How to make the most of your inbound pipeline.

So you’ve done your research, chosen the best strategy for your business, got your lead generation system in place. Great! Now what?

If your strategy stops there, you’re missing some important steps. You’ll have lots of leads, but probably not a big increase in sales. So what do you need to do once the leads come in? This is where lots of companies make some common mistakes. These are definitely worth discussing if you want to make the most of your lead generation strategy.

Have a specific process in place

This may seem like a no-brainer, but a surprising amount of companies don’t have a specific process in place for exactly what to do when an inbound lead comes in. Who is delegated to deal with the inbound leads? If it’s multiple people, what criteria are used to determine which person each lead goes to? Is that person able to follow up in a timely manner on all leads? What process do you have in place to qualify inbound leads?

Answering these questions will help make sure you’re not missing opportunities.

Take time to research and qualify

Before you can reach out to an inbound lead, hop online to get as much information about the person and the company as possible. Hopefully, your lead generation system will provide you with information such as industry, company size, location, etc., so take just a second to make sure that those criteria meet your definition of a good prospect. Every lead that comes in will not be an ideal fit, so just taking a quick second to check that will save you a lot of time by eliminating time spent following up with dead ends.

It’s also worth taking a few minutes to check the contact’s social media and to check out the company website to get more specific information. Just because a company is listed as being in the manufacturing industry doesn’t mean that the specific type of manufacturing they’re involved in will be a perfect fit.

Once you’ve determined this lead is legit, take a look at what communication they responded to in order to gauge what caught their eye and why they may be interested in your business. Even though inbound leads have “raised their hand” and initiated the contact with your organization, you still have a very narrow window to cement that bit of interest into a real conversation. One of the quickest ways to lose a prospect is to start talking their ear off about things they’re not at all interested in. Even if you do end up going over what piqued their interest in the first place, if you bury it in other irrelevant information, there’s a good chance the prospect will leave the conversation either confused or irritated.

Follow up right away with a personalized message

If someone initiates contact with your business, they expect timely, personalized contact. Some sales people will not prioritize inbound leads and follow up with a delayed, impersonal email. Most of the time when prospects take the time to reach out, they are probably also reaching out to your competitors as well, and they’re evaluating your business alongside your competitors. If you send a generic, impersonal message, your prospect will not feel like a priority and immediately be more inclined to work with your competitor (who will be personalizing!).

Don’t give up too soon

If you don’t reach an inbound lead on the first attempt, stay persistent. With an inbound lead you have even more reason to not give up. This is not a cold lead that may or may not hang up on you once you do get through. This person reached out to your business. If you give up after one or two calls, that shows the prospect that you’re not making them a priority.

It takes an average of six attempts to secure a sales appointment (check out our blog article on this topic here), including with inbound leads. You’ve taken the time to reach out to this person with lead generation, they responded, and you took the time to do the research to determine they could be a fit. Don’t give up on something this good after a couple of calls.

Having a solid lead generation strategy in place is a boon for any business, and is becoming increasingly necessary to keep up with the competition in the changing sales landscape. In order to fully realize the benefits though, it is also necessary to think through how to handle those leads once they come in to make sure you’re not missing opportunities. It’s definitely worth it to make sure you, your sales team, and your lead generation partner are on the same page and to outline a specific process for moving these valuable leads along in the sales cycle.

Drop us a line and let’s talk about this and other strategies for making the most of your sales pipeline.

Securing Appointments Takes More Tries Than You Think
As a sales person the line between professional persistence and harassing peskiness is always on your mind, and it should be! The minute you become irritating in the eyes of your prospect you can kiss your chances of a sale goodbye. But that line is harder to cross than most sales people think.

In a recent study by the Harvard Business Review, the data showed that 90% of all sales appointments are set after six attempts with the same prospect, and only 4% of sales people make that many attempts.

Why? Time. As a sales person, you have a long list of other things to do rather than sit at your desk and make call after call to try to secure a commitment from prospects. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense that so many approaches are necessary. Think about your own day. You don’t even have time to make the ideal number of approaches to each prospect, let alone take calls from outside vendors. That’s the case with most of your prospects’ daily schedules as well.

