12 Handy Tips for Generating Leads through Cold-Calling

Cold calling can be a great way to generate quality leads. You get to speak to the gatekeepers and stakeholders, and you get a great insight into their requirements and influences. But cold calling is an art-form. It can be daunting, it's always a lot of work, and you always need to make a good impression. So you need to do it right. Following are some tips which will help you do just that. 1) Record everything Always write down all details of every phone call. Write down any names and titles you learn. Not just the name of the person you're trying to contact. The receptionist's name can be vital to remember as they're often gatekeepers. Write down when you called, and when you said you'd call back. 2) Use a database or spreadsheet to record everything You'll never manage by hand, and Excel spreadsheets aren't user friendly in the long term. If you're prepared to invest in a real CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, that's a great idea. If not, you there is a cheaper alternative. I created my own database using Microsoft Access. Click here to download a 208KB working copy for FREE. You'll need Microsoft Access 2000 to run it. I'm no database expert, so it's not a work of art. It'll certainly get you started though. (TIP: When using the database, press Ctrl + ; to enter today's date.) 3) Always call back when you said you would Don't let them down. They may not even remember that you committed to calling back. But if they do, and you don't meet your commitment, you'll lose valuable credibility and respect. And wherever possible, work to their schedule. You're here to help them, not make things harder. TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If you're an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, ask to speak to the Marketing Manager (or if the person who answers the phone says they don't have a marketing manager, ask for "the person who looks after your advertising & website" - all businesses have that person - it's generally one of the owners). 4) Always try to get on with the gatekeepers Receptionists and personal assistants have great influence, and quite often do more of the real work and decision making than the person you're trying to contact! Make friends with them and you've got a foot in the door. (But don't waste their time or crawl - they get a lot of that!) 5) Keep it short 'n sweet When you do get to speak with someone, keep it short 'n sweet unless they want to talk a lot. The purpose of the phone call is to get their attention, let them know you're there, get their name and contact details, and assess whether they have any requirement for your services. (TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If you're an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, you might have called about brochure writing and then find out they need web writing.) 6) DON'T HARD SELL!!! Don't pressure people or make it hard for them to get off the phone. Tell them what you do and that you'd like to send them an email with a link to your website with samples and testimonials (or with an attachment containing samples), then leave them to it. 7) Follow up with an email If you have permission, always send a follow-up email - and do so immediately. Be specific in your subject line. (TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If you're an advertising copywriter or website copywriter, use the words "advertising copywriting" or "website copywriting" in the subject. Most people don't get many emails with this in the subject line, so it'll be distinctive and probably won't be snuffed by their spam filter if they have one.) Address the email to them (e.g. "Hi Joe"), keep the email short 'n sweet. Include only the essential info, make it easy to read and conversational, and bold the important words or phrases as they'll probably only skim it. Include a link to your website, reference the day and date you talked on the phone (and thank them for that time), mention any names you learnt (e.g. receptionist's name, especially if the receptionist gave you an email address but you didn't actually get to speak to the decision maker), tell them that you'd like to follow up in a few weeks (assuming the conversation indicated that this would be a good idea). 8) Follow up with another call If the lead looks promising, make sure you follow up. And when you do, always mention the day and date of the original call, as well as the fact that you sent an email. Give a quick summary of who you are and what you do, and say that you're just calling to make sure they got the email. Most of the time, you'll find the lead will talk to you about your services, if only to remind themselves of what you do! 9) Don't expect to make too many calls On a really good day, I've made 80 cold calls. Most days, though, you should be very pleased to average around 40. You'll spend a lot of time playing telephone tag. 10) Don't leave message Unless you absolutely have to (or you've just about given up on the lead), don't leave messages. Most people have trouble returning phone calls from people they know and like; returning phone calls from someone who's trying to sell them something isn't high on their list of priorities. 11) Don't expect to qualify too many leads Depending on your business, if you get one good lead a day, you're probably doing very well. 12) Don't expect immediate conversion Unfortunately, most leads take a long time to come to fruition (up to 2 years). So you have to be prepared to be patient. Good luck and happy calling!

Getting Personal - innovative marketing for small businesses

As far as small business marketing goes, the more innovative you can be, the better. Which is why more and more people are discovering that if they're serious about marketing their small business effectively, it's time to get personal.

The small business marketing strategy you can't afford to miss

Everyone loves a story. Even if you don't particularly like reading them chances are you love watching them, either on TV or at the movies. Imagine if your marketing literature was like a great story: people would read it from beginning to end for one thing (as opposed to just throwing it straight into the bin), and they'd be more likely to tell their friends about it, too. Your small business marketing could be famous! Well, maybe...

