Tips to Improve Your Lead Generation and Conversion Results

It’s a new year, and you’re likely kicking off marketing and lead generation programs to drive more new leads for 2015. Most new leads go nowhere. Why? Often, it’s because Sales and Marketing have not agreed on a true lead definition and have not created a joint process for finding who’s ready to buy and building relationships with those who aren’t.

It’s not about more leads; it’s about doing better with the ones you already have. Here’s how. In this extended post, I’ll share some ideas on how to make your lead management more effective.

Create a marketing funnel, not just a sales funnel:
Most organizations don’t have a marketing funnel. Instead, they have a sales funnel that looks more like a bucket with lots of holes in it where leads leak out. Marketing needs to create its own funnel to understand whether leads are Sales ready or not.

The purpose of the marketing funnel is to bring leads into one spot and qualify them. By qualifying them, I mean that they are ready to talk to a salesperson. Then, there is the hand-off process between Marketing and Sales to consider.

I find that connecting the marketing and sales funnels together is really a big challenge and that is a big stopgap for most demand generation programs. You have to understand your sales process to know at what point the sales team views a lead as an opportunity and begins actively pursuing it.

The bigger and better you make your marketing pipeline, the bigger and better you make your sales pipeline. In the end, this isn’t about generating more leads; it’s about generating actionable leads. The marketing funnel creates sales-ready leads while nurturing the leads that aren’t sales-ready.

Cold Calling Can Be Fun:
The Cold Calling is the gold standard for qualifying most leads. We found that you can email, you can do Web profiling, you can measure all these touch points, but in the end if you want to know something, you need to talk to someone and engage them in conversation.

It’s a new year, and you’re likely kicking off marketing and lead generation programs to drive more new leads for 2015. Most new leads go nowhere. Why? Often, it’s because Sales and Marketing have not agreed on a true lead definition and have not created a joint process for finding who’s ready to buy and building relationships with those who aren’t.
It’s not about more leads; it’s about doing better with the ones you already have. Here’s how. In this extended post, I’ll share some ideas on how to make your lead management more effective.
- See more at: http://clientcurve.com/blog/?p=862#sthash.TT7jiGxO.dpuf

Tips for Building a Powerful Brand Identity for your Small Business

Starting a business can be one of the most exciting and empowering moves you’ll ever make and absolutely doable, even in today’s highly competitive marketplace. It takes more than a great idea to sustain a business, though. To be successful, you’ll need to first focus on building a powerful brand identity. Here are some tips to guide you on your way.

Be Sure of Yourself.
It’s important to know what your brand stands for, what makes it special and its benefit. You also need to know who your target audience is and make that benefit clear and obvious to them

Create a Distinctive Identity.
Branding is about perception and the most powerful brands are built from the inside out on differentiation. Creating a distinctive logo and tagline that captures the essence of your brand can increase your visibility. A quality website can also help differentiate your business while also introducing you to online customers and boosting credibility.

Get Connected and Be Memorable.
Creating a brand voice and social media strategy is essential, so it’s important to create a profile for your business on select social media platforms where your customers congregate. Next, create compelling communications that emotionally connect with and motivate your customers to love your brand and buy from it! Powerful brands are great at listening so be sure to respond to online comments and questions

Be Consistent and Congruent.
Maintaining consistent, congruent messaging makes your business easier to remember and trust. Ask yourself: Does your website look like it belongs with your business card and your social media channels? Is your messaging consistent with your brand?

Deliver on your promises.
Strong brands possess credible, relevant and distinctive brand promises. That said, create a brand promise, deliver on it and provide an exceptional customer experience. You’ll end up creating brand advocates who will sing your praises and help build your brand.

Tips for Building a Powerful Brand Identity for your Small Business

Top Seven Digital Ways To Build Email List:

If your business has an online presence then the opportunity exists to build a very effective email marketing list. A targeted email list allows you to constantly nurture prospects by providing them with information and offers in order to eventually turn then into a revenue producing conversion.

If the thought of building a targeted email marketing list from the ground up seems to be a challenging task, then use the following tips to help you get started.

1. Subscription forms on Website:Have prominent “subscribe to email” links on every page of your website.

Give reason why they will benefit from the email. Examples: “Receive special deals via email” or “Latest news in your inbox” or “View hottest trends”.
Show them how the email will “look” like.
Always send a welcome email without fail.
Show your emails as archives on your website, this builds trust and lets people know what kind of content they will be receiving.