With that in mind, repeated contact attempts are not the complete solution. If you simply call six times and then give up, you’re still not using the ideal strategy to get your foot in that door. What you need is a non-invasive, professional, straight-forward approach that compels your prospects to request a contact if they’re ready to talk now, or to request a follow-up at a time when they will be.

That’s where having a great lead generation partner comes in. A great lead generation partner will take care of the first few steps in the sales process, and by the time the prospects reach you, the first few contacts have already been taken care of. You’ll spend more time talking to people who have raised their hand and requested to speak with you and less time on dead end phone calls trying to sift through all the cold prospects that have no interest in speaking with you, or following up with prospects you’ve already spoken to who are still just not ready to buy.

We want to become your trusted prospecting partner. Let’s talk about how we can take the first, tedious steps of the sales process off your plate.

Lead generation is one of the most important parts of building a predictable sales pipeline. Without a consistent lead generation strategy, sales teams spend too much time searching for prospects instead of closing deals. Effective lead generation helps sales professionals focus on qualified leads, improve productivity, and increase revenue.

How Lead Generation Helps Sales Teams Use Their Time More Effectively

The traditional sales prospecting process has changed significantly over the last decade. Modern sales teams no longer need to spend hours digging through databases, cold calling random companies, or chasing unqualified prospects.

Today, successful companies use lead generation services and sales prospecting strategies to identify qualified leads before the sales process even begins. This allows sales representatives to focus on conversations, relationship building, and closing deals instead of wasting time on manual prospecting.

The Importance of Qualified Leads

The first priority for any sales professional is responding to inbound leads. If a prospect reaches out expressing interest, they are naturally the highest priority.

The challenge comes when inbound leads slow down. Without a steady flow of new opportunities, pipelines dry up quickly.

A strong lead generation strategy solves this problem by creating a mix of:

• Inbound leads ready to buy now
• Warm leads that fit your ideal customer profile
• Long-term prospects that may convert later

This creates a healthier sales pipeline and helps businesses maintain consistent growth even during slower periods.

Identifying the Right Prospects

One of the biggest benefits of professional lead generation is identifying the right target audience.

Modern prospecting databases contain enormous amounts of company and contact information. Sorting through that data manually takes time away from sales activities that actually generate revenue.

Lead generation specialists help sales teams identify:

• Companies that match ideal customer profiles
• Decision-makers within target organizations
• Industries with the highest conversion potential
• Prospects most likely to buy

Instead of asking sales representatives to spend hours researching companies, businesses can provide their teams with qualified sales leads from the start.

How to Identify Your Best Prospects

A good starting point is analyzing your current customer base.

Ask questions such as:

• Which customers generate the most long-term value?
• Which industries close the fastest?
• Which clients are easiest to retain?
• What traits do your best customers share?

Those characteristics should shape your lead generation strategy and prospect targeting efforts.

Why Lead Qualification Matters

Lead qualification is essential for improving sales efficiency.

Not every prospect is worth pursuing. Sales teams perform better when they focus on companies that are a realistic fit for their products or services.

A lead generation partner can gather important information such as:

• Company size
• Industry
• Revenue
• Geographic location
• Existing technology
• Growth indicators
• Buying readiness

This information helps sales representatives quickly determine whether a prospect belongs in the sales pipeline.

In modern sales environments, selectivity is an advantage. Businesses no longer need to pursue every lead equally. Better lead qualification leads to higher close rates and more efficient sales processes.

Opening Doors Through Lead Generation

Making first contact with a prospect is often the hardest part of the sales cycle.

Cold outreach gives sales professionals only a few seconds to capture attention and establish credibility. Competing for that attention becomes more difficult every year as inboxes become more crowded and buyers become more selective.

Warm leads are different.

