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 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 Tara Robertson on Wed, May 19, 2010 @ 09:10 AM
At the recent Marketing Profs event, lead nurturing was a hot topic many people were discussing. One of the things that caught our eye was how many people are not utilizing lead nurturing or are not currently happy with their companies lead nurturing efforts. We would like to bring this question to you and see, how do you measure up?
After collecting these results, we will be posting a new blog on our findings and determine if lead nurturing is getting the attention it deserves!
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 Donnelly on Fri, Aug 14, 2009 @ 03:35 PM
Earlier this week I was speaking with a group of marketing and sales individuals who all seemed to have a very strong, very different opinion on what lead generation was. As it turns out, with the rise of marketing automation, social media, .com downloads, and pure cold calling, lead generation is quite the complex term. So what's it to you? Let's take a poll:
I look forward to the results of this poll as well as your comments on what you feel the term lead generation stands for.
Posted by Tara Donnelly on Tue, Jul 21, 2009 @ 02:08 PM
It comes as no surprise to most that winning business is always top of mind for sales professionals. Because of this, sales personnel tend to fall victim to the “follow up with what will close NOW” mind set and longer-term leads suffer. When surveyed, marketing and sales professionals have both indicated that they would like to increase the management of lead follow-up over the course of 6-12 months. Best-in-class companies with a lead nurturing plan sell upwards of 38% more than their competitors’… so we say it’s time to take advantage of these stats and start selling more.
This week, we have broken down 5 easy steps that will have you saving time while also following up with those longer-term leads that we all seem to neglect:
- Develop “lead-nurturing” codes in your system: Many times companies have lead codes that indicate stages in the life cycle including “qualified,” “proposal/RFP,” or “close/lost.” Take this one step further and develop a “lead nurturing” stage in your CRM. By doing this,you can track, progress, and convert those leads at a much faster pace through reporting, dashboards, and marketing campaign enablement.
- Stay ‘in-tune’ with your marketing plan: Many times your marketing team may be planning an event: be that a webinar, seminar,trade show, etc. Be sure you are aware of these events as some of the best ways to stay in touch with your longer-term leads is by placing a quick call or sending an email to invite them to these events. This also may give you the opportunity to meet with them if the prospect and event are local.
- 1 hour a month is all it takes: After your initial lead introductory call/meeting, be sure to set up a recurring task in your CRM system for monthly follow up. whether you follow up to let your prospect know about your upcoming campaign or just to touch base on their plans in the next 12 months a quick call or email will keep you and your solution top of mind for when they do plan to move forward. spend an hour a month following up on tasks you have assigned yourself and you will start to see your leads progressing faster.
- Personalize email campaigns: In a study done by TSL Marketing, email campaigns that were personalized from the main sales contact had a 50% higher open rate. This should take no more than 15minutes (for a 3 person sales team) and generates high return. If your marketing team does not have the time to separate the lists, try sending a txt version instead of html from your personal outbox. This is well worth the time!
- Send some goodies to those HOT prospects: Often times your marketing team may have pens, coffee cups, shirts, or all sorts of goodies kicking around for the next trade show your company plans on attending. when you would like to nurture a lead that is in between stages, a great way to stay top of mind is to send a care package and a hand written letter “thanking your prospect for considering your firm.” This will make you stand out against your competitors and also support your branding and awareness efforts. Afterall, who doesn’t love a good care package!
Follow these 5 easy steps and you are well on your way to an effective lead nurturing program!
Posted by Tara Donnelly on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 @ 03:43 PM
An old coworker (we'll call him Mr. X) of mine and I share a joke. He once said "I would never work at a company that has a corporate blog." In his defense, this was about 5 years ago when the world of social media was not so huge. But now I say to you Mr. X (you know who you are) and to any and all other non-bloggers out there...
In all seriousness though, here are some tips I put together on ways to blog successfully:
- Change it up - don't always blog about the same boring stuff. Have fun with your blog, throw in cartoons, change around your topics, and above all, make it personable.
