Thursday, July 4, 2013

Sales Leads From Prospects You May Not Believe

Getting sales leads for auto insurance sounds easy if you know which industries are likely to need it (in this case, industries that make heavy use of automobiles). However, one reason could prove to be a very persistent obstacle to those sales leads. These are the prospects who sincerely believe you will not cover them because they know you will not believe them in turn!  

Sales Leads, Auto Insurance Sales Leads, Insurance Leads

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Telemarketing Tips – Never Presume Hostility


One of the most irritating assumptions about the telemarketing profession is that everyone gets angry to hear an agent. Not all gatekeepers are rage machines aching to slam the phone! Many telemarketing campaigns fail to get off the ground because of the fear that gatekeepers are never going to give them an inch.  

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Appointment Setting With New Management



It sounds both unprecedented and uneasy when you think about how appointment settingis affected by new management. This is not just about targeting old prospect companies that suddenly had a few promotions underway. It also means conducting your appointment setting campaigns when you have made some changes to your own cleaning company’s hierarchy! Worse still, what if you end up with both at the same time?  

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Turning Down Software Leads That Cannot Provide

People value software leads so much these days that they lose sight of what it means to target and qualify them. Their lead generation campaigns just churn and churn with hardly anything remotely resembling qualification standards. You should not forget that your prospects simply respond in a two-way interaction. You should not just measure your efforts to attract but also measure the quality of the responses you are getting.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Multiple Sales Leads - A Web Of Two-Way Streets


Generating accounting sales leads for tax consulting firm can be like spinning a web. It gets annoying though when other people see it the same way but negatively add that your sales leads have no sense of targeting.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Improving Software Lead Generation Without Breaking It

Like software, lead generation can leave lot of room for improvement. And also like software, there are those who like to tinker or experiment just to realize those improvements. The problem is too much tinkering can irrevocably break something (whether its in technology or lead generation). As much as those flops can be great learning experiences, are their other ways you could find out?


Friday, March 15, 2013

Appointment Setting Tips – Understand Why Schedules Change


Flexibility is very important for any appointment setting strategy regardless of what tools you use or what industry it represents. In tax consulting for example, it is quite normal in the business world to make changes in a consulting schedule whether the request is done by phone, email, or even via an automated application. Hence, your appointment setting strategy must get ready to stretch itself really well in order to keep up.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Nurturing Sales Leads – Lessons From God Of War

If you are adopting a strategy for nurturing sales leads, the God of War game series has a surprising lesson or two. See, as a tax consulting firm, you first begin the process of generating sales leads in the same way the gods of the game strike agreements with mortals. The lessons actually lie in the mistakes these gods made when they simply toy around with these agreements instead of nurturing them.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Lead Generation Tips – Know When Flashing Big Brands Fails

In lead generation, you appeal to a prospect's interests in the hopes that they will take interest in your merchant or credit card processing services. That does not always have to involve flashing the brand names of big business clients you had previously served. Are you wondering how such a fool-proof lead generation tactic could fail with your reputation? It is simply because your prospects want results, not rep.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

You & Your Outbound Telemarketing Budget


Having your very own marketing campaign is something that be at the top of your to-do list. Without one, you wouldn’t be able to promote your company’s products and services, thus you won’t be able to make more sales. One thing you need to do before you can launch a campaign is plan, and even in the planning phase you are going to need to have a budget ready. So when it comes to something like telemarketing, how should you optimize your budget?

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Lead Generation Tips – Generating & Handling Your Leads


Businesses that do not have their own lead generation programs will soon find that their office phones aren't going to be as busy as they used to be. What are we getting at here? Well, it simply means that no clients are calling. And what business would want that?

One other thing that some companies have a problem with is how to handle the leads they generate from their marketing campaign. When a lead comes in you can't just reply with an email, and neither could you give your prospect a call if they didn't even give you their number. As such, some companies also have problems in handling their business leads.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Unhappy Customers – The Key to Better Software Lead Generation


Selling business software can become a very lucrative practice... that is if people wanted to buy your product in the first place. One reason as to why you aren't getting back your old customers, as well as to why your lead generation campaign may be failing, is because of unhappy customers.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Telemarketing Those Who Also Use Telemarketers


Believe it or not but it is not completely unusual for a company to use outbound telemarketing to find itself also encountering another company who employs telemarketers. Some people might find it awkward or ironic but the truth is that telemarketing another telemarketer is simply another lead generation challenge.

It just so happens that your prospect is using the same marketing tool you are using.

Telemarketing VS Telemarketing?


Think of this situation as the big business equivalent to having common preferences with another player in a video game. It can be like having a similar build, similar weapon, or similar choice of character. But despite how you both seem to prefer telemarketing as the method of choice, there are still differences between you.

  • Different industry – Continuing with the game analogy, being of the same race or class in a role playing game hardly eliminates all room for variations. For telemarketing, that variation comes from having the same type of marketer but representing different industries. On one hand, your telemarketers call to talk tax problems to attract tax consulting leads while your prospects comprise of healthcare businesses.

