Monday, December 31, 2012

5 Numbers To Watch


There are numbers and there are numbers. In social media marketing and email marketing only a few really matter. If watched correctly, these numbers will help you get better results and give you a targeted direction to push towards.

1. Time of day. Are you east coast, west coast? What industry are you in and your clients in? When do they check out their sites online? These are all important things you need to be watching. We slight adjustment you could be making huge increases in results. Or maybe you need an East Coast, Midwest and West Coast site for better timing penetration.

2. Open rate. If we are talking email this is paramount because it shows the interest and acceptance of your offering. There are three main factors that affect your open rates: subject line, the “from” line, and the pre-header. If you can any variations should be tested. Or try dividing your list up, no matter how small into test blasts and test some possible variables on a small scale.

3. Click rate. This might be the “Holies of Holies in the online marketing world. The single most important statistic in social and email marketing. The click of action. The single action of validation that says if your campaign is a success or not. This “Call to Action” will be the single grade that says if your online marketing effort is good or bad. You’ll get the most effective CTA when you follow the IOU principle. The “IOU” is a catchy way of remembering the basics: Your email must generate Interest, deliver a strong Offer, and provide a sense of Urgency. Without these 3 parts your chance of success can drop like a rock.

4. Click-to-open ratio. This number can be deceptive because it is sometimes used interchangeably with the click rate. When your click-to-open rate is low, that means the people who open your mail aren't actually clicking anything in it. They may look, but they don't buy. A weak CTA can also produce a low click-to-open rate. Watch this number close. It will give you a great sense of direction as to of what needs change.

5. Conversion rate. The conversion is the happy ending to the story. Your conversion rate is directly linked to the effectiveness of your CTA. Customers who aren't sure what they're clicking on will lead to low conversions, whereas a clear call-to-action will produce results. Sky high results! If you have gotten them this far you should be seeing double-digit conversion rates. If your rates are lower, go back to the beginning and start over or look at each element you are using in the campaign and make the necessary changes.


Larson Notes & Satire:  If you watch your numbers, not mine, not your friends, maybe your competitions, you want to see numbers san d rations going up, because hopefully you are getting better, if not, call us, we can help

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

We’ll Get You To The 20


Sorry, I don’t care how much you push, how much you need that sale. Sometimes it is just not going to happen. Not just that but they don’t even want to talk to you.

Sorry Charlie. Prospects don’t want to talk to a salesperson until they are somewhere 80% down the sales process. By then solutions and specifications on any projects and needs are already set. If you can attain the status as a member of their "team" in making buying decisions you have attained the Nirvana of Sales. To do this you have to become a trusted advisor looking out for THEIR interests and not yours even when the right choice is not your product of service. This is seldom achieved in the search for new accounts.

So you as a marketer need to think. Oh ya, you really need to put on the old thinking cap on for this one.

1st you need to take an active role in the early stages of the buying process.

2nd you need to get access to all members in the purchasing process so you can understand their roles in the process but also the need and concerns.

3rd you need to have the skills to (I hate this word but) close the deal.


Larson Notes & Satire:  Now we are called cold call experts. We fancy ourselves as new account acquisition specialists. We are the ones who can start the process be it at the 1 yard line or a short field at the 43 to get you down to the 20 yard line. Yes we will take you to the RED ZONE. Sometimes we can do it with a 40 yard pass, other times on the ground 3.8 yards at a time. But that is what we do.

Each part of the process needs a special kind of person for the particular kind of selling needed. You don’t use a full back when a half back is better, or a wide end with a tight end over the middle is the right call. While you might have a Walter Payton or an Adrian Peterson to run it 95% of the time and get great results most sales people are just not that good.  BUT if we got you to the 20 yard line do you have a red zone offence to push it the other 20?

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Price Of A New Customer


Price Of A New Customer

Do you know yours?

If not why?  If I asked you how much a new account is worth to you. More so, what would you be willing to pay for a new account?

