brand and/or credibility suffer from these typical but common sales activities?

Time is Your Most Valuable Asset

Consider the impact on your top line revenue if you were able to reduce the time either you or your sales people spend chasing procrastinators.

Consider the impact on your growth if you were able to double your actual time spent selling (most sales people are only in front of new prospects (outside the scope of your existing core client base).

Here is a hint: an improvement of 5%-20% of the time equates to 2-8 appointments/hours per week.

What would this translate into with regards to gross sales?

There is a marketing process that can shorten the sales cycle and dramatically improve conversion and close rates. When properly deployed it can eradicate all those annoying time wasters many sales people get stuck with while providing your brand or product with a significant boost in credibility. The common term is content marketing or inbound marketing. More about that in a minute…

How Is Time Utilized in the Sales Process?

Just think about the amount of time that gets invested into:

• prospecting and networking
• engaging
• presenting
• writing proposals

This is usually followed by the big chase with the “prospect”… and then you come to discover that your sales people were on a big fishing expedition!

Sooner or later every business owner will realize the importance of addressing this situation.

Quite often traditional sales people sit back after all of the hours of prospecting, pitching, presenting, proposal writing and chasing and go over in their own minds why the prospect, who seemed so interested yesterday did not buy today. There are shelves of books dealing with this problem in book stores. The reasons that sales people typically provide are at the very least predictable.

Do any of these replies sound familiar?

• Your price is too high!
• We need to “think it over”!
• We have decided to postpone this for now!
• We have decided to stay with our current provider!
• We chose another company!

If you had a stock portfolio that was under-performing the overall market would you keep dumping time and money into those stocks? I seriously doubt it. What you would do is you assess what you have that is working, and then determine what to keep and what to eliminate… you would cut your losses with regard to what is really an under-performing asset. Why would you approach your marketing tactics any differently?

Place Your Focus on the Plan

For our clients opportunity is not a viable strategy to business development. Our clients believe in the creation of plans, plans that are both realistic and achievable; plans that establish measurable goals and provide personal accountability. Our clients wake up every morning knowing what action items have to be accomplished, and understand how these activities align with their overall long term mission.

Can you honesty argue that your marketing and sales goals are clearly defined, understood throughout your company, and are being achieved? If not perhaps it’s time for you to seriously consider a change in your company’s approach to marketing. Beginning with the overall vision and leading through the goals, strategies, and action items necessary to achieve a result that you will be proud of. And getting off of the unsustainable cycle of cold calling, frustration, and remorse and shifting your marketing spend into a more sustainable process.

It Must Be Measurable

Adopting new marketing tactics are always met with excitement until the revenue line doesn’t grow or the results are fuzzy and non-measurable. That has often been the case with traditional marketing tactics like direct mail, newspaper advertising, and road signs. And while good marketers have adapted internet marketing best practices like dedicated landing pages and QR codes to help strengthen these traditional practices provide and provide some analysis they really cannot compare to the quality and volume of data that can be generated from an inbound marketing approach.

Again, using the stock portfolio analogy, how long would you continue with an investment advisor if all you routinely saw were the fees s/he was charging you and not the performance of the portfolio? That is very similar to what many businesses are doing- paying the fees to pump out ad’s without being able to assess the impact that ad is having on their revenue growth.

Change Your Approach to Marketing

With the proper application of a well defined plan along with a robust inbound marketing platform (we recommend Hubspot® and use it ourselves) you can consolidate almost all of your marketing endeavors into a single software-driven process. The advantages to this approach are:

• You will project your company’s value proposition
• Your target audience will understand your company culture
• The value your company brings to your clients will be broadly and repetitively understood
• You will be able to quantify which tactics are most successful and where to shift your investment of time and talent

Perhaps best of all you will share that across a blog and different social media applications automatically and seamlessly. You will now have the ability to:

• Create and/or enhance the awareness in your brand that rivals the best public relations tactics
• Repetitively establish your credibility
• Provide opportunities for interested parties to become qualified prospects
• Maintain a high level of engagement over time
• Understand where in the sales process your investment in training and continuing education needs to be applied

Get the Facts

We have a comprehensive e-book that illustrates the inbound marketing process in great detail, and would love to share it with you. To obtain your copy, with no strings attached and no sales person phone calls, just complete the short form, above, right.

