Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 @ 01:14 PM
Another recent article written by Mike Kelly, co-founder of TSL Marketing, has received all the buzz in DM weekly. In this article Mike Kelly asks the simple question "Are you boring your prospects" and the answer is... most likely. Let's take a deep dive into what this means through an excerpt from the article:
With all the buzz around “micro marketing” and “one-to-one” marketing over the last decade it still astonishes me to see how many companies rely on a single message to multiple contacts in different functional areas at their prospect companies. Do we really believe that the Finance Director and IT Director have the same agendas?
Many business-to-business marketers seem to have forgotten that you don’t market to companies, you market to individuals. And each has their own specific agenda. Unless you market to them in their language, addressing their specific needs, you will simply bore them.
It is worth using an example to reinforce this. Imagine you market a business-to-business software application and that the buying center for this application is comprised of multiple constituents at a company e.g. the IT Director, Operations Director and Finance Director.
Each of these people will have separate goals and agendas specific to their functional responsibility. The IT Director will be concerned with things like compatibility with the existing IT infrastructure and future-proofing. The Finance Director will be concerned with Total Cost of Ownership and how quickly the company can recoup its investment in your application. The Operations Director may be more concerned about how your application will affect the operational efficiency of the business...
Or click here to read more of this article
Posted by David English on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 @ 07:32 AM
Dave Brown, principle consultant for Ridge Consulting (a sister company of TSL Marketing) recently wrote an article published in ConsultingMag.com on the importance of catching your prospects attention and finding a way to create an uncontested value proposition for your company.
Here is an excerpt from this article:
The Problem
"In all aspects of our work, we constantly switch between heuristic and analytical problem solving techniques: the gut feel and the data gathering. And so do our sales prospects and clients. Yet, in many interactions in the sales process, the tendency is to dwell almost completely in the analytical realm. Most sales presentations, webinars and seminars are data-fueled pitches that fill the audience with all kinds of facts and stats. They start with the “features,” move on to the “benefits,” and end with a crescendo of “advantages.” There’s talk about time to benefit, TCO and ROI.
There are graphs, pie charts and magic quadrants. The analytical input is overwhelming. The audience is seen as passive pawns. Give them the right information, show them how your products or services are faster, better, cheaper and bigger than your competition, and they’ll buy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Chances are that your clients don’t have the time or interest to wade through the information that is being thrown their way. While you’re delivering that well-crafted pitch, your prospects’ attention is probably wandering, fading in and out, depending on their level of interest or concern. This happens to even the best presenters and best-prepared presentations. Why?
You’re hitting your audience at an analytical level, while they’re operating heuristically. While you’re explaining some well researched statistics, they’re thinking: “I get it already! But will it solve my problem? How much will it cost? How fast can I deploy? What are the risks?”"
The Solution
Learn more about how Dave Brown offers solutions through getting into the mind of your prospect. You can read the full article by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Jul 02, 2010 @ 03:15 PM
This October, Marketing Sherpa will be hosting their annual B2B Summit and TSL Marketing is proud to announce our sponsorship of this event. At this event, learn how to:
- Architect a successful social media strategy
- Use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to drive leads
- Accurately score, nurture and measure leads
- Align marketing and sales strategies
- Optimize PPC, SEO, email and landing pages
- Develop strategies to grow your list
- Generate B2B content your audiences will value
- Manage multichannel campaigns
- Market effectively to Fortune 500 companies
- Accelerate leads through the funnel
What makes this event unique:
You'll listen, learn and interact with B2B marketing experts over two days through an intriguing blend of instructional formats, custom tailored to provide value to marketers of all skill levels. Whether you're looking for intensive how-to training, interactive audience-led panel discussions or real-life case studies to add to your arsenal, B2B Marketing Summit '10 has it all. To receive a $700 discount,
More about the event:
The dual coast event dates and locations are:
- Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA - October 4-5
- Westin Waltham, Boston, MA - October 25-26
Click Here to download the event agenda
Join us! We would love to see your there and share some of the top insights for B2B marketing in 2010.