  • Different telemarketing style – Telemarketing can be like the katana. Samurai types may duel using that same weapon but that does not mean they do not have their own original style of wielding it. Your prospect's telemarketers might prefer receiving and responding while you prefer a more aggressive, outbound approach. Using the phone hardly means you are unoriginal.
  • Different purpose – Sometimes they have an outbound call center but do not use it for marketing at all! Sure they use the phone but then again, so does customer support. When it comes to game weapons, many can be used for defense as much as offense. In fact, look at real life basketball. It is not like no player has ever only gone for one.

  • Different markets – Different industries also imply different target markets. Your prospect may be one of those who still use telemarketing services to engage consumers while you are the type of tax consulting firm that is strictly B2B. Everything from pitches to the sales process itself will have significant differences because of the responses they will generate.

On the bright side, having the same approach does establish a certain level of common ground. Just to be safe though, never be too assuming of anything about your prospect just because the both of your use telemarketing to generate sales leads. 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Why Patience Matters in Your IT Telemarketing Campaign

telemarketing, IT sales leads, appointment setting, IT services leads, appointment setting, outbound telemarketing, business leads
Doing telemarketing is not easy. Making call after call on a daily basis, although it seems quite simple, is actually a very grueling task. Those that want to become telemarketers go through much training and as the process goes on those that are not good fits for the job of cold calling are weeded out.

Lead generation through cold calling is actually not a job for the faint of heart. In a world where rejection is commonplace and stress can fill up your day, it is not a wonder why some telemarketing professionals are held in the highest for being good at what they do: generating leads through making phone calls.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Is Buying Software Sales Leads Worth the Costs?

sofware sales leads, lead generation, targeted sales leads, medical software leads, SAP sales leads, software sales lead generation, business leads, telemarketing
As a software company, you may have engaged in various methods of marketing your products and services. One of these is in doing lead generation to get more software sales leads. Unfortunately though, not everyone can hope to be successful when it comes to generating business leads, and eventually a campaign can end up failing.

A failing lead generation campaign is obviously not a good thing. If such a program was your only way of getting leads then you are seriously going to have to find a way to either fix your campaign or secure another method of acquiring leads. Often enough though, many businesses just choose to buy leads instead.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

IT Telemarketing Vs. Social Media – Which Will Win?


telemarketing, lead generation, IT sales leads, IT telemarketing, IT services leads, IT consulting leads, web hosting leads, cloud computing leads, IT outsourcing leads, IT telemarketing lead generation
IT companies may be wondering whether social media is really the new way to market their products and services to their customers. So what happens to other methods, such as the use of telemarketing? Is the good old calling approaching about to go down the drain as social media becomes more popular and more used by marketers?

Hold your horses! Telemarketing isn't about to go anywhere even if social media is creeping up behind it like a monster about to sink its teeth into some juicy prey. In fact, the phone is still a tool that marketers cannot be fully rid of due to the fact that it greatly helps them when it comes to lead generation. Although social media is popular nowadays, there are still some things which it isn't capable of accomplishing.

So how is IT telemarketing lead generation going to fare against social media when it comes to being part of an IT company's marketing strategy? Well, let's take a look into it.

Social media is what it is – “social”.


Sure enough, social media channels allow us to engage with prospects within our target market on a much larger scale; messages can be viewed by almost anyone and sharing good content becomes easier. We could say that by using social media we are doing lead generation a much greater levels because of the reach it has.

However, social will just be what its name implies it to be – “social”. Although you can generate leads via social media, social channels are better left to engaging and connecting with your prospects before you go in to make a more detailed offer. Social media doesn't really have enough power when it comes to converting your prospects into IT sales leads for your company – and this is something you actually want to be doing. Nonetheless, social is great for connecting with your prospects and building initial relationships.

Telemarketing converts prospects into leads – something social isn't always good for.


As said above, social media helps build relationships and is good for engaging your prospects. However, when it comes to actually converting those prospects into leads, it is a job better suited for a more direct approach. Many businesses use B2B telemarketing as part of their lead generation strategy because of its power in being able to convert prospects into leads.

Although, telemarketing doesn't have much power when it comes to actually converting prospects on the first try. Other businesses even make it a habit to email prospects their offer before setting up a call with them. Telemarketing does convert leads, however, it is best used when the prospect is already set-up for your call.

So who will win the fight in being a more effective means of generating IT outsourcing leads, web hosting leads, cloud computing leads, IT consulting leads and other IT services leads? computing leads? Judging by what we have talked about, I would say that the two stand pretty equal. No single approach is above other, and sure enough none of the two are going to be replacing the other anytime soon.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Appointment Setting Tips – Use It When Exiting To B2C

The idea of business appointment setting sounds highly corporate. And when it comes to insurance, even auto insurance firms have plenty of demand from the big business sector. On the other hand, you will always hear stories of people growing tired of the corner office atmosphere. They feel a calling to take themselves or even a part of the business to some place filled with less suits and more with just regular people. From the looks of it, things like client meetings and appointment setting strategies would seem to lose their meaning.

However, maybe you should think again. There can still be a chance for an appointment setting strategy to fit in this sudden change in a salesperson's direction.

