Thursday, February 12, 2009
A standard issue email marketing package – part 2
By Mike Lake
In part 1 of this series, we discussed the benefits of implementing an email campaign: It’s a very cost-effective means of communicating with your market and of positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry. All without pushing unwanted sales pitches on your audience. We suggested a few resources for getting underway and provided some guidance for your content. We left off with the thought that the topics of the email examples we recommended sounded very similar to Blog titles.
In fact, that is just one example of how email marketing can integrate so well with other forms of social media. After all, getting your content out to your email list is great, but getting that content out to the rest of the world is better, right? It brings people back to your site and hopefully builds your list and, therefore, the number of potential prospects for your product or service.
We’ve written a primer on getting started in blogging for your business, so feel free to read that post to get you started. The point here is that
Read the rest »
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Doing telemarketing right – part 2
By Mike Lake
In part one, we discussed qualifying the person you’re calling in order to determine if you have a prospect for your product or service. In my opinion, a mistake many salespeople make is trying to convince their prospect that they have the problem their product or service will fix, rather than spending the time finding people aware of their problem who genuinely want to fix it.
So, you’ve got someone on the other end of the phone who’s answered the qualifying question we discussed in part one in a manner that identifies a possible need for your product or service. At this point you might tell them a bit more about your product, but your emphasis should be on learning more about the problem they wish to solve and their level of interest in finding a solution like yours. Restrain yourself from going into the big pitch.
This article is much more focused on telemarketing as a means to set an appointment or take a next step of some sort. If you are selling a product directly over the phone, once you’ve found someone who admits wanting to solve the problem your product solves, it’s time to close and ask for payment. Simply put, it means asking a question, the answer to which provides you with a sign that they may buy. Typical questions of this sort include asking how many units the prospect wishes to own, what color, when she wants it delivered, etc. Talk less. Ask questions and close more.
Back to calling for an appointment: Let’s say, for example, you are an investment adviser. Your qualifying question (again, from part one) is…
Read the rest »
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Doing telemarketing right – part 1
By Mike Lake
I recently received an email from a marketing guru who wrote on the subject of telemarketing. While I feel that most of this guy’s thoughts on marketing are very insightful, I felt this one fell short. To his defense, I don’t think much of most of what I read on the subject. Having spent 20 years doing and managing telephone prospecting and sales, I figure it’s time to share some of my thoughts on how to do telemarketing right.
First, the telemarketing to which I’m referring is B to B, not calling to consumers. With the national do not call list, that practice is all but dead for consumer calling. Keep in mind that the do not call list does NOT refer to businesses. We can still call other businesses to introduce our product or service.
Despite what some might feel, telephone prospecting does work. The problem is that most people do it so poorly that it seems ineffectual. If you’ve been watching some of our recent sales videos (http://www.redlake.tv/sales_video/Sales_VideoV3.html), you know that we are great believers in…
Read the rest »
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Nuns and Public Libraries: The Power of Video
By Mike Lake
As a lover of video and someone who makes his living from creating multimedia, it’s easy for me to tout the benefits of this medium for a variety of applications. But, I recently ran across an interesting article that provided some statistics on the effectiveness of video for persuasion and retention of information. While the power of video may seem self-evident, it’s interesting to see some hard facts supporting it.
The Wharton School of Business did a study a while back on the effectiveness of video. Their research found that “video boosted comprehension and retention by 50% over a live presentation.” While the movement of imagery, along with the attractive ways in which information can be displayed visually might account for this, I believe much of the power of video…
Write a comment