When lead generation efforts establish awareness and initial interest before the sales conversation begins, sales representatives can focus on:

• Building relationships
• Understanding pain points
• Presenting solutions
• Moving opportunities through the sales funnel

This makes the sales process more productive and significantly improves conversion opportunities.

Modern Lead Generation Creates Competitive Advantages

Modern marketing and sales strategies have made competition more intense across nearly every industry. Companies that lack a consistent lead generation process often struggle with unpredictable pipelines and inconsistent revenue.

An effective lead generation program helps businesses:

• Generate qualified sales leads consistently
• Improve sales team productivity
• Increase conversion rates
• Build healthier pipelines
• Reduce wasted prospecting time
• Scale outreach efforts efficiently

Sales teams perform best when they can spend the majority of their time selling instead of searching for prospects.

Build a Stronger Sales Pipeline With Lead Generation

Lead generation is no longer optional for growing businesses. Companies that invest in lead generation services and modern prospecting strategies position their sales teams for greater efficiency and stronger long-term growth.

The right lead generation strategy allows sales professionals to focus on what they do best: building relationships, solving problems, and closing deals.

The way your buyers learn and make decisions is changing. With the wealth of information available at the click of a mouse, people are more informed and further along in the buying process by the time they reach your sales team.  The old idea that all you need to be successful in sales is to be deceptively forceful and refuse to take no for an answer no longer applies. The entire profession of sales is moving toward inbound sales, and if you have the right infrastructure in place to provide those inbound leads, your sales team can pursue less leads, waste less time, and focus on meeting the needs of those people that are already informed and interested in you, rather than trying to convince every prospect that you are right for them.  But how do you work those inbound leads once you get them?  There are some key differences from the traditional outbound model.

Understand the buyer

When a prospect “activates” or expresses interest in engaging with your company, they may be in any one of several stages in the buying process.  It is crucial that the sales person understands which stage, whether they are informed and have a specific list of needs, or they’re simply looking for some general information and are looking to learn more about what solutions are out there.  Those two scenarios are approached in completely different ways, and a lack of understanding of that fact will alienate your prospects fast.

With every one of your competitors at the fingertips of your prospects, they have the advantage of being able to choose whichever company they trust the most, and that listens the most to their specific needs.  Your sales process should be based on letting the buyer drive the conversation and letting them discover at their own pace that you are the best solution for them.

Be an educator

The popular viewpoint in sales used to be that the closing call or meeting was the most important part of the process – not anymore.  Now that your prospects have the ability to easily educate themselves before they even think about speaking with you, the most important conversation you will have is the discovery call.  If you handle the discovery call correctly, you will learn everything you need to know about your prospect’s needs and wants, and they will learn all about how you can help them.  You will build trust by conveying that you care about their needs.  By the time you reach the closing call, your job will be done.

Get emotional

During this discovery process, it is crucial that you really dig into understanding your prospect.  Two people with the same pain points may feel completely differently about which is more important.  If you don’t understand that subtlety, you may end up focusing on how your company can meet a need that is low on the priority list for the prospect, while your competitors may be focusing on those that are higher.  That small difference may drive your prospect to the competition.  Make sure you’re really taking the time to get to know the people that you’re speaking with and to genuinely understand what they do, where their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they feel about where they’re going and the problems they want to solve.

Questions first, answers later

The traditional approach of going into a meeting with a canned presentation and the goal of convincing each prospect that your company is great, regardless of what they’re looking for, simply doesn’t work anymore.  Again, due to the fact that your prospects have so many options available to them so easily, it is key that the sales person understands the prospect’s pain points and tailors the information presented to those specifics.  You need to learn about your prospect in order to know what it is that they need to know about you.

Let them go at their own pace

This goes back to our first point about understanding the buyer.  They may be in one of several stages of the buying process when they engage with you, and it may take them widely varying amounts of time to move to the next stage.  It can be frustrating, but it is crucial that you allow the prospect to move at their own pace through the sales process.  Attempting to force them through faster than they want is one of the fastest ways to lose a sale.  Also back to the point about being an educator, the modern inbound sales person must learn to nurture prospects, maybe even keep in touch for months or years, waiting patiently until that person is ready to go.  Just remember, if the process is a long one, you have a great opportunity to become a trusted thought leader by the time they’re ready to move on to buying.