2. Other Websites:There are various websites that have registered readers. These websites have taken permission from the readers to send them interesting content. If your target audience is similar to the readers of such websites then you should consider keeping aside some budget to send your newsletter to such audience.Make sure you have good content for people to click the email like something free that they can instantly download. It can be a coupon, or a code or a contest or simple a whitepaper.When they visit your website make sure you ask them for their email in a form in return for the free stuff. This way slowly you will build your database of emails.

3. Business Contacts:During the course of your interactions in your business, you have been sending emails to hundreds of your business partners, associates, vendors, clients etc. Create a one off campaign to invite them to your email newsletters. Please do not include them automatically as doing that amounts to spamming. Please obtain their approval.Make sure your signature in your emails also has a tagline that invites users to register with your website.

4. Social Media:If you use Facebook Business Page you should consider having a subscription form on it. From time to time post links on your various social media sites asking people to sign-up for your newsletter.Other social media such as twitter and LinkedIn can give you a good list of potential readers, provided you seek their permission first.

5. Offline Tactics:If you have offline stores / shops consider asking every customer to fill out a form with their short details. Keep the form short and simple so that walk-in customers will not be daunted. Give something in return, like a lucky draw.If you participate in exhibitions, it is a good time to get people to sign up for your newsletters on your booth.

6. Customer Interaction:Every inbound and outbound call that your support team makes, make sure that they have a script which will help them get the email address of your prospective customers.In every invoice, receipt, and email, that you send out include a link to your newsletter sign up.

7. Refer a friend:Incentivize people to refer their friends. You can hold a lucky draw for all the referrers and announce it every week or give some similar incentive.Give special stuff, in the form of gifts, discounts to people on your email list. Reserve some special promotions for this channel.

Organic vs. Paid: Which Is The Best Fit For B2B Marketers?

ClientCurve Marketing Solutions | SEO vs. PPC: Which Is the Best Fit for Your Business?

The success of any online enterprise is measured by how much traffic is directed to that particular website. The key is to draw people to your website, the shop window for your business, and give them enough reason to convert their initial interest into a sale. The question then becomes which form of marketing is best for your business? Two of the most effective forms of generating traffic to your site are PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Although they ultimately have the same target, to generate traffic to your site, each has different techniques and are more suited to specific marketing strategy.

So Which Is The Best Fit For For B2B Marketers?
Firstly, it is important to understand the difference between SEO & PPC. SEO influences Google’s natural listings, while PPC adverts will appear either at the top or on right hand side of Google’s listings.

The diagram below highlights the positioning on Google’s listings.

Strategies more suited to SEO
SEO is a series of techniques designed to improve a website’s organic position on the search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN.

There are several marketing strategies which are more suited to SEO:
- To Maintain A Consistent Flow Of Website Traffic
SEO is a timely process and is not something that will produce instant results. Getting your site on the first page of Google takes time and does not happen overnight. Yet, once your site does rise in the organic listings, it becomes easier to maintain this position and you arguably would not need any other form of advertising. Once you have created a highly optimised site, you will command a strong position and with that generate more traffic to your site.

- Creating A More Trusted Resource For Sales
Consumers are naturally sceptical about clicking on advertisements. This often may deter them from clicking on the paid Google advertisements as opposed to Google’s natural results. To avoid this potential scepticism, it makes sense to gear your site to have a high ranking on the natural listings. This is what SEO is all about.

- Cost-Effective Marketing
SEO is very cost-effective in the long term. Competitors have the opportunity to bid more for your keyphrases on any PPC platform but with SEO, the best and most relevant content always wins. By dedicating time and effort into producing high quality, original content on your site, you are responsible for your own performance on the organic listings. After running an effective SEO campaign for 3-6 months, you may no longer require any additional forms of marketing.

Strategies more suited to PPC
PPC advertising is very different to SEO. You bid on a search term which is relevant to your industry. When a search is made for that particular search term, your advert appears in the sponsored listings. You are then charged for every individual click on the advert, hence the name pay per click.

Which marketing strategies are most suited to PPC advertising?
- When Immediate Results Are Needed
PPC advertising delivers instant results. The turnover period from signup to launch is relatively short. Within a matter of minutes your advert is displayed for millions of people to see and website visits will begin to flow.