Posted by Norma Shepardson on Fri, Jun 25, 2010 @ 08:00 AM
So you don’t know the difference between Digg & Delicious? You aren’t the only one! With all of the hype around social media, you might be feeling overwhelmed. You know you need to ‘do’ social media, that isn’t the question, but it’s hard to get your mind around what it all means if you don’t understand the terms being used. Having a basic understanding of common terminology is your foundation to getting the most out of social media marketing.
We recently read the ‘Social Media Marketing Directory: 101 Terms to Know’ compiled by HubSpot, and thought that we would share some of the most common (and more obsolete) terms to help you feel more comfortable with social media marketing.
· Delicious - Delicious is a free online bookmarking service that lets users save website addresses publicly and privately online so that they can be accessed from any device connected to the Internet and shared with friends.
· Digg- Digg is a social news website that allows members to submit and vote for articles. Articles with the most votes appear on the homepage of the site and subsequently are seen by the largest portion of the site’s membership as well as other visitors.
· Google Documents - Referred to as 'Google Docs' is a group of web-based office applications that includes tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.
· LinkedIn- LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, mainly used for professional marketing. As of June 2010, LinkedIn had more than 70 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide
· News Reader - A news reader allows users to aggregate articles from multiple websites into one place using RSS feeds. The purpose of these aggregators is to allow for a faster and more efficient consumption of information.
· Social Media Monitoring - Social media monitoring is a process of monitoring and responding to mentions related to a business that occur in social media.
· StumbleUpon- Free web-browser extension which acts as an intelligent browsing tool for discovering and sharing web sites.
· Twitter- Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others' messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.
· Yelp- Yelp is a social network and local search website that provides users with a platform to review, rate and discuss local businesses. Over 31 million people access Yelp's website each month, putting it in the top 150 U.S. Internet websites.
This report is brought to you by HubSpot.
To read the full social media directory Click Here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Jun 18, 2010 @ 08:22 AM
Is Social Media a Fad? This is what many people are asking across the world. As businesses become more inundated with the need to adopt and adapt social networking, there is still that question on whether or not social media will fizzle out. We recently ran across a video on youtube that I would like to share with you. Not only does the video speak of the revolution known as social media, but it also backs up this theory with a number of statistics; thus proving social media to be not only on the rise, but also too large to fizzle out. For example, social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web. While this is a funny number to mention, it also proves that search engine has become more about networking than personal use. Here are some additional highlights I pulled out:
- By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber the baby boomers: 96% of them have joined a social network
- Facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months (the majority of facebook users are over 35)
- If facebook were a country, it would be world's 4th largest
- 80% of companies are using linkedin as their as their primary tool to find employees
- 80% of twitter usage is on a mobile device (imagine what that means for bad customer service)
As this article will note.
Social media is not a fad, "it's a shift in the fundamental way we communicate." Check it out for yourself:
Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, May 27, 2010 @ 08:52 AM
Check out our newest video uploaded on youtube by TSL Marketing:
Everyone knows that in order for a seed to grow it needs nourishment and light. The same goes for business. Leads need to be nurtured and cared for in order to transform into sales. While a lead can't flourish without the right attention, growing your business doesn't have to mean big budgets and time investments. Even the smallest investment can yield big results down the road.
Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing are just two of the top ways you can begin to grow your business. Don't miss out on an opportunity to grow and flourish your business! Check out our video to learn more.
Posted by Norma Shepardson on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 04:06 PM
This coming week TSL Marketing will be sponsoring the MarketingProfs B2B Forum. We are excited for the event, and if you are planning on being there stop by booth 17 to say hello.
These are a few event highlights...
- Get a comprehensive B2B marketing education
- Sharpen your B2B skills overnight
- Use social media to grab more attention
- Learn from your peers in the interactive discussions
If you want to view full agenda for the Forum, click here.
We definitely are looking forward to hosting the Wii station at the Forum, it should be a fun way to see everyone between sessions, seminars, and speakers. If you are planning on attending, stop by and enter the raffle for a chance to win the Wii at the end of the day on Wednesday.
If you are unable to attend the forum, check back in the coming weeks and we will be sure to share some of the new information, marketing trends, and sales advice we will learn about while we are there.