You might come to me and ask, what do you charge? Fair question. But I might come back and ask what is it worth. If it doesn’t work for both of us, it doesn’t work.

There is no right answer; there is only your answer.


Larson Notes & Satire:  If I walked up to you with a stack of 25 contact sheets, everyone with a 100% guaranteed new customer that I could sell to you or your competitor, how much would you give me for them? $50? $100? $500? Do you know?

Give me your number and I’ll tell you if we can make it happen. I dare you!

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.





Thursday, December 13, 2012

Directed Landing Page Content


Say what you got to say and get out!

If you use or have ever thought about using a Landing Page for or part of a marketing campaign using less content is usually a better idea than packing it in. Yes less is more, if you want to keep them focused on an action you want them to take.

This keeps your prospects focused directly in the key message. This means you elimination all the extra details and needless content. If it does not pertain to the campaign don’t put it in. Not extra links to other pages, NO fancy graphics and design. Facts just the facts.


Larson Notes & Satire:  You want action. Then call for action. Keep it in plain sight, visible and understandable.

Call us we can find you new customers.


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Email: Triggers To Up Your ROI


Whether you're a small business or an international company with lots of branches "People do business with the people they know, like and trust." And your success is based on building relationships.

The larger your list of the 3 F’s (friends family and friends), the more daunting the task of sustaining one-on-one communication. Fortunately, today's online relationship marketing technologies give marketers the ability to join together the things they know about their 3F’s with the capability to automate specific types of messages that are based on a customer action.

With behavior-based marketing you can actually shorten the time and effort, while at the same time build trust, increase engagement and creating new possibilities. But, to do this, you must have some major elements in place to have success.

Common Reference points
According to the Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council, directed email campaigns have 96 percent higher open rates and 125 percent higher click through rates than other kinds of emails, yet sadly they only comprised 2.8 percent of the total email sent. The most common types are the "Welcome" emails you get that are sent right after your sign-up has been completed, and the "Thank you" email, sent when someone has just made a purchase. If you've at least got these kinds of customer communications automated, you’re at least on the right road!

But there are so many more functions you can automate. Things like like birthdays, anniversaries and abandoned shopping carts and the like. But what are some lesser-recognized opportunities that organizations can take advantage of?

Product Lifecycle Emails
Using a campaign that involves the lifecycle of a product or service is a very powerful way to cross-sell and build a customer relationship.

"What is a lifecycle email campaign?" simply put, it is one that is based on predictable future as to the needs or desires of the prospect or customer, as shown by a previous action. This then activates a series of emails designed to be sent out at prescheduled intervals. These kinds of campaigns can also be based on certain behaviors or changes of status as well

For your prospects that are not easily targeted, you can look at their data to better understand the way they wish to be communicated with. Ask yourself how do they want to hear from you and what do they want to hear? In looking at their unique preferences, share offers, competitions, events, product information and other details that will effectively elicit a response.

Status Change Events
Another often overlooked chance to touch your customer base revolves around changes they make. This could be one that indicates they have become even more attached to your brand, for example, if they started following you on Twitter.

A change based on these types of actions taken is a great way for a relationship to build and follower retention. It shows your customer that you are listening to them and that you care respect them and what they like and, don’t like.

In today's challenging economic climate, every customer matters. According to Adobe's 2012 report, "The ROI from Marketing to Existing Online Customers," 40 percent of revenue comes from returning or repeat purchasers, who represent only 8 percent of all visitors.

Keep consistency and frequency in mind: When done right a targeted campaign should seem perfectly natural. Make sure all of your data is integrated and up to date: When you make the choice to build a relationship with your customer this way, you need to keep your data up to date. If a customer suddenly receives something that makes no sense, it can totally take away any trust you've worked to build.

Larson Notes & Satire:  If you work at it it will happen. As in all things it’s about being consistent. This kind of an email attack can only help you in that consistency. Keep it constant, keep it focused, keep it directed and you will get results.

