Thursday, February 1, 2018

Can't get a prospect to answer the phone? Try drip email marketing to make them call you.


The focus of this article is email drip marketing for lead nurturing campaign. In today’s busy times, potential customers rarely have the time to learn everything about your company. So this is where the drip email campaign comes in. Today’s buyers want to make an informed buying decision, so why not take advantage of this and help them out.

Your prospects are your main source of income, and you constantly have to look for new ways to approach them the right way. When you’re cold calling people the chances they’ll be interested are slim. The ideal situation is to have them call you. But that sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it? Maybe not.

Drip marketing is a direct marketing strategy where you come into contact with your potential clients prior to contacting them directly. It’s called ‘drip’ because you send emails to your prospects bit by bit before actually getting them on the phone. The only difference being that you’re sending out promotional emails over a period of time to get them to call you.

Crucial flow of email drip campaigns is as follows:


Find out who is your target audience  
Knowing your target audience is the crucial part of any marketing campaign, and drip email
campaign is no exception to the rule. Identifying your audience and their profile is the key to your approach and successfulness of your campaign. If you want to spark their interest, you need to understand them and their pain points. There’s no chance they’ll call you unless you offer them something they can’t refuse. That is only achieved if you truly know who you’re talking to.

What is your offer/message/goal that you want to convey to end user 
Second most important thing is formulating the message that you want to convey. Your message has to incorporate all the important elements that will trigger their interest and get them to call you. Remember that your message will be delivered in several ‘drips’ so it makes sense to distribute the bits of information evenly so as to retain their interest.

Create a strategic plan - how many emails, what triggers you want to include in each
The third thing you have to figure out is how many emails you want to send out and what to include in each. This depends entirely on your message, of course, but also on your target audience. If you have more than one trigger you can distribute the triggers into several emails. Also, think about the timing and how long you want to wait before sending a follow up email.

Measurement
As with every other marketing endeavour - always measure. Measuring is crucial if you want to learn from your mistakes, and you’re bound to make some, especially in the beginning.

Drip marketing campaign is a great way of sparking interest and ultimately making people call you. This type of campaign allows to gradually build rapport and stay top of mind with potential prospects without being too pushy. If your content and timing is good enough, they will eventually come to you.  Here are a few more email marketing tips we have for you.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

5 Tips for Marketing To Cold Leads


Marketing to cold leads can be tricky but it is a necessary part of selling. It is not everyone’s cup of tea, and it takes the right person with the right attitude to do it, otherwise all the efforts may be ineffective. Cold leads are a tough crowd, and you need to put on your brave face when you’re marketing to them because oftentimes you will be rejected. 

As you know, it isn’t always pleasant to be sold to. What’s more, most of the time it’s actually annoying. But when you’re at the other side, you start to see things differently - or at least you should. Your approach has to reflect your goal and not your feelings. 

When marketing to cold leads, it’s all about the approach. The right approach can work wonders on cold leads. Here are some tips that can help you make the most out of it: 

#1 Find quality leads
No matter how good you are, if your leads are not even remotely interested in your product or service, it’s simply a waste of time for both parties. So, the rule number one is to do your homework and find people who may be genuinely interested in what you have to offer. 

#2 Be confident but not pushy
When it comes to selling, nobody likes pushy salesmen, at least not anymore. On the other hand, nobody likes insecure people either. If people are supposed to buy something from you, it means that you have to earn their trust and respect. And trust is best earned if you’re confident but not imposing. Your message has to be clear, and if you’re delivering it in person, you have to believe in it too. Otherwise, how can you expect others to if you don’t? 

#3 Set the timing right
Timing plays a huge role in how well your message is going to be received. The exact same message may be received quite differently simply because the timing was bad. For example, if you’re cold calling, according to the data from 100,000 calls, if you call your leads from 4 to 5 PM you have 164% more chances of closing a sale than 1 to 2PM. But this also depends on the industry that your in and the medium of communication. 

#4 Know your lead - get personal
In the world of generic email messages and calls, potential customers are less and less interested in hearing or reading what you have to say. Not necessarily because they are not interested in what you have to offer (because sometimes they don’t even know what you’re selling) but because they dismiss whatever you’re trying to say because you’re too generic, or let’s face it - boring. If you’re really interested in making that sale, you need to do some homework and find out something about the person/company you’re pitching to. 

#5 Always follow up
Don’t let your warm leads turn cold again. That’s exactly what happens when you don’t follow up. Just a short email or a phone call can suffice, you don’t have to repeat everything all over again and risk being annoying. Before you finish the call, conversation or email, do tell them that you will follow up with them in a few days, just to confirm what you talked about. This way they’ll know and there won’t be any surprises on both sides. 

Let’s face it, marketing to cold leads is hard - it’s probably one of the hardest things about selling. On the other hand, it is an infinite pool of potential customers who are just waiting to be sold to. Through the right combination of timing, skill and luck, marketing to cold leads can be quite lucrative.

Monday, June 26, 2017

How Do You Know Your Business Needs CRM?

"I just need a Simple CRM"
CRM systems are no longer an option, they’re a necessity. Customer Relationship Management systems are now used by businesses of all scales and sizes. How do you know you need one? It’s simple, just ask yourself: Are you selling services or products? If your answer is yes, then you definitely need a CRM software. If you’re still not convinced, here’s why else you need a reliable CRM system:

You’re losing precious data
When you don’t have a CRM system you’re bound to store data in emails, Excel spreadsheets, paper files, and notes. The worst thing is that all that pieces of information are scattered, and as such they become meaningless because you can’t have them all at once when you need them the most. The process of storing customer data becomes laborious and even impossible.

You’re having communication problems
When you don’t have a centralized data system available to all your employees in real time, it’s difficult to communicate and pass on important information and decisions as they happen. The communication gets delayed and the results of that are missed opportunities and clients gone elsewhere.

Your sales team isn’t doing much
If you feel like your sales team isn’t making any progress despite their best efforts, then you know you desperately need a CRM system. Today, there are so many things you can find out about your potential customers that can help you transform your business into something more prosperous. The key lies in managing and using your data more efficiently.

Leads turning cold
When your once hot leads start to turn cold and there’s nothing you can to do reverse that, again, you know you need to get a CRM system. Sure, there will always be leads who turn cold for no apparent reason, that’s not the point. The point is that in the majority of cases you lack the knowledge that would make them change their mind. You lack the details about your customer behavior and their habits that you could use in your advantage.

You lack data access at all times

When your sales people are gathering information about the customers, if they’re storing it on their own laptops or even papers, you don’t really get to see that information right away. Plus, with a CRM it’s easier to keep everyone updated on all the changes and new data entries. The ability to access your data at any time can significantly improve the quality of your work.