 

Inbound sales is about working smarter, not harder.  With the right strategy in place to deliver inbound leads, your sales team can focus on prospects that are happier to speak with them, get results faster and easier, and still exceed quotas.  Ultimately, you will waste less time and make more money.

Part of that key strategy is having the right lead generation partner to take care of finding those inbound leads.  That’s where we come in.

Let’s talk about how we can help your business get started on the right path to the future of sales.

The concept of effective communication and its effect on sales success is nothing new to any sales department.  The foundation of any successful sales person’s strategy must be to communicate value, gain trust, explain complex situations and products, and differentiate your company from competitors.  Nowhere is this more important than in a sales email.  There is a very small window of time in which to gain the reader’s attention and motivate them to take further action to engage with you and your company.  Here are a few strategies that we use to make our emails more effective.

Knowing your audience

This is the first step in thinking about how to write your email.  The factors that will catch the eye of an accountant, for example, are not necessarily the same as those that will motivate a CFO to learn more about you.  Begin by thinking about your current customers.  When those customers were still prospects, what were the factors that motivated them to engage with your company?  What makes your company attractive to C-Level employees vs. mid-level managers?

If you’re not sure, ask them!  A quick customer survey is a great way to learn what sets your company apart from your competitors, as well as the different factors that make you appealing in different levels and departments of your customers’ companies.

Let them hear it straight from the horse’s mouth

You know that your business offers a valuable product/service, but your prospects are hearing the exact same thing from each of your competitors.  How do you set yourself apart in the eyes of your target base?  An extremely effective way is to leverage the testimony of your existing happy customers.  Hearing from your customers what problems your company was able to solve and the reasons they originally chose you over your competitors allows your prospects to see the value you provide in a unique way.

It is a common business practice to keep track of what others in the same industry are doing to make them successful.  If you have a large, high-profile customer you can reach a large number of prospects that will be interested in what strategies that company is implementing.  Even if your business focuses on smaller or local businesses, you can leverage that customer’s testimony to gain more customers in the same area, revenue group, and industry.  Your prospects will find it extremely valuable to see what other businesses just like theirs are doing and why.  Even simply stating the size of your large customer base tells your prospects that you provide something that is useful to a large number of people and you’re worth learning more about.

Small steps

Once you’ve caught the attention of the reader, it’s tempting to jump straight to the end of the process and try to get them to buy right away.  It’s best to avoid that temptation and ask for a small step from the prospect.  The reader is much more likely to, say, reply to an email to learn more than they are to immediately commit to a purchase.

Keeping your “ask” small and easy will ensure that more people will take the next step to engage with you.  Ask a question that defines the value you add and that the prospect is likely to say yes to, but try to make it as specific as possible.  For example, if you provide commercial fleet tracking, ask the prospect if they would be interested in saving on fuel costs.  Most companies with a fleet will be enthusiastic enough about that prospect to reply and begin conversations with you.

Introduce yourself

It can be easy to forget that there’s a person on the other end of an email.  Make sure to include an introductory line at the beginning of your emails explaining who you are and why you are reaching out to the reader.  Not only does that straight-forward approach inspire trust, it also shows your prospect that you are professional, honest, and value their time.  You will immediately be personally engaged with your prospect.

Pain points

Most businesses subscribe to the philosophy of if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.  Even if your prospects are aware that they have a problem, they may not know how to solve it.  Using emotional terms to relate to the prospect, telling them you understand their problem, and offering a solution to make their lives easier (or make them look good to their boss) is a powerful thing.  Often people are afraid of change or of making the wrong decision, which allows these problems to perpetuate.

That’s where you come in to point out the cost of leaving the problem unsolved, motivate them to overcome this fear of change, and wait for them to choose the company that understands their challenges and offers an easy solution (that’s you!).