If you need help we could make you an email star!

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Monday, November 26, 2012

More Fans For Smaller Following


As companies get more Facebook fans for their company page there tends to be a drop off point where they reach a smaller and smaller part of their overall fan base. PageLever, which is a company that does Facebook analytics, found that as you gain a larger and larger group of fans the lower the reach any individual post has, on a percentage basis.

If your company has a small group of fans of say less than 10,000 (don’t I wish I had that many people fanning my company) people you should be getting 20% or more hits on any given post you put out at almost any time of the day. But companies like Coca-Cola and Walmart, who have more than 1 million fans, are only going to get about 6% of them to see a post -- unless they pay.





When you start to run out of the 3Fs of friends, family and followers or the 3C’s of customers, contacts and competitors you start to drop. I guess I don’t have enough friends in my life.


Larson Notes & Satire:  Can Facebook work? Yes. Can it work without paying? Yes. But then I need to ask what is or does the word work mean. On a normal day I am getting not 20%. I’m not seeing 10% but a mighty 9% of my fans see a normal post that I place in my Company’s Facebook fan page. Is this good or what? Well yes because of that 9% is quality and I have to face it my company is not a name that gets floated around the kitchen table. But then I’m not done yet because I go and take my post of 9% and pick up another 26% off of twitter, the grab that same post and while I’m at it grab another 19% off LinkedIn. This is how Social Media Marketing works or could be working. Don’t bet the house on just one channel but use a broad brush to paint your pathway.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Monday, November 19, 2012

How People Are Sharing Content


Share and share alike. We hit share buttons, we push content, we hit like links and yet despite all the ways to share things on the Web, the most popular way to share content is still good old fashioned copy/paste. Yes Control C / Control V.  In a study of some 17,000 publishers by 33 Across, 82% of content sharing is being done with copy and paste.



What happens after the content is copied/pasted? 33 Across also studied where people are sharing content. Number 1 is email followed by Facebook, and then Twitter.

Despite the vast numbers of users of Facebook and Twitter, the most popular way to share content, is still copy/paste.

Larson Notes & Satire:  If it is to be let it be. Copy/paste Control C/Control V. And Email? So make it easy for them. Embrace Email and email marketing so they can push and shove your links and content.

It’s all good.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Monday, November 12, 2012

Making Warm Leads Warmer

I have always felt there are 3 parts to the buying cycle, awareness, evaluation and decision.

Now I will not say that telesales or teleprospecting can’t make cool leads warm but now with the advent of Social Media Marketing a you don’t have to hand off a bunch of icy cold sales leads to the telemarketing staff. I know it’s getting colder outside but please now you can now refine them to be (at least) luke warm from the start and have a greater understanding of who they are actually calling. No longer does it fall or have to fall on the poor telemarketer to delve into finding out who is on the other end of the line, what they want, if they have even a remote interest,  they can (will) know. And with knowledge comes power. And power comes more clients and sales. Working with a more directed and powerful call to action can only help everyone in the world of finding my qualified leads. How powerful can it get? Give me a call at 847-991-1294

Larson Notes & Satire:  I have said for years that with the right list my job as a telemarketing gets very easy. How easy?  Very very easy. Normally I feel good if I get 1 action item every 40 minutes of work but I have see a good focused list giving an action item ever 15 minutes.

People come to us to work miracles, to pull rabbits out of hats, to make clients appear out of thin air. We are the magic men who warm things up to make life easier for the rest of you.

But if the magic doesn’t bring in enough revenue the rest doesn’t matter.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.





Thursday, November 1, 2012

Go Take A NAP


Go Take A NAP

Ya you heard me, go take a nap!

Seems that marketers all over the place are trying to connect with customers and prospects. Social, web, mobile, email, direct mail, phone. Go take a nap.

NAP is nothing less than Name, Address and phone number.

If you’re into social media marketing you want the 3 F words working for you (friends, family, fans), lots of them. But to take it to the next level you want to take a NAP with them.