- Incorporate more than one blogger - we all have different writing styles, different experiences, and different view on business. Incorporating this into your blog is extremely beneficial as the blog will become more of a company community than a one person show.
- Listen to your audience - Blogging is only successful if you have an audience. This is why you want to be sure that you listen to your audience and blog what they are interested in. When you have a comment, respond to it, and then blog about it (if it is topic worthy). The most you listen, the more your blog will be read.
- Don't get too "business" in your blog" - a blog is about personality. Don't be afraid to express yours. When you are all about business and selling, your blog will loose it's personal appeal. Too many companies are out there trying to promote themselves through sales methods. Take a step back and think about what you want to say, then say it without selling it. A blog should not be used to generate leads (that just comes as a bonus).
Those are just some helpful tops to start you on your path to developing a successful company blog. Good luck!
Posted by Tara Donnelly on Mon, Jan 19, 2009 @ 01:57 PM
Customers are better educated and more informed and require value to advance through your company's sales pipeline. We will speak about adding value to pull your prospects throughthe pipeline in another article, here we will discuss prospects leaking out ofthe sales pipeline. Pipeline management is such an important part of a sales organization and I wanted to discuss major problems I have seen with many companies processes and management. In these trying times maximizing the dollars already spent to uncover and nurture prospects should be on every sale and marketing team's mind. When those prospects leak out of the pipeline, you are throwing dollars away.
Alaska has an almost 800 mile pipeline that connects Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, AK. What if a leak formed in that pipeline? If 700,000 barrels of oil left the oil field in Prudhoe Bay andonly 500,000 barrels arrived at the Gulf of Alaska, due to a leak somewhere along the pipeline, you can bet several folks in Valdez would be quite anxious. Now why is that same anxiety not felt by sales and marketing organizations with the same results coming from their "sales" pipeline.
Companies of every size are guilty of having leaks in their sales pipelines, from SMB entities through to the fortune 100 companies. In every case the problem is the same, the sales and marketing organizations are not properly aligned and the sales teams focus on immediate opportunities. This style of sales pipeline management will usually allow a company to stay afloat and enable management to meet quarterly and annual goals, but it will disallow the entity from realizing substantial revenue increases. This flawed approach throws dollars away in lost opportunities when that dropped prospect buys from a competitor, and though the wasteful processes and necessary rework in an attempt to re-qualify.
How do you fix a leaky pipeline? The wrong answer would be "with duct tape". Do you really think duct tape will keep the oil flowing properly to Valdez? The proper fix: The pipeline would need to be drained, depressurized and the leak found and the broken parts replaced. This will have costs associated, and could mean downtime in the operations, but once back up and running the repair would pay for itself within hours.
The proper fix stands true for a sales pipeline. Although sales activities need not cease, analysis of the internal processes is required to define the location of the leak. (Where are the prospects falling out?) Once this is understood, create an improvement plan. The next two steps are commonly where I have seen the biggest mistakes, executionand control. The plan is in place now it must be executed. Plenty of ideas and plans are laid on boardroom tables each day, some are chosen to commence, but very few are properly executed. And finally, any good marketing plan will have a control plan. Without this last step you are destined to be right back in the same position with a leaking pipeline. A control plan is put in place to assure that future problems are detected early. If a weakness is discovered in the pipeline, immediate action can be taken before it develops into a leak.
In conclusion, your company has spent real dollars to uncover prospects,and your team has spent real labor hours developing them. Don't let those dollars go to waste over such a fundamental flaw. Take a hard look at what enters your pipeline, what activities are happening to add value and pull them along, and what is coming out the other side. In another article we will discuss further the concepts and strategies around value adding activities that will more efficiently progress prospective customers through the pipeline.
Posted by Tara Donnelly on Tue, Nov 18, 2008 @ 12:23 PM