Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Value Of Information And Why It Improves Appointment Setting


Anyone who knows even the basic definition of lead generation should see that it's an information gathering process. It's even more important in this day and age when information and access to it has become its defining commodities.

But first, just how exactly does information help in business? What makes it so sought after? What are the advantages?

The truth though is the value of information reaches back all the way to ancient times. The merchants of the past needed it to find new sources of materials for their wares. In addition to that, news and daily gossip helped them identify good buyers and draw the interest of new ones. During times of war, rulers would invest in spies and reconnaissance as much as they would in heavy arms and infantry. Number of enemy soldiers, strategic locations, and distance of travel all still fell under the category of information.

Today, the same value remains and only the form has changed. Businesses in particular are still eager to find potential buyers and in the case of any B2B organization, knowledge of even one possible client is already one worth gaining. As a result, all such businesses invest in B2B lead generation (and it's why this particular time period has them making use of any means to acquire it). The information acquired in that process can really assist you when you've set an appointment and make plans to meet the prospect.

There's also another basic fact about information that defines this century's technology: communication. It is the channel through which information flows. Places like the internet and social media have revolutionized the way information is obtained.

With such large amounts of information however, a big question arises: How much is too much?

The truth is not all information is useful for everyone. For B2B businesses, the information you need might exceed any single method of communication (including online-based ones). As an example, look to some of the lead generation companies out there. You'll notice a trend where they'll start going beyond their initially preferred methods of communication and start integrating other methods.

Why does this happen? Going back, B2B companies do everything they can to learn as much about their prospects. Things like budget, needs, company size are just the starting points. You all still need to figure out how they're related, how they're related to your own industry, and how you can offer a solution (whether its a marketing solution via advertising or an ERP software solution). All of this is for the purpose of using that knowledge to convince a prospect and close the deal.

The decision makers and other personnel who can provide this information can't be just easily reached through one method anymore. Discussing their problems would require several. Just when you think outsourced telemarketing means you're just using telemarketers, those same telemarketers could also be using email and social media just reach your prospects. That is just one sign that it's no longer just the method that matters but the information you obtain with it.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Helpful Tips for your Lead Generation Efforts


B2B leads, lead generation, B2B telemarketingYou need to ramp up your marketing efforts, that’s for sure. In order to generate interest in your products and services, you need to put an emphasis on your brand and promote it within your target industry to generate B2B leads. However, when you do that, you will either have warm leads or cold leads. As much as your sales team would like to work with warm leads, you cannot help but generate cold leads within the lead generation process. So, what are you to do with these types of B2B leads? How can you make use of them? Well, one way is through nurturing them in order to bring them closer to your company.

The importance of prospect education – Generating leads is not an easy thing. If your products and services serve no importance to your prospects, or if they have no knowledge about it, then you can’t hope to have them come to you with the intent to buy. As per what has been said, warm leads are what your sales teams want to be working with but the chances of generating warm leads through your marketing efforts are slim when your prospects don’t even have the slightest idea on what products and services you are offering them. Educating your prospects about your brand, your products and services, and your company is the best way to make them aware of not only your existence, but also of how you can be of benefit to them. You may be providing the long-time solution to their problems, but they wouldn’t know about that if you don’t pursue and nurture them, would they? So thus begins our look into nurturing leads…

When does the process begin? – The process begins as early as when your lead generation campaign starts. During this time, you’ll be generating both warm and cold leads. The chances of drawing in prospects that are interested and that have the intention of buying from you may be low; however you can definitely work with these leads and close sales with them. The problem falls under when you generate cold leads. This usually happens when you use B2B telemarketing; however cold-calling still remains to be one of the best ways of doing lead generation. Although cold leads may be hard to pursue, proper nurturing can turn them sales-ready if done right.

How to do it – You can do this through any way you see fit as long as you can maintain a flow of communication with your B2B leads. You can do this through sending emails, or through your B2B telemarketing efforts. Keep in contact with your prospects and offer them your professional advice and other possible solutions to their problems. By doing this, you maintain your working relationship with them as well as continuously educate them about your brand and company. You can say that you are hitting two birds with one stone as you slowly open their eyes to the benefits of working with your company, all the while turning them from B2B leads into sales-ready leads.

Keep this in mind when doing lead generation. Working with warm leads may be what you really want, but you can’t ever avoid generating cold leads. I hope this blog post finds you well and helps you in your efforts.