And if you would like to schedule an initial assessment of your current website and see an inbound marketing quotient just drop us an email and request a complimentary consultation.

Accounting Firms and Inbound Marketing- Sustainability in Marketing

Tweet

 

Your business development or sales organization has been very busy. Think about all that time spent drafting emails, responding to voice mails, writing proposals with little or no real relevance, pitching to non-decision makers and not holding prospects accountable to commitments… in actuality that is a lot of time NOT spent selling, it is time spent chasing!

What percentage of the overall time of your sales efforts are actually spent actually selling with new prospects? And how does your brand and/or credibility suffer from these typical but common sales activities?

Time is Your Most Valuable Asset

Consider the impact on your top line revenue if you were able to reduce the time either you or your sales people spend chasing procrastinators.

Consider the impact on your growth if you were able to double your actual time spent selling (most sales people are only in front of new prospects (outside the scope of your existing core client base).

Here is a hint: an improvement of 5%-20% of the time equates to 2-8 appointments/hours per week.

What would this translate into with regards to gross sales?

There is a marketing process that can shorten the sales cycle and dramatically improve conversion and close rates. When properly deployed it can eradicate all those annoying time wasters many sales people get stuck with while providing your brand or product with a significant boost in credibility. The common term is content marketing or inbound marketing. More about that in a minute…

How Is Time Utilized in the Sales Process?

Just think about the amount of time that gets invested into:

• prospecting and networking
• engaging
• presenting
• writing proposals

This is usually followed by the big chase with the “prospect”… and then you come to discover that your sales people were on a big fishing expedition!

Sooner or later every business owner will realize the importance of addressing this situation.

Quite often traditional sales people sit back after all of the hours of prospecting, pitching, presenting, proposal writing and chasing and go over in their own minds why the prospect, who seemed so interested yesterday did not buy today. There are shelves of books dealing with this problem in book stores. The reasons that sales people typically provide are at the very least predictable.

Do any of these replies sound familiar?

• Your price is too high!
• We need to “think it over”!
• We have decided to postpone this for now!
• We have decided to stay with our current provider!
• We chose another company!

If you had a stock portfolio that was under-performing the overall market would you keep dumping time and money into those stocks? I seriously doubt it. What you would do is you assess what you have that is working, and then determine what to keep and what to eliminate… you would cut your losses with regard to what is really an under-performing asset. Why would you approach your marketing tactics any differently?

Place Your Focus on the Plan

For our clients opportunity is not a viable strategy to business development. Our clients believe in the creation of plans, plans that are both realistic and achievable; plans that establish measurable goals and provide personal accountability. Our clients wake up every morning knowing what action items have to be accomplished, and understand how these activities align with their overall long term mission.

Can you honesty argue that your marketing and sales goals are clearly defined, understood throughout your company, and are being achieved? If not perhaps it’s time for you to seriously consider a change in your company’s approach to marketing. Beginning with the overall vision and leading through the goals, strategies, and action items necessary to achieve a result that you will be proud of. And getting off of the unsustainable cycle of cold calling, frustration, and remorse and shifting your marketing spend into a more sustainable process.

It Must Be Measurable

Adopting new marketing tactics are always met with excitement until the revenue line doesn’t grow or the results are fuzzy and non-measurable. That has often been the case with traditional marketing tactics like direct mail, newspaper advertising, and road signs. And while good marketers have adapted internet marketing best practices like dedicated landing pages and QR codes to help strengthen these traditional practices provide and provide some analysis they really cannot compare to the quality and volume of data that can be generated from an inbound marketing approach.

Again, using the stock portfolio analogy, how long would you continue with an investment advisor if all you routinely saw were the fees s/he was charging you and not the performance of the portfolio? That is very similar to what many businesses are doing- paying the fees to pump out ad’s without being able to assess the impact that ad is having on their revenue growth.