Ok, so "famous" may be stretching it a little. By telling an interesting story, though, your marketing can at least make your small business well know in your local area or industry. But how do you do it?

Small business marketing through stories

In the same way that everyone loves to hear a story, most people have one to tell. You may not think it, but it's true. Your story may never make it onto the bestseller lists, but it can certainly help jazz up your marketing. Think about it. Just what was it that made you decide to start up your own small business in the first place? Whether it was a terrible boss, a personal crisis, or just the perfect eureka moment, I bet your story is one that you love to tell. It's probably a lot more interesting than most of the "corporate speak" sales pitches most people use in their small business marketing, too.

Using your personal story as part of your small business marketing

No matter what your story is, you can use it to great effect in your small business marketing by including it in your email newsletter, on your website, in your blog, or as part of your sales letters. This does two things:

1. Your story helps "personalize" you. Next time your customer sees your name on an invoice or at the bottom of a sales letter, they'll remember your story. You're no longer part of a faceless business venture: you're a real person, with a real story. This not only helps your stand out from your competitors, it also makes you easier to trust. 

2. Your story makes you memorable. Say your small business start-up story involves you being laid-off from your job in a factory, only to start up a similar business on your own. Next time your customers are watching the news and hear something about lay-offs (or even factories, for that mater!), they'll remember you and your small business. In this way, your marketing is working for you all the time - even when you don't expect it to.

Finding your small business marketing story

Of course, actually finding your story is the hard part. If you're having trouble, try brainstorming. Pick up a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything you can think of that relates to you and your business, however tenuously. If you've set up a business with your spouse, for example, tell the story of how you met, and tie it up with the line "who would have thought we'd end up running our own business together?" The great thing about using your personal story as part of your marketing strategy is that your story doesn't even have to be about your small business at all; it can just be about you.

What's your story

Ezine Advertising Strategy Exposed-15 Tips to Boost Your Profits

In my opinion, Electronic Magazine (Ezine) advertising is the greatest, untapped source of online advertising available today.

The reason: Ezine Advertising (EA) matches your product or idea to people with similar interests.

Example: who better to sell your health product to than a large group of people subscribed to a health newsletter? Or, you could pitch a business opportunity to a group already subscribed to another ezine about MLM and Biz Ops!

The idea of EA is fairly simple - but to make yours a success, you have to first determine which ezines or newsletters produce results, and which ones to avoid.

After a year and a half of EA, I've created a formula that produces increasing profit because I've learned how to avoid poor performing ezines and rip offs, while revealing the gems.

Strategy for Profit

I used to get ripped off about once for every 2 or 3 ezines I advertised in. They either took my money without running my ad (and ignored my subsequent emails), or my proven ads did too poorly for the money I paid.

The reasons ranged from abandoned ezines with working payment links, unethical newsletter owners, to a lot of ignorance and impatience on my part.

If you follow my proven strategy, you'll discover the best sources of ezines to advertise in - no matter who your target group is. And, you should see positive results every time.

This article outlines the steps to making your EA a successful return on investment (ROI).

Writing Your Ad

I won't go into details about ad writing, but if your ad is poorly written or untested, you should start with the cheapest ezines first. If you're really unsure of your writing abilities, I further suggest hiring a professional to write your ad for you. Because you can run your ad as many times as you want, your investment in a professional will more than pay for itself in the end.

Target your advertising

If you leap into EA without first researching your target group, you'll end up wasting a lot of time and money. Plus, you probably miss some of the best ezines available.

To determine who your prospect is, take the time to list the possible keywords that directly relate to your product and do keyword searches for ezines, newsletters, and ezine directories.

For example, if you sell herbs, a good keyword search would include: herbs, health, nutrition, supplements, etc.

Avoid Co-ops

While doing your ezine research, you will probably stumble upon the offer to use Co-op (bulk) advertising as the means for your EA.

To be blunt, you should never pay to use Co-ops for your EA because they are too difficult to track and usually contain untargeted ezines. Worse still, you'd find that most never run your ad.

Subscribe

Now that you've found your ezine target group, you'll want to know whether the ezines you found are a good option (i.e. profitable) for your EA.

I've found the best strategy for making this determination is to subscribe to the targeted ezines.

To keep the subscriptions readily available for further research, I recommend creating a separate folder to store your subscription data.

And because you'll need to subscribe to quite a few ezines, I also suggest creating separate email accounts dedicated to your ezine subscriptions.