Include a specific reason

The “call to action” at the end of the email is one of the most important aspects of your message.  You can provide an interesting and engaging email, but if you don’t inspire the reader to take further action, all is for naught.  Luckily, this can be simple.

Provide the prospect with a specific reason why they should take the next step.  If your goal is to set up a conversation, rather than simply asking for a discussion, include a simple explanation as to what benefits this discussion will provide to the prospect.  For example, rather than “I’d like to set up a call to discuss your fleet management”, try “I’d like to set up a call to discuss how we have helped other companies like yours reduce their fuel costs by 40%.”

Leave it up to the reader

Make sure to include language that reminds the reader that the decision to engage further rests with them.  People don’t like to feel that they’re being coerced or forced into engaging.  Simply including a sentence like “if you think it would make sense to set up a call” or “let me know if you think your business could benefit from this service” ensures the prospect that you know that they know what’s best for their own business.

What do you do to make your sales emails more persuasive?
Drop us a line and let us know your ideas or get more ideas from us!

Increase Engagement and Email Performance

One size does not fit all in the email marketing world. Tailoring your message to the specific needs or wants of a certain group of people in your database increases the relevance of your messaging and boosts your response rates. The key is finding the pieces of data that tie groups of people together and place them into a common bucket. It could be the size of their business, their department, title or persona, industry, etc.

Used the correct way, email is the best channel there is for tailoring your messaging to a specific segment. It’s the most customizable channel, and still the most preferred channel for B2B buyers and decision-makers. Start thinking about why your customers tend to choose your company in the first place. How does that differ depending on who you begin conversations with within a company?

For example, if you sell transportation software, does a Fleet Manager begin engaging with your company for different reasons than, say, a CFO? Probably. So what are those factors? Make a list for each group and begin building your messaging around that list. We can then segment the database to make sure that the correct people are receiving the most relevant and enticing messaging tailored specifically to them.

Strategically segmenting your database also comes into play when considering where to concentrate your efforts. Who are your most loyal customers? What do they have in common? Let’s use that data to go out and find more people who share those characteristics and use our list of commonalities that we just discussed to reach out to those people. Start with what works and expand on those principles.

Want to learn more about how to craft your messaging to begin conversations with your future customers? Drop us a line and let’s talk.

It is universally agreed among the B2B world that email remains the most effective and preferred method of communicating with current and potential vendors.  Many people receive hundreds of emails every day and only a few of them actually stand out enough to be opened and read.  But not to worry!  Follow these steps to create effective and memorable emails.

 

Step 1:  Define the end goal

Email can be used to accomplish several of your business and marketing goals.  It could be simply an introduction, a request for a meeting, or to share an article, case study, or other piece of marketing material.  Before you begin writing your email, decide what you’re looking to get out of this specific effort.  Do you have a current special promotion or discount to promote?  Maybe a new feature or additional offering?  The main goal of your campaign will be the foundation that you build the messaging around.

Step 2:  Write the Content

Once you’ve defined your goal(s), you can begin writing your message.  The end goal will define the attention-getting aspect of the message, such as your current promotion.  Now that you have their attention, what normally makes your company stand out from the competition – the reason that companies ultimately choose your product or services?  Think about pain points that you address with your client base.  What problem is your target base looking to solve?  How do you address that problem?  The content of the message will be what inspires that person to take further action to engage with you.

Step 3:  Personalize and Segment 

This is the step where you decide who that well-crafted email should be delivered to.  Different types of messages and offers appeal to different types of people within an organization based on their job duties, communication preferences, and schedules.  Maintenance Managers may be more likely to open one type of email at a certain time of day, while Finance Managers may be entirely different.  Use the best practices that your sales team already lives by.  Time of day when the people in your target segment are normally less busy, pain points that are specific to their department or level, even factors like level of familiarity/casualness can be important factors in making sure your message gets across as intended.

 

These simple rules are a high-level look at how to get started on the path toward creating custom messaging that conveys your company’s purpose and personality.  To learn more about how LeadSeek utilizes these principles to create effective messaging and campaigns for our clients, click here to drop us a line!

