lead generatiion

Why 8% of sales people get 80% of the sales

Business Development, Lead generation, Lead Generation Marketing, , , , , Leave a comment
STEVE JOBS

Research suggests only one in 50 deals are struck at a first meeting, yet many sales people give up after just one or two knock-backs. Perseverance will give you a major edge on competitors.

You can sometimes be so close to your business that you can miss the simple solutions for growing it, where the greatest opportunities often lie. Solutions that are blindingly obvious, once you’re aware of them – but are amongst the best kept secrets on the planet if you’re not.

For example: Only 2% of sales occur at a first meeting

People in business often hope and expect to do business the first time they meet a prospect. Yet studies reveal that only 2% of sales occur when two parties meet for the first time.

The 2% who buy at a first meeting tend to be people who have already looked into the subject matter, and already know what they’re looking for. If they meet someone who ticks all the right boxes and they get on well, then business may well be transacted. But that is far from the norm. The other 98% will only buy once a certain level of trust has been built up. Continue reading →

Stop Using Emails for Marketing

Lead generation, Lead Generation Marketing, , , , ,


marketing-holidays-graph FINAL 2Stop using emails for marketing if you’re not willing to commit to using Best Practices and a consistent, frequent, and well crafted program.

Email marketing works. In fact, email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media and traditional forms of media including print and shows.

The fact is you wouldn’t get tons of emails everyday if companies didn’t find them effective. Home-goods retailer Williams-Sonoma reported a tenfold improvement in new customer acquisition by adopting a frequent well conceived e-mail program. Here are a couple of best practices tips:

START IT WITH A GOOD SUBJECT LINE
33% of email recipients open email based on subject line. Subject line is basically what your readers will first see. It needs to be catchy, and at the same time, in line with your real message, because your real goal is not just to have your email opened, but to make your readers engage with you. The best email subject lines are short, descriptive, and provide readers with a reason to explore message further. Keep it simple and to the point. Continue reading →

Get to know your prospects so you can convert them to customers

Lead generation,

The latest research is showing a clear positive correlation regarding a company’s success and lead nurturing, a process that provides relevant, meaningful communications to a prospect to lead them to a conversion.

However, research is also suggesting that BtoB marketers may be lagging in their adoption of effective lead nurturing strategies. In a recent CMO study from IDC, marketers were asked to indicate their satisfaction with their businesses’ various lead management techniques. Lead nurturing scored the lowest in satisfaction.

Forty-five percent of all business inquiries result in a sale – eventually, yet according to the Sales Lead Management Association, 80 percent of sales teams do not call leads that are initially deemed unqualified.

Continue reading →

Does one customer represent 100 percent of my revenue?

Lead generation,

INC-MAG-IMAGESure, it’s great to have a big contract with a big company. But how do you know when you’re too dependent on that one relationship? Find out.

You probably saw the recent announcement by once-high-flying Zynga that it is laying off 20% of its workforce and closing offices world-wide because of slumping revenue caused by an over-dependence on Facebook as a marketing channel. This is a high-tech equivalent of a growth trap that can happen to any fast-growing business. I call it The Wal-Mart Effect.

It happens like this: A young, growing business finally gets the call it longs for–a massive company (Wal-Mart, maybe, or Whole Foods, or whoever the dominant company is in the industry) wants their product or service. A lot of it. A big, big contract awaits. Heaven on a stick, right?

Well, no. In fact, most small companies that land mega-contracts with massive companies end up badly damaged and have their growth stunted over the long term as a result.

Here’s how it (usually) plays out:

Continue reading →