Event details can be found by logging on to the MarketingProfs website, or by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 02:46 PM
TSL Marketing recently presented a FREE webinar highlighting the top statistics found in "B2B TELESERVICES: THE 2009 BUYER’S GUIDE" whitepaper by Aberdeen Group.
You can now download this webinar to learn how best in class companies achieve:
- 90% of overall sales team quota
- 10% YOY increase in revenue per sales rep
- 7% year-over-year improvement of bid-to-win ratio
- 22% annual increase in revenue per sales rep
We are also offering a free copy of this whitepaper. If you are interested in the whitepaper, please click here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 01:58 PM
This week we would like to share with you our newest white paper on the IT Predictions for 2010 at no cost (we can call it our valentine to you)! In this paper, you will see a comprehensive picture of the landscape for IT buying and how it will evolve in 2010.
Through this white paper, you will learn:
- Technology trends - the five biggest winners
- Which technologies and sectors will grow, and by how much?
- Which geographies will see growth or contraction?
- How will purchasing patterns change?
- What will CIO priorities be in 2010?
Here is a highlight from the white paper:
"Of the many organizations putting forth predictions for IT purchasing in 2010, the majority of the outlooks are positive. Gartner is predicting that growth in the industry will return, with IT spending looking to rise about 3.3 percent over 2009 levels to about $3.3 trillion."
Posted by Tara Robertson on Mon, Dec 07, 2009 @ 11:32 AM
As we move into 2010, selling effectively is a key aspect to overall business growth and success. This week we decided to use a cartoon everyone is familiar with to compare the simple use of selling an "O" to some of our proven effective sales techniques.
Now that you have watched the video, let's dive a little deeper into some of the techniques Lefty the Letter Salesman is using on Ernie and compare that to modern day selling:
Qualify your prospects - As simple as this is, one of the top reasons sales personnel do not have high close rates is due to bad data or incorrect prospects. In this video, Lefty knows that Ernie is his "ideal" customer, therefore he is headed right for the decision maker. However, if Lefty was selling to The Count, (who we all know is a "numbers" man) his prospect would not be a qualified fit. Here are some easy tips to help you qualify before you start selling:
- Have a profile of your ideal customer.
- Have a set of criteria that customer's must meet before you sell to them.
A Compelling Offer - Every product and/or service usually has something more to offer than the basic sale. For example, at TSL we don't offer just leads but also a database of business intelligence gathered, additional marketing services, and service level agreements. For hardware you may not just offer a server but also a secure system, backup capabilities, or lifespan guarantees. Here are some simple but effective offers Lefty used in his pitch:
- You can sing a pretty song with it like so...
- 2 sounds for the price of 1: Olive, Ostrich or Ocean, Old, Opening
- Looks just like a donut really good enough to eat
With all of the additional offers Lefty goes through, an O really does seem like more than just an "O."
Create a Sense of Urgency - In 2009 our economy created sense of "waiting" to make new purchases and therefore altered sales stages for companies across the board. While it looks like buying in 2010 will be more aggressive, decision makers are still hesitant by nature to buy. This is where a sense of urgency is needed in order to close the sale. Lefty simply says "It's not often that I offer," which then leads Ernie to believe that if he doesn't purchase, he may just loose the opportunity to buy.
The Proposal - The last technique used in this video is the proposal stage. While we don't actually see Ernie purchase his O, Lefty uses a couple proposal techniques that intrigue the buyer to buy. Here they are:
- It will cost you just a nickel - While a nickel certainly is a small number to us think of the audience Sesame Street caters towards. A nickel when you are a kid can actually be a shiny new coin that you may not want to part with. However, by creating a sense or urgency and discussing the compelling offers behind the many uses of an O, "just" a nickel makes this out to be a great sale. This is based on the theory "you get all of this for the price of just that."
- Buy the O and take it home tonight - In any sale you should be sure that you have a timeline planned out for service and/or product implementation. Be sure that whatever you are selling (whether it be an immediate purchase or longer term implementation) you properly outline the timeline for your prospect and walk them through this together.
We hope these small steps will help your sales techniques as you move into 2010.