Differentiating your email from the hundreds of other emails in your target contact’s inbox is an evolving science that sometimes seems to grow more difficult every day as your prospects not only receive more emails but also become more selective as far as which emails they open and which will grab their attention or pique their interest.  Not to worry.  Use these simple steps to make your emails stand out from the crowd.

The subject line of an email is the primary reason that a prospect will open your communication.  Email remains the main channel for business to business communication, and the subject line is the key to making sure that your business is using that channel effectively.

The fact that your subject line needs to be unique is nothing new, but how to come up with those unique subject lines?

 

Popular References

Since one of the goals of any email marketing campaign is to gain the attention of the largest amount of people possible, why not piggy back on something that has already gained wide popularity in pop culture?  Not only will that attract the eye of your prospect, it’s also friendly, often funny, and will appeal to your prospect’s better side by suggesting a shared interest right off the bat.

In today’s digital world, pop culture has never been more popular so to speak.  We live in a world of widespread common entertainment interests to a degree like never before.  Do your favorite movies, TV shows, or songs contain any quotes, titles, or lyrics that might apply to the goal of your communication or just your business in general?  You may even get great ideas to craft a message around from brainstorming those references.

 

What’s trending?

Social media is a great way to attract attention to your brand.  It’s also a great way to gauge popularity of keywords that you can then use in your subject line.  Connect that subject line with your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn posts for an integrated approach to a campaign to increase visibility and engagement with your prospect base.

 

What’s in it for me?

At the end of the day, your business is all about your customers.  When your customers sign on with you, what are the first benefits they receive?  What types of returns initially draw customers to your brand?  What types of problems do you solve for your customers?

Answering these questions with a brief subject line will entice your prospects to open your email and engage further with you to get to the bottom of what you can provide and why they should choose your company over your competitors to provide it.  You’ll also create an initial impression of trust with your prospect base, and show that you value their time, by letting them know right away your purpose in contacting them.

 

Humor Me

Similar to references to pop culture, a little light humor is an effective way to gain attention and to break the ice with your prospect base.  Humor is a wonderful tool for making friendly first impressions and connecting with people on a personal level.  It will ease the tension of initial contact and lay a foundation of friendly interactions going forward.   People love to laugh, and if your subject line is funny, they’ll open your email to see what else you have to say.

 

What’s the Point?

If all else fails, the most important thing to remember is to be descriptive in your subject line.  You want to be sure that the prospects that are in the market for your services or are most interested in the information you have to share can quickly and easily tell that your email contains an offer for those services or that exact information they need.

To learn more about how LeadSeek can help your business’s message reach and be read by the right people in your target market, visit our contact us page and shoot us an email or give us a call at (800) 497-5312.

Let’s be honest – especially in sales departments, marketing is often misunderstood and its importance understated.  But once we break down the marketing machine it’s not only simple and understandable, it’s easy to see how it is the crucial foundation to any successful sales team.

Marketing’s first responsibility is to gain the trust of the customer base.  We can do that in a simple and straightforward manner by just keeping a few points in mind.

 

The Big Picture

Predictably, the first step in the process of building a successful marketing machine is to make a plan.  The specific goal of each of our marketing efforts will be the driver of all of the decisions we make next – messaging, timing, offer, etc.  But where to start?

First, we’ll need to think about the company’s best customers – the type of customers you’d like to get more of.  Who do sales people normally begin speaking with when engaging a new prospect of that type?  Then we look for more people that fit as many of the criteria of that ideal prospect as possible and make sure they’re aware of the business, what we offer, and how to get in touch.

In order to build a strong and happy customer base, any business will need to strictly define the niche in which they can excel.  Especially with small businesses, targeting leads outside of the ideal more often than not simply leads to problems for both the business and the customer.  At the very least, the valuable time and effort of the sales team is wasted on conversations that will not lead to sales, and at worst, your company will gain customers that are not satisfied (and tell their colleagues about that dissatisfaction), or lose that trust that’s so important to build with the base.