- To Target A Very Specific Demographic
PPC is very useful for targeting a specific group of customers. On Facebooks ads for example, you are able to target customers by age, gender, income level, education level or even relationship status. You can also target people by interests and hobbies. It allows you to attract highly targeted and relevant traffic to your site, ensuring each visit has more chance of converting to a sale.

- Promoting A Product For A Certain Time Period
If you are promoting an event or an offer with an expiration date, you need instant results. PPC produces results within a matter of minutes and can be scheduled to meet any deadlines you may have.
It isn’t always a case of choosing one of the other, it is entirely possible for SEO and PPC to complement one another. An integrated campaign will produce better results. Establishing your presence on both will encourage customers to choose your products over that of a competitor.

Cold Calling Techniques

Cold calling is the very first lesson one gets in sales and for most of us who are into sales, we get so tied up with the routine job that the revisit to the techniques come handy.

1) What is the Goal? We often forget why we make the cold calls and confuse it with a chance to close a deal or generate a sale. But in reality cold calling is to get appointment so that we can make a great sales pitch. It is all about creating the right experience over a call for you and for the prospect.

2) Research your markets and prospects: Understand what kind of target market works for your business, get the list of the right audience. Adequate market research and information about the decision makers in the organization, details of the kind of the industry the organization is into, the kind of services it sells and any related news is always helpful before we call the person. This comes as an easy tip to prepare you before the call and know what to say so that we have the call aligned for a meeting.

3) Greet and Connect with the Prospect:  A brief outline of what has to be spoken and conveyed to the person also helps. Try and use lines like "Is this a good time to talk?" or "How are you today?" in the framework of the conversation so that you instantly connect with the person over the call.

4) What should be in the opening statement? The opening statement can be something that strikes attention. A call would generally have a greeting and an introduction, a reference point (something about the prospect), the benefits of your product or service, and a transition to a question or dialogue and a request for appointment so that the meeting can be scheduled.

5) Calling Script: The calling script has it all – all the benefits of product or service and the reasons why the prospect should buy. All possible objections and answers to them. A script would primarily help you in having everything in the front for a reference so nothing gets left out.

6) Ask for a specific time: Being premise with the timing further ensures the chances of getting the meeting fixed instead of letting it lose for a next conversation.

7) Gatekeepers are allies not foes: It is tough for many a sales people to accept this but being pleasant to whoever picks up the phone or is guarding the inner sanctum when cold calling brings no harm. One must learn and develop strategies to get the gatekeeper to favor you. Because at times it may so happen they would help you to get onto the first call, rest is about how you take it. Learning the names of gatekeepers and being friendly when calling also helps.

8) Cold calling in early hours of the morning: Early morning working hours are the best time to reach the decision maker directly because most people would be most energized at that time.

9) Be persistent: Eighty percent of new sales are made after the fifth contact, yet the majority of sales people give up after the second call. Cold calling is all about follow-ups and appointment setting with the prospect for a next level discussion.

Business Lists for Your Marketing Campaigns – We do it Right

Contacts are the life and blood of any marketing campaign. Without a correct list, there is no point to any campaign. It is, therefore, vital that you get the list built with someone who understands what your marketing campaign is in the first place.

The process of Contact List development for your marketing campaigns should ensure building of a “quality” list, because “Quality is better than Quantity.” It is better to reach to fewer contacts who are interested in your product, service or message than to send it to a random list of individuals who are not interested. This approach will give you better results and more success in your marketing campaign.

ClientCurve is a B2B Marketing Agency. We specialize in List Building Service for your marketing campaigns.

Our Specialty

Our business lists are accurate: The contacts on our business lists are updated weekly and monthly for accuracy. 

Our business lists are reliable: We validate each contact for email deliverability before delivery of your specific order.

Our business lists are extensive: We do thorough research before including the records in our database. Besides, we have global coverage. We offer lists for North America, EMEA & APAC etc.

Way we build Effective B2B Contacts List

The key is to have a clear target market definition. We need info to build your B2B marketing list:

1. Identify the industry: We start by picking the industry and the sub-industry which is specified by the client or is suitable for the product we are looking at. .

2. Identify companies: Companies like yours often define us the criteria for their target market which they are looking to focus for sales and branding. So we segment the market based on revenue, geography, number of employees, etc

3. Identify titles or roles:

Here what we do is to understand who the right decision maker in each case. We identify the contact details based on department such as IT, Human Resources, Marketing, Manufacturing etc, and specific designations.