B2B-B2C Appointment Setting: Start Focusing More On Consumer Businesses


Perhaps when your auto insurance company caters so high up the ladder, the idea of catering to consumers is a long way drop. However, you can begin your slow descent with appointment setting. There is not always a clear line between B2C and B2B. Sometimes the closer you are in the relationships between business and customer, the closer your B2B services can start transitioning. For auto insurance, this can mean starting with insurance leads that cover consumer-oriented services like taxi or bus companies.
Once you have identified your targets, that does not mean you should quickly shirk off whatever you have learned about appointment setting thus far. It may not be a good reason to cease working with your present appointment setting service. You must still remember to avoid common mistakes and plenty of the steps to working with an outsourced company can still apply.


Though speaking of steps, do remember that a drop is only a drop if you throw yourself off instead of gradually climbing down. Knowing that, here are some steps you can take to use appointment setting as a means to assist your journey down and out of the corporate culture.

  • Step 1: Identify with prospects – Setting business appointments already has this as a staple. However, the experience can differ when you have a prospect that behaves closer to a consumer. They may have a small taxi business but they are likely to take days off, get home before dinner, go to church etc. In other words, once your appointment setting process has identified your new market, you need to start aligning yourself to their image.

  • Step 2: Align with their priorities – In the big business world, priorities are numerous and complex. For regular business owners, your auto insurance offer might just give them an even bigger headache than it did you when you first started. Understand how much auto insurance really means to them. Do not belittle those who place it lower on their priorities. Avoid flattering those who you managed to take it seriously. Your appointment setting process is meant to keep you productive and it will not help if you exhibit behavior that turns off prospects with a heavy-handed corporate image.


  • Step 3: Avoid stuffing your schedule – As a final note, sometimes it helps to also work on the smaller things. There might be little point in exiting the corporate scene if you still insist your appointment setting strategy keeps bringing on the pressure. Keep it from interfering with the things you wanted try outside it. Make it clear to your appointment setting group on what days you are available and on what days you would rather spend some time off.

Appointment setting may sound like a B2B marketing process but it does not always cater to the high-end corporate culture of the business world. Who knows, maybe you outsourced a business who has just as much experience catering to more consumer-oriented services for your auto insurance sales leads.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

When Telemarketing Your Ad Services, No Sneak Attacks

Many of those in the wrong side of the telemarketing industry have a terrible habit of making sneak attacks on their prospects. Hence, both critics and bad users should alike should not complain when they get what the perceive is the typical results that the telemarketing industry is getting nowadays.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Outsourcing Lead Generation & Remaining Competitive


lead generation, IT services leads, appointment setting, IT lead generation, IT sales leads, business leads
An IT company needs an effective IT lead generation program in order for them to remain competitive in today's business world. However, when left to fend for themselves, an IT firm may not be able to create an effective strategy to help them with attracting new customers to their business. This poses as a problem as having no leads to work with means no chances of new sales.

A lead generation campaign can be said to be a way for you to wrestle away customers from your competitors. The same can be said for them. As such, your lead gen program needs to be competitive enough to give you a steady inflow of fresh IT sales leads. That, however, is difficult for IT companies that are just starting out or have no clear idea on how to generate leads.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Finding the Right Marketing Mix for Lead Generation

lead generation, sales leads, business to business leads
Having the right marketing mix will help any company to do better in lead generation. And when a business is doing well in terms of lead acquisition then we can expect to be making a large sum of profit. Of course, when you have plenty of leads to work with the chances of closing a sale are far higher. The question now is... what is the right marketing mix?

Marketers that are new to the game will not know so much about what needs to be done to help their companies they work for in terms of marketing their products and services as well as in lead generation. But with a little research here and there, even a newbie marketer will learn a thing or two about how to generate sales leads for their business and eventually will be able to come up with the right marketing mix.

What is the right marketing mix for your business?


You can ask yourself this question a hundred times over and you still wouldn't have the answer... unless of course you've already figured it out long before you stumbled across this post. Why is it that newbie marketers and business owners cannot easily answer this question? The answer is because they are just starting out and have a lot to learn.

What should you do to find the right marketing mix?


What you need to do to figure out the right marketing mix for your business is to plan, test and assess results. How else would you know if something is going to work, right? If you want to be able to turn your marketing campaign into a lead generation machine, then you are really going to have to invest time into learning what works and what doesn't.

To help you out with finding the right mix for lead generation, here are a two ideas:


  • Try the email and call approach – A lot of marketers are now using email marketing to generate business to business leads for their businesses nowadays. Also, a lot of marketers still use telemarketing in generating leads. What you can do is to combine these two marketing tactics to help you in finding new prospects. Send your prospects an email. If the response is positive, follow up with a call – simple as that!

  • Try creating content to build an email list to use in email marketing – Content marketing is great in that it helps establish your credibility and authenticity as a company as well as solidifies your authority on a certain subject matter. What it also does though is attract readers, some of which who may just subscribe to your blog. Once you have their email addresses, you can create an email list and start marketing to them.

The right marketing mix for lead generation may seem hard to discover, however, is doable when your marketing team has plenty of ideas to put to the test. Remember to plan, test and assess your marketing mix to see if it works in helping your lead generation tactics for your business.