Follow-Up Calls Can Help Improve Direct Mail Results

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Follow-Up Calls Can Help Improve Direct Mail Results

Direct mail is an outstanding marketing tool for companies of all sizes. Unfortunately, many direct mail campaigns fail to yield the desired results because no follow-up occurs.

One of the simplest, and most effective, ways to improve the return on investment of any direct mail campaign is to pick up the phone and call your prospects after they have received your direct mail piece. That’s because even if a prospect did not respond to your call to action, that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in your product or service.

Many individuals, especially business owners, simply put things off because they are so busy. They may even have planned on responding to the direct mail piece but have not had the time.

While follow-up calls may seem intimidating because they feel like the dreaded cold call, they are not cold calls because you have already made a connection with the prospect. Therefore, you already have a purpose for your call-finding out if your direct mail piece was received.

Once you have determined that the prospect has received your mailing, you can ask them the following questions:

  • Do you have any questions regarding the letter, promotion or offer?
  • Do you currently use the referenced product or service?
  • If so, who provides you with that product or service?
  • Would you be willing to sit down and talk about how we can better serve you with our product or service?

Follow-up calls are an excellent way to personalize and reinforce your brand. After all, nothing helps to build trust like speaking one-on-one with a prospect. And when trust is developed, the chances of closing a deal are greatly increased.

Marketing experts will tell you that the more personalized your direct mail piece, the better response rate you can expert. It makes sense then that a personalized follow-up call also will increase response rates. It is important, however, that not too much time lapses between when the direct mail piece was received by the prospect and when the follow-up call is made.

Unfortunately, many businesses do not have the time or resources to make these follow-up calls in a timely manner. This is especially true if a large number of direct mail pieces were sent. In such cases, it makes sense to outsource these tasks to a telemarketing firm that specializes in business to business telemarketing services.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Outbound Lead Generation Telemarketing Campaigns

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Avoiding the Pitfalls of Outbound Lead Generation Telemarketing Campaigns

In a perfect world, inbound lead generation would always keep your company’s sales funnel full. However, there are times when outbound calling is necessary to drive leads and identify new prospects.

A successful outbound telemarketing campaign is no easy endeavor and many companies simply don’t have the time, resources or expertise to undertake such a campaign. If you have attempted an outbound telemarketing campaign in the past and it wasn’t successful, or if you plan to execute one in the near future, you need to be aware of the many pitfalls of outbound telemarketing campaigns (listed below) and how to overcome them.

  • Absence of a realistic goal. If you aren’t completely sure what you are looking to accomplish with your outbound lead generation campaign you can be sure you won’t achieve it, either.
  • Improper training. It is important that anyone working on your telemarketing campaign knows exactly what they need to be doing, why they need to do it, and how to do it correctly.
  • Failure to understand your target audience. The right list is imperative so that you reach a decision maker. To get that list right, you will need to have clear lead criteria and scoring in place.
  • Failure to test your messaging. It is imperative that you test your message before you go wide so that you can be sure that your message connects with its intended targets.
  • Using price as the only criteria of a successful campaign. If you are looking to get your campaign launched by spending the least amount of time and money, you are practically guaranteed to fail.
  • Poor data quality. If you are not capturing the data you uncover in each and every call, you are forfeiting valuable information that could be entered into your sales database.
  • Inability to go off script when necessary. If you rely solely on scripting for every call, you are going to lose a substantial number of leads through the inability to respond to unexpected questions or comments. Anyone making cold calls must be able to respond to unique objections or you will lose those leads.
  • Disregarding the outcome. Even if you are pleased with the results of your telemarketing campaign, if you fail to analyze conversion rates and the return on investment, you will be leaving a lot of precious information behind.

Of course, overcoming these pitfalls can be practically impossible if you have limited resources or expertise. That is why many companies choose to contract with a business to business telemarketing services firm. By doing so you will get the results and data you need!

The Importance of Warm Calling

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The Importance of Warm Calling

If you have considered a telemarketing firm to conduct your cold calling duties you are not alone. Each year, thousands of businesses of all sizes look to contract out these duties. In addition to cold calling, warm calling is another task that is often better left to a professional telemarketing firm.

Warm leads are ones that aren’t exactly cold, but still aren’t ready to be passed along to your sales team. In fact, if your sales team gets warm leads, they are unlikely to convert these leads into sales. Despite this fact, many marketers mistakenly pass along warm leads for no other reason than they aren’t cold.

To better understand why warm calls are necessary before passing along a lead to your sales team, here are some points to consider:

Warm calls determine if a potential lead is a good fit. A lead many be interested in your product or service but may not understand exactly what it is you have to offer. Before your sales team calls on a customer that doesn’t really understand your business model, it is important to determine if the lead is a good fit.

Warm calls heat up leads that have gone cold. Warm calling is ideal for leads that you haven’t been in touch with lately but still believe will eventually convert into sales. Warm calling will help to keep the lines of communication open without wasting a salesperson’s time.

Warm calls perform follow-up tasks. Many times a prospect will ask for a call back at a particular point in the future. For example, when a lead’s contract runs out with their current vendor. Calling these customers to touch base allows you to gage whether or not a lead is still considering your product or service.

Warm calls focus on all of your customers. It is easy to neglect current customers who seem to be on autopilot or past customers who you believe are gone for good. Warm calling is a way to check in with these customers. Further, this simple point of contact is often enough to keep current customers satisfied or, in the case of past customers, convince them that it is time to place another order.

Why Lead Generation is Essential to Increasing B2B Sales

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Why Lead Generation is Essential to Increasing B2B Sales

Without effective lead generation, B2B sales will literally grind to a halt. While most companies are aware of this fact, many of these same companies neglect lead generation because they can’t pinpoint exactly how it helps to increase their bottom line.

It is crucial that B2B marketers realize that leads are more than just a list of potential customers. And they are much more than individuals or companies that have inquired about your business. Leads are prospects that have a real chance of becoming customers at some point in time.

It is these – and only these – types of leads that should be given to your sales team. This helps to ensure that your sales team has the best chance to convert qualified leads into sales.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that if you advertise or have a strong marketing communications program that you have lead generation covered. Lead generation is unique in that it relies specifically on direct-response marketing communications designed to spur a response or an action. This response can include anything from an email inquiry to a purchase.

What follows are the top four reasons lead generation helps to increase sales:

  1. Lead Classification: In order for leads to be called on at exactly the right time, it is important to know where a lead is in the sales funnel. If you call on a prospect too early or too late in a sales cycle, chances are you will have lost the sale.
  2. Email Lists: Automated email lists are most effective when those lists are broken down by particular criteria. This way each recipient on an email list gets a specifically targeted message.
  3. Engagement: The best way to engage leads is understand their particular wants and needs. More importantly, if they have a problem, you need to know how to solve it. If you don’t know anything about your leads, however, you have little hope of effectively engaging or connecting with them.
  4. Feedback: Once a lead makes a purchase, you need to understand when and why they made that purchase. This knowledge will go a long way toward understanding when the best time to approach a lead again is.

Not sure whether you should invest in lead generation for your B2B company? Remember this, statistics consistently show that companies with the most effective lead generation programs close more sales.