Change Your Approach to Marketing

With the proper application of a well defined plan along with a robust inbound marketing platform (we recommend Hubspot® and use it ourselves) you can consolidate almost all of your marketing endeavors into a single software-driven process. The advantages to this approach are:

• You will project your company’s value proposition
• Your target audience will understand your company culture
• The value your company brings to your clients will be broadly and repetitively understood
• You will be able to quantify which tactics are most successful and where to shift your investment of time and talent

Perhaps best of all you will share that across a blog and different social media applications automatically and seamlessly. You will now have the ability to:

• Create and/or enhance the awareness in your brand that rivals the best public relations tactics
• Repetitively establish your credibility
• Provide opportunities for interested parties to become qualified prospects
• Maintain a high level of engagement over time
• Understand where in the sales process your investment in training and continuing education needs to be applied

Get the Facts

We have a comprehensive e-book that illustrates the inbound marketing process in great detail, and would love to share it with you. To obtain your copy, with no strings attached and no sales person phone calls, just complete the short form, above, right.

And if you would like to schedule an initial assessment of your current website and see an inbound marketing quotient just drop us an email and request a complimentary consultation.

Inbound Marketing: the Best Way to Drive Sales to New Levels

Tweet

 

Do you sometimes feel like your company is using social media and blogging but not getting the volume of leads you had hoped for? Are you stressing over the decision to invest more time, talent, and treasure into your marketing effort?

Or are you stuck in the old cold-calling paradigm? Heck, can a company survive this way in today's marketplace?

Jason Fried, writing for INC., articulates: “Existing companies always weigh the costs of new technology or talent against what it already has and usually sticks with what is familiar. Why? Because the marginal costs of using what you have are almost always lower than the full costs of investing in something new.”1

Established decisions makers don't think in terms of marginal costs. New companies don't base decisions like inbound marketing adoption on costs at all - rather they tend to pick what is best for the business. It's the key reason new businesses often displace established ones.  They have better tools.

Several of our clients had established outbound sales processes in place, lacked an email database to completely support a pure inbound marketing campaign, and needed a more rapid ramp up than an inbound marketing initiation would have generated. But, they had the vision to realize that a sales process based solely on cold calling was becoming dysfunctional.

One of them, the President of a manufacturing company, had been impressed with some of the content we had shared with them, from a LinkedIn group, and reached out to us. Yup- they called us!

We created a plan to blend the client's outbound culture with the inbound marketing process. One of the biggest misconceptions we see in interviewing potential clients is the "either/or" mentality many people have regarding these two disciplines. Outbound tactics are a great way to support a sales organization that is light on email contacts and doesn’t want to buy lists (and potentially risk being labeled a spammer. The solution we devised was to utilize Hubspot® as an internet environment to create warm calls where they might have only been cold ones before.

Inbound marketing is at its best when it supports a traditional sales effort, not merely trying to replace it. And this is never more evident than within an existing business trying to survive by using only an outbound marketing process.

We then created personas of the client’s target audience, asking and evaluating where they "play". We Identified ways to reach them with our blog, social media content, along with traditional marketing tactics. For example an architectural firm we work with found success with not only regularly posting new content on their website but also because we re-purposed the material into a great print article, e-book, or white paper and used it as a compelling direct mail piece. We made certain to add a unique URL to track results, designed a landing page specific to that audience (and message) and added a strong call to action.  Where we used to have daily quotas of phone calls, and frustrated sales people (and equally frustrated decision makers) we now have a process to drive more inbound leads plus we have the ability to measure the traffic and convert leads into prospects before the sales people even pick up the phone.

We are also using advertising using trade publications and other periodicals that fit the persona of the target audience industries. We have assigned sales people to trade shows and networking events and have armed them with unique business cards and/or brochures designed for that purpose, again all driving to specifically tailored landing pages.