Monday, May 21, 2012

What Causes Price Resistance Among Your B2B Prospects and How to Get Around It


B2B lead generation, telemarketingOne of the biggest obstacles we face in B2B lead generation is price resistance from our prospects. This seemingly knee-jerk reaction among potential buyers is partly caused by simple yet powerful forces called emotions. By understanding the role that emotions play in the buying process, we can overcome price resistance and turn leads into sales.

Quite apart from how most of us view ourselves, we’re not perfectly rational beings that arrive at buying decisions through a series of logical steps. Even our prospects in B2B lead generation do not rely on pure reason alone. Emotion and logic both play a major part in price resistance and should be the focus in our campaigns.

One way you can use the factors that affect influence price resistance to your advantage is to change how your prospects perceive your product or service. For example, an accounting department head will always have some price range in mind for a piece of accounting software with a given set of features. Instead of repeating these features over and over again, why not make your prospects feel as if your offer is the best available in the market?

To influence how your prospects view your product and pricing, you often have to compare your offer with another similar but not exactly the same item. In the above example, you could mention the tremendous savings your prospects can have in choosing your software package instead of hiring expensive system developers.

Another effective way to appeal to both the emotional and logical sides of your prospects in B2B lead generation is to increase the value of your product without changing its price. Price and value are two separate things, and the product value should reasonably exceed the price offered in order to be attractive for buyers.

As you can see, one of the best ways of overcoming price resistance from your B2B prospects is through a well-conducted telemarketing campaign. With effective telemarketing, you’re able to directly appeal to your prospects’ emotions and expectations that affect their acceptance or rejection of the price tag your offer carries.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Tips for your B2B Telemarketing Campaign – Maximize Effectiveness


Sales are the bread and butter of any company. If one is to survive as a business, then it is imperative to make more sales and increase profits. However, making a sale is not always easy to do. You need to have B2B leads if you want to continue on finding interested prospects, but that in itself is already a challenge. Due to this, people resort to use methods such as B2B telemarketing in order to help them generate a good amount of leads marketers can work with. Here are some tips for your B2B telemarketing campaign.

  • Cold-calling is the way to go – Some will say that cold-calling is dead, that cold-calling is no longer effective. However, it still exists and is one of the best methods your telemarketers can make use of in generating qualified prospects and finding more B2B leads. Just make sure to know your target market and focus on it, also come up with an effective call script that isn't too wordy and but can capture the interests of your prospects.

  • Maximize the effectiveness of events – Trade shows and similar business-related events are some of the best places where you can generate leads from. Given that you have the chance to show case your products and services in front of your prospects, you can really generate an interest in what your company is about. Use your B2B telemarketing to maximize the number of people who go to your event through phone invitations. This is one way you can make use of telemarketing to help in generating sales leads.

  • Generate qualified appointments – Your B2B telemarketing campaign can be used for appointment setting. What better way to close sales than through having a face-to-face with your prospects, introducing what your company is about and what you do, and nurturing them into becoming sales-ready leads? Make use of the power of your telemarketing in doing appointment setting if you want qualified prospects to be put into your hands.

Hopefully these B2B telemarketing tips work for your campaign. Keep them in mind and apply them to see their effectiveness for yourself.

Monday, May 7, 2012

B2B Telemarketing – A Marketer's Best Friend


What any company cannot afford to waste is time and money. When it comes to marketing, you can only go so far before you exhaust your budget. And given that most campaigns are given a limited amount of time to be prepared, or to get results, you really can't have yourself throwing marketing dollars in the wrong direction as well as using time which could have been allocated to doing other tasks which could have yielded better results. This becomes more of a trying task when you have certain requirements you need your prospects to meet. Also, you can't just go around and make random office visits and expect to get meet with your target decision makers. Under these circumstances, what's a marketer to do?

With such obstacles surrounding the field of B2B lead generation, perhaps it's time to consider an approach than can help with pre-qualifying your prospects, one which isn't that much of a hassle and won't eat up much of your marketing budget. What we're talking about here is B2B telemarketing, a direct marketing approach that can greatly help with lead generation. This can be done through B2B appointment setting. In essence, this is already what a B2B telemarketing campaign is all about and how it functions. Because of the direct approach, you can get in touch with your prospects through means of the phone and have your telemarketers pre-qualify them right there and then, as well has have any questions answered on the spot.

So instead of spending valuable time and money on sending your marketers to different places with no assurance of getting you sales propositions, you can make use of B2B appointment setting and telemarketing. Pre-qualify your prospects through the phone and generate sales leads from those who express a genuine interest in your offered products and services. B2B telemarketing is really any marketers best friend, a medium which helps save time, money, yet performs exceptionally well for marketing functions.