Double Opt-In Subscriptions

In the process of subscribing, you'll quickly determine possible ezines to avoid. When you subscribe and get a notice that you must confirm your subscription, the ezine is referred to as "double opt-in".

Double opt-in ezines indicates a better quality of subscribers with a lower risk of bulk email addresses. For you and me, this means better ad responses (yeah!).

Solo Ads

Within the first week of your new ezine subscription, you should see solo ads from other advertisers. If not, the ezine may be too new, or worse, no one is advertising because of poor results. Worse yet, the ezine took the advertiser's money and failed to run the ad.

On the other hand, if you see two or more solo ads a day, their list is probably burned out due to over advertising. You're looking for no more than one ad a day, or a minimum of one ad a week. Keep watching!

Subject Line

Does the ezine put the advertiser's subject line in the subject of the email or do they just say something like "Solo ad from xyz ezine"?

Your subject line is the most important part of your ad and definitely should be in the subject of the email. No subject line equals no response.

Advertiser Response

Repeat (or regular) advertisers in an ezine is a very good sign that the subscribers are responsive. To further test responsiveness, I recommend looking through the ezine's online archives (if available).

Archives are previous email publications that the publisher has posted to their website for visitors to view. The archive search is not only quick and easy, but archives can also provide an extra trickle of visitors when your ad gets archived.

Testimonial Page

After passing the above steps, see if your prospective ezine has a testimonial page. If the ezine has gotten this far, chances are it will.

Waiting Period

The best indicator of responsive subscribers is the waiting period to run an ad in the chosen ezine. If the waiting period is a month or more, this indicates a very popular ezine with responsive readers. You've uncovered a real gem!

Web Forms

I've found that the better ezines have web forms that get your ad to the publisher's inbox and usually send auto confirmation of receipt. If there is no web form, try emailing the publisher a question first, like when the next ad run date is.

No response may indicate a poor choice in the ezine, or your email was filtered or blocked as spam. Wait at least 2 days and try emailing again using a different email account.

If your emails still don't get through, neither will your ad. (Ironically, your payment always go through). Trust me, if they fail to communicate, save your money and time and move on.

Free Classifieds

If the ezine offers free classifieds, this is another good place to run your ad. Since classifieds usually don't produce responses, any activity from your ad here would further indicate an active readership.

Ad Tracking

Never advertise without using an ad tracker. You can purchase one or better, use one of the many available online for free. Ad trackers give you a url that you use in place of your website address.

The new url gives you important information like how many visitors you had, where they came from, and some list the number of sales per visitor.

This tracking information is crucial to the direction of your ad campaign because you'll learn of the need to change your ad and/or the sales page. More importantly, you'll know for certain whether the ezine produced enough visitors for the advertising price you paid.

Run Your Ad Twice

If your ad produced a great response, wait a week or two and run the ad again in the same ezine. I've found you'll probably get as good if not better results the second time around.

I would advise against running the ad a third time in a row because most of your prospects will be found in the first two runs.

Rotating Ads

Once your ad has been tested and you have a base of 5-10 solid, performing ezines, start rotating your ad between your ezines.

For optimal results, make sure 2-3 months have passed before running your ad in the same publication. Keep building your base and watch your profits grow

What Is Marketing?

If you have a company that offers a service or a product, then you need to know about marketing. Marketing is going to be one of the most important aspects of your business aside from the actual product that you deliver.

Marketing is the way that people will know your company or business exists.

So you can see how important good marketing is.

Understanding the purpose of marketing is the first step in making your marketing successful. The basic principle is that marketing aims to tell your customers who you are and what you do. Of course, some products can be self-promoting so little further marketing is needed. Other products will require a lot more promotion. Potential customers will have to be told what your product is and, more importantly, what it can do for them.

Where is the best place for an organization to start in order to maximize the effects of its marketing? First, get the fundamentals correct, as we are about to describe.

The Customer is King (or Queen)!

The most important aspect of marketing is to know your customer. You have to know who you are trying to sell to so you can understand how to market them.

You need to get inside the head of your customers to find appealing ways to grab their attention and make them want your goods or services.

To understand your customers you need to think about how they think and how they function and what influences their decision to purchase something. You need to think about what they will think about your product. You need to think about how they will feel about your product and what will inspire them to buy your product.

It's not enough for you to just tell them to buy your product. You need to show them why they should by it. You need to make it appealing to them and make them see that they need it right now. Some products or services may focus only on a specific group of people such as men or women or children.

But other products or services appeal to a mass amount of people. Depending on what your product is and who it appeals to will determine your market approach.

The key to successful promotion is never to lose sight of the customers' needs, so that you can persuade them that your merchandise is just what they require.