And more often than not when the sales team acknowledges a response to a call to action and dials the phone the party on the other end is far more receptive to having a conversation. Our rate of new appointments has grown, and our close rates and new customer conversions will certainly follow. But that is on the sales manager… we are the outsourced marketing department, after all!

All of this has allowed the management team to consider eliminating sales territories all together and aligning salespeople into specific industries, creating expert solution providers not pitchy sales people. Imagine speaking with the sales person who has multiple success stories within your industry versus a guy who merely “handles your territory”!

Lastly, we could devote an entire article (perhaps we should) on the enhancements to organic search results as a byproduct of all of this new inbound traffic. A financial planning we enjoy working with previously invested around a thousand dollars monthly to improve their search engine results through SEO-generating activities.  With the use of good inbound marketing processes that company’s website ranking naturally improved, ultimately providing them with even more interested lead conversion opportunities.

Inbound marketing requires a good amount of time to generate momentum. Companies lacking a large existing email database to work with can see success with the adaptation of traditional marketing and sales methods to drive traffic and conversions is a great way to build the eventually conversion to an inbound only approach.

And it is far more efficient than cold calling on its own.

1- INC Magazine, October 2012 page 35

Why Cold Calling Doesn't Work…….

Tweet

 

…….and What You Can Do About It!

The concept is as old as the hills.  We have all received an unwanted, unsolicited call from someone selling something.  They come at the most inopportune times of the day; at dinner, when you are in a meeting, at lunch or when you are busy.  It is part and parcel to a consumer society, and has been with us for almost as long as the telephone itself.  Regardless of the National Do Not Call List, ruthless marketers persist.  Therein lies the rub; considerate, interested honest sales people are punished with the same disregard as those operating boiler room operations.  Cold calling doesn’t work, and hasn’t for quite a while. Inbound marketing strategies have replaced this old school method of gaining new leads. 

Cold calling doesn’t work for a number of reasons, primarily because consumers and decision makers hate telemarketers as much as they hate disruption.  There is enough to do all day at work (and at home for that matter) without having to answer an annoying phone call from someone interested in “saving you time or money.”  Today’s consumers have grown weary of the constant interruptions and distractions that telemarketing, tv commercials and radio spots bring.  Life is simply now on their terms, not the advertisers.

What can you do about it?  Good question!  How can you gain new customers?  There are several ways to do so without having to resort to the outdated and annoying cold calling method.

• The first thing you should do is gather your top clients’ information, such as name and address, email address, when you last interacted with them and so on.  You can create this log in a simple excel spreadsheet, although customer relationship management software can keep that information updated without any work whatsoever.  Regardless of the system, prepare to use these top 25 or 50 clients.
• Ask these clients to rate your performance, likelihood of repeat business, and especially if they would consider a testimonial you can use to showcase on your web site and other marketing paraphernalia.
• Each month, re-approach these clients if they know of anyone that might be in need of your valuable goods or services. Explain that in order to keep your prices competitive, you prefer to work with those clients that have been referred to you by happy clients.  This way, they can be assured of the finest service, knowing that their friends and associates have already experienced your value proposition.
• Use the three-foot rule when networking, are in the community, or any time that you meet someone new.  This simply means that if someone that you don’t already do business with is within a three foot radius of you, tell your story and ask for the business, or at least a referral.  You’d be surprised at the outcomes.
• Today’s selling environment is totally different than a few short years ago.  People want to work with someone they have built a relationship with, and they are searching online for the right product or service provider.  Stand out from the crowded field of competitors.  In order to differentiate yourself from all of the others, offer information about your industry that matters to potential consumers. Know your target audience and provide engaging content such as an information article, a topical eBook that solves a problem, or a regularly produced newsletter that not only highlights your services, but provides humorous anecdotes, cartoons, a pertinent video clip or some information that has the ability to impact their lives better somehow. 
• Never make another Cold Call! People don’t wish to listen to a sales pitch from a hungry salesperson.  They will, however, like to hear from someone that they know and trust.  By developing a relationship with individuals, the call becomes warm.  Make a habit of taking copious notes about family members, birthdates, anniversaries and special likes and dislikes.  Taking the time to wish them a happy birthday, or inquiring about how their son Johnny did in the annual spelling bee at school goes a long way to building a lasting friendship, which very well may turn into a business relationship.
• Stop Selling!  Your web site and brochure is all the sales hype you need.  People are in dire need of the warm and fuzzy, not another sales pitch.  Your social media activity, your blog and phone interactions should be about telling a story, building a relationship and ultimately harvesting leads that will eventually turn into sales.  Let go of the sales pitch and pick up the storyteller’s cap. Inbound marketing, including your blogging and article writing efforts supported by social media is the way to avoid cold calling forever.