4. Standardize spreadsheet format:

We standardize the spreadsheet based on the CRM format required by the clients so that it is ready to use list when we send it to you.

5. Validate:

We validate the information gathered by the phone verification or a physical verification and ensure that we give the right designation to you. Hence making your list authentic.

Conclusion: Whether you're a start-up company looking to build a new database of business contacts, or an established company with an out-of-date or patchy database, if you can create an extensive and good quality B2B database then you will dramatically improve your business's chances of success. Considering the fairly intense competitive markets outside, it is fair to say that every second lost counts a deal lost.

Segmented Database – The right way to your Marketing Campaigns

Being marketers, it is important for us to be able to make the right connection with audience. This comes with understanding of business, knowledge of product/services, right content that generates a visceral reaction from audience during a campaign, impact performances for a recall or reference. So more or less it comes as a mix of right approach, multiple methods, great content and segmented audience to talk to see the effort to business conversions.

Companies often spend a lot of time in strategizing, planning approach and budgeting in board rooms but forget about Contact list development exercise. This is where our expertise jumps in. We are B2B marketing agency with primary focus in getting segmented and extremely customized lists for our clients. Because a campaign would be in vain if you have a poorly built database or a very old database which is not updated with right decisions, persons and is not segmented finitely.

How will getting a segmented database improve your chances? Segmenting the market resolves around 2 purposes - an effectively segmented database with updated information will help a marketer to confirm the representative is an ideal prospect profile. For example, if your product brings in value to a project manager and the operations team by improving the work quality then talking to the IT manager is going to do no good for you. Hence the effort has to go much focused and hit the right contact person.

Secondly, when a B2B Contact List is segmented properly and updated at regular intervals, marketers will be able to design very specific mailers or calling campaigns on one particular database.  Here the motto is to generate specific responses from that market. Putting in the time up front to get the segmentation right will pay off later when you are able to execute seamlessly each marketing strategy.

Benefits of Building a Contact List accurately segmented do for you -

•    Boost in audience engagement with you
•    Campaign metrics show responses when addressed to a segmented recipient group
•    Acquisition of maximum Qualified Appointments in quick time
•         ROI on the campaign in the allotted budget

Let us now learnt the best practices in doing so-

• Analyze who an ideal prospect profile would be. Large organizations have market analysts and consulting teams to suggest them the right picture of the target market. In cases of small and medium enterprises, if you don’t have this established then consider to do it now. Get a picture of the companies you want to talk to and have meetings with. Categorize based on industry, revenue, titles, job levels (CXO or Mid-level manager, Line managers).

• Get the segmented database built by experts like ClientCurve and get it updated on a very regular basis.

• Get the database uploaded and updated on the CRM system to be used. Each time a campaign is run, add records to further segment. Information of this kind brings in the insight and helps in analyzing a campaign.

Marketers who understand the importance of database with the most currently updated information will always get the added advantage of a connection with the recipient. Having a segmented and updated database is a compulsory requisite for a successful B2B Campaign Management in today’s age of competition.

First 30 Seconds – Threshold for Inside Sales Agents

“30 seconds to win or lose a sale”- We all hear this from our direct bosses or seniors in the beginning phase of our careers. Every sales profession would agree that the impression done could cost or earn the biggest sale. Even in times like these when a lot of business is done through phone, virtual conference calls; the first 30 seconds still plays the deciding factor.

          

I often wonder why it is crucial.

The first 30 seconds impression is all about the right mix- what the appointment setter speaks, how he speaks, the tone, the manner the sentences are framed and paused while speaking, attention to details that builds a certain impression about us in the mind of executive who controls the buying decisions. Studies show that in the first 30 seconds or less of initial meeting, buyers have already made a lasting and unshakable perception of the person they are speaking to. The challenge though in B2B Inside sales is that you convey the message through a voice process and have to develop an interest to continue the conversation further.

In selling, you seldom get that second chance. So it is weeks of effort, hard work and knowledge that stands with us during the discussion with the client. Especially in the software industry today, where the differentiation is only in the knowledge and quality of services at hand the buyer stands at a high point having numerous options to choose from. Hence the first 30 seconds determine if the sales person is going to be given the chance for next level or will be opted out.

Experts advise salespeople to quickly establish a professional image that projects knowledge of the customer’s business, confidence and accountability. The objective would then be to build a foundation for a being as a Trusted Advisor role versus the sales person trying to push the sales.