Next, to craft the message we’re using to get in touch with those people, we’ll need to think about what makes the company stand out.

In a typical sales conversation that leads to a closed sale, what are the conversation turners, the hooks that cause the customer to engage with us, become interested in our product or service, and ultimately choose our company to meet a need?  What makes customers decide to go with your company?  What does your company do better than other companies in your niche?

Do you have any current special offers?  You know your company is great and you work hard to satisfy your customers’ every need, but how do you get people to sign on with you so you can prove it?  Free trials, discounts, coupons, etc. are a great way to gain their attention and a powerful foundation for a well-crafted marketing message.

We put those factors into simple, short, straightforward messaging so that the customer base is aware of exactly why we’re contacting them and making it easy to engage.  That’s one way that we build trust.  It begins as early as our first contact.

Customer testimonials can be the best source of this type of information.  Why did the customer choose you over other companies that provide the same product or service at around the same price, maybe even less?  If it was important enough to one person that they chose your company for that reason, chances are that it’s also important to someone else.  You will also build more trust with prospects when they hear from someone like themselves who is working with you and happy doing so.

 

Customers that Trust, Refer

It’s obviously no secret in the business world that referrals from happy customers produce some of the most powerful leads available.  That brings us back to trust.  Marketing plays a large role in gaining happy customers, maintaining their trust, and therefore leading to referrals which have the highest conversion rates of any leads.

There is no better way to differentiate yourself from others marketing their businesses than through direct, personalized contact with the correct people.  Rather than sending blanket campaigns with a generic message, we can craft the message down to the individual level where necessary.

 

Tried & True

You only get a few seconds to make a first impression, something sales has always known.  So let’s look at what works – what’s the elevator pitch the sales team defaults to?  Let’s start there to build a general introduction, and then dive deeper into each of the elements within that message that we use to get people intrigued, and craft individual messages around those and make sure the right people see them.

By focusing on quality rather than quantity, and by getting as specific as possible with the base, we quickly reach the correct people in an organization and bring their attention to the fact that we have exactly what they’ve been searching for.

 

Speak the Right Language

Some “traditional” marketing and advertising channels and methods such as print advertising, trade shows, and even cold calling, are becoming less effective with the increase of different channels available to customers.  With all the choices of communication methods available, customers expect to have the ability to interact with a company by whatever method is most convenient for them.

The best way to begin a conversation with a prospect and eventually learn exactly what they’re looking for is through direct conversation.  So how do we gain enough of the prospect’s trust that they will agree to take the time to engage with us in a meaningful conversation about their needs?  Through a well-executed and thoughtful schedule of repeated and consistent contact.

 

Implementing marketing systems that follow these basic strategies will allow your business to dramatically reduce the amount of time wasted pursuing leads that don’t turn into sales, and at the same time to dramatically increase the number of closed deals, turning into increased revenue, which is, after all, the whole point.

As a sales person, you’ll end up sending a lot of emails that don’t get answered.  Your prospects, no matter who they are, receive a TON of email.  We all do.  How do you prioritize which emails to open and which to ignore?  Personally, I open those that provide value to me.

So, if you want your emails to be opened, it’s important to add value to each email.  Even if you’re just checking in with a customer or prospect, each touch is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship or pique interest in another of your offerings.  Here are a few ideas for things to add to your emails to boost your response rates:

• Send them a piece of advice that addresses a problem you know they face
• Send a white paper and offer to answer questions
• Come up with a potential opportunity that you can help them with
• Send an article with some latest industry news
• Reference something they recently wrote or posted on social media
• Answer a question they asked on social media or an online forum
• Send one of your recent blogs
• Find a local event and recommend a booth they check out
• Invite them to attend a webinar
• Send them one of your customers’ recent press releases that relates to your offering
• Mention a common challenge/problem people in their industry face and how you address it
• Ask if they’re still interested in solving one of their most pressing problems
• Mention a mutual contact

Any reason you can come up with to reach out will at the very least improve your chances of getting a response and engaging your prospect.  The more personalized, the better.