There may always be a need for salespeople, who make their livelihood pressing the flesh, dialing for dollars and annoying people across the globe.  You don’t have to resort to being someone that cold calls.  There are alternatives.  An inbound marketing assessment can identify what needs you have, and the tactics and strategies necessary to accomplish your goals. And make all your future calls warm ones!

Just How Effective is Cold Calling Anyway?

Tweet

 

Let’s be honest for a moment; no one likes cold calling.  Cold calling was once the standard method of gaining new business for many industries, the number one lead generation technique, especially financial services.  For everyone from the boiler room operations seeking donations to the New York Stock Exchange pitchmen, effective cold calling was the tried and true path to take towards lead generation and growing revenues.  

Those days are gone; what appears to be forever.  The glory days of cold calling are over, replaced by the internet. Some people could not be happier.

Even the term sounds contradictory; “Effective Cold Calling.”  That seems akin to “Jumbo Shrimp” or “Military Intelligence.”  It sounds that way.  Cold calling died with the internet, yet if you were to Google “Cold Calling,” you would find an untold amount of hucksters selling “The Best Cold Calling System” training programs, lifetime renewals of boxed “21st Century Training” and a host of other information products. The only firms making money on cold calling are the information hawkers selling junk science.

The mobile device phenomenon has caused many people to give up their home phone, mainly because of duality.  They carry their Smartphone with them everywhere, so why not use it completely and give up the added expense of a home phone.  Do Not Call Lists have also reduced the reach of telemarketers. 

The simple truth is that consumers are sick and tired of being told what to wear, what to buy, who to do their taxes and even what to read. People detest distraction. Their lives are already too busy.

Newspapers are diminishing in impact because of less print advertising sold, voicemail and caller ID are blocking out unsolicited callers, junk mail is bad for the environment (too much paper) and the DVR and TIVO are eliminating the need to sit through commercials, and on and on. 

Decision makers and consumers today are choosing providers by their own searches on the internet.  This new marketing model is known as Selective Consumption.  When a prospective customer finds a company that provides the needed goods or services, they begin to develop a relationship with them. They may revisit the site to further investigate or download information. Throughout their search they will end up liking what information they discover (information that makes their lives better, not a sales pitch).

Ultimately, prospects select the business that does the best job helping them with their wants and needs, not merely selling them on what is being pushed at them.  The consumer is now in charge of the buying and selling process.

The internet, combined with social media marketing has revolutionized the way effective marketing is performed in the 21st Century.  An interactive web site, supported by relative engaging content offerings is how it is best done today.  Interacting with potential clients with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, along with free eBooks, white papers,  and Special Reports help develop relationships.  Cold calling can’t do that, effective or not.

Today’s businesses must show themselves in the best possible light online, because that is where the consumer is gaining their knowledge about goods and services.  The days of a brochure website (aka a static web page) have been replaced by interactive sites that include calls to actions, where the consumer can download free information that makes their lives better. It also  helps develop a relationship with you, with them providing their name and email address in return.  This is the method of lead generation in the new millennium.

Effective cold calling is a dream, but is often more like a nightmare, as most people on either end of the phone line are repelled by it. Both consumers and sales people share an equal dislike for the methodology. They have reverted to relationship-oriented marketing, away from the phones to transact business. 

After all, they are on the phone all day staying connected to those with whom they wish to speak.