Here’s how to make a greatest impression for a inside sales agent:

1. Clarity in what we Speak: A preparation on what we want to speak during the call brings in certain flow to the discussion that will follow. For inside sales agents especially, it becomes important on how we talk over the phone or call bridge. It is our clarity in voice, tone, the speed with which we speak sentences that would help an executive either hold their interest or leave it.

2. Project Confidence: Confidence is a major ingredient in creating an executive presence. It comes hand in hand with knowledge of customer’s business, knowledge of market and knowledge of how to help them best. A little homework and researching can help you cultivate this. It is always about providing a logical flow of information and compassion that helps you.

3. Talk Less and Listen More: It is important to have a good listening skills being in sales. Because if you not listening then you are talking about anything that can be perceived as awkward or could be misconstrued as inappropriate. But in case of B2B inside sales a low tone murmur could be used so as to make the executive ensure that you are listening to every detail that he is mentioning.

4. Promptness: You are not present physically with the executive but then your behavior before and after the call builds in a certain image about how you might be. Hence follow up after the cold calling with a thank you mail, prompt material submissions for further discussion.

Creating a good first impression for many salespeople can be challenging but it is an essential skill in B2B inside sales. As with many other things, it can be improved through practice. Getting feedback from customers, other salespeople or your manager who have observed your calls would be a good first step. No printing salesperson can survive in this profession for long without continuously prospecting for new customers. Rather than generating a steady stream of quotes to print buyers, focus on making impactful sales calls, where you are keenly aware of the “Threshold 30.

Cracking the code – How B2B Lead Generation works

Today’s business environment works solely on brand recognizition, recall by customers and sales number. Marketers in B2B selling markets often deal with the difficulty in generating leads and closing sales. In order to address this challenge, marketers need to understand the mechanism to increase their lead flow and also ensure the sales closure.

1. Generate More Leads:

Marketing has a lot of vehicles added to play around to reach the prospects. To mention a few of these tools- direct references, cold calling, website, mailers, newsletters and ads. Each source yields a different quality of lead and also the quantity of lead that flows into the system. B2B Lead generation companies like ClientCurve help their clients by getting qualified appointments in the form of demos, conference calls, direct face-to-face meetings, etc. Here goes some of the ways to ensure smooth lead flow.

a)    Right buyer profile (target market): You first need to know - Who can be a customer? Who is the right person to talk to? Who will be the influencers or decision makers and other parties directing the sales? Having this correct means your campaign will get a right direction to move forward.

b)    What is Market doing? Understand direct competition; take inputs from internal and external sources to understand their success. Meetings with your presales team, sales team will help you understand the reality of the market.

c)    Right content: Creative marketing agencies deal with handling the content in various forms- eBook publishes, white papers, trade show/conference presentations, website contents and webinars. Appropriate content in the social media community, blog, video, LinkedIn, Slide share, etc. Maintaining them with meaningful contributions and talking to prospects through these media does improve upon the presence and lead flow.

2. Nurture and Qualifying More Leads:

Sales team is often focused on leads which are closing today but do not bother to understand at times the ones that might be interested in the next 6 months or a year. Companies like ClientCurve help their clients to handle the old leads by nurturing them and understanding their business scenario.

a)    Nurturing a lead is an art in itself: Lead nurturing is a delicate phase and needs sharing information that is appropriate and holds onto their interest as well. ClientCurve takes in a very systematic approach by developing on-going marketing communications process with emails, newsletters and direct calls to ensure that the customer remains informed and interested.

b)    Customize your communications: Creating compelling content to communicate built around each sales cycle stage and buyer profile helps in avoiding confusion and helps you to stand out in the pack Systematic email and regular update on the offers being given by your company may help you to be in the recall of the prospect. The communication here is very targeted and focused.

3. Converting more qualified leads:

Lead development to a qualified lead, which is almost sales-ready, is not only crucial but also important as we wait for this to convert to a revenue flow. Any sales rep would agree as to how difficult it is to be able to handle the long built relation with the prospect and the urgency to close the sale come to the threshold. It becomes important to determine what works best to convert prospects. We can do this by communicating with the prospect through direct calls, encouraging direct visits, mailers to keep yourself in the loop as to the progress. Here two things happen, prospect remembers you and recognizes your effort, second he now is knowledgeable about your product to make a quick decision when the time comes. It is with great patience and empathy that a sales rep needs to go to further develop the lead to a closure.