This kind of central information is the very foundation for business growth, off line and online. Whatever kind, this is base marketing information you need so you can have a consistent attack. You have to do this this day in and day out, over and over. After that you need to keep accurate and up-to-date.


Larson Notes & Satire:  We NAP all the time. We take naps for ourselves and we take NAP’s for our customers. Name, address and phone number. This is not marketing done from the hip but thought out planning to make your customer base strong and ever building.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.



Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Social Media: What’s Important To B2B

What’s your most important Social Media site? IN a survey it as shown that for B2B
30% LinkedIn
20% Blogging
19% Facebook
16% Twitter
  8% YouTube
  6% Customer Community
  1% Google

Social Media is starting to evolve as a major tool in a B2B marketer’s tool box. From what I am hearing 32% of marketers are “very” or “fully” engaged in marketing through social media channels. That is compared with 21% last year and to project we are expecting 53% next year.

They are coming in kicking and screaming but they are coming as reluctant players, but here they are.

So why are they on Social Media?
70% - Branding
58% Website traffic building
56% Product promotion
45% Search engine optimization
45% Competitive intelligence

Where are they?
83% LinkedIn
80% Twitter
79% Facebook
60% YouTube
50% Blogging

BUT when asked which channels they place the most importance, LinkedIn was #1 followed by Blogging.

Larson Notes & Satire:  I put a high ranking on Blogging. I put a high ranking on any kind of content building. If you do it right you can have your posts stringing in to different SM sites as needed. If you need help we have experts doing it all the time for people.
Getting back to SM. I found 1 key posting tool we have been using and getting results and that is (of all things) craigslist. Ya, lol, craigslist might be a place where you want to be marketing.
Think about it. If you even think you can pick up a quick profitable customer over there, go for it. I know we do.
On a side note spent the day at Graph Expo today, We will have some very interesting new services coming out of those meetings, so keep watching.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

Monday, September 17, 2012

Content Marketing & SEO

There have been what we might call radical shifts in Search and the relationship to Content. Some of this is in part due to Social Media and some is from the Search Engines efforts to keep content found pertinent, fresh and timely. How many times have you done a search can come up with a page full of results for 3 years ago? I know I have.

 

To keep your experience personal search engines have come to understand content. Believe it or not through integration and monitoring of different social media sites SE’s are finding ways to keep up.

 

For you to stay at the peak performance level you need to not just acknowledge but totally embrace the idea of content as the new king of the internet.

 

1. Create a process to create: Have a process in place before you start any content Search Engine Strategy. Have all or as many as possible internal infrastructure in place from all key players who will be impacted.

 

2. Get a Grasp on what you want to say: What do you want to be saying to your customers and prospects? What are their needs, wants and desires? Then with matched content using keywords in your writing to address those issues, go for it.

 

3. Where should your content reside: You need to be posting where your customers and prospects are.  This could take some study of the social media sites to know where you need to go.

 

4. Build your online relationships: facebook, google+, linkedin, pinterest, merchantcircle, storeboard, etc. work your 3F’s.

 

5. Optimize your content: You need to make sure you are using solid content packed with key words and phrases. You need to be thinking SEO tactics when you construct your content. Links, embedded coding, back links to web site. If your content is addressing needs your clients and prospects have you are right on track to have a winner.

 

Larson Notes & Satire:  If you can share some of the personal you, but remember to use the right words to push you up the search engine ladder. For social media people love stories, but search engines could care less.

 


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

 

 

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294

http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

 

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

 

 

 

 

Monday, August 27, 2012

Get The Telemarketing Bump



Say all you want about Direct Mail, speed, cost, etc.  vs. email but it remains a fact that the response rate for mail is so much better.

According to a survey from the Direct Marketing Association the response rate for Direct Mail is 3.4%  and email marketing is only giving a mere 0.12%.

The report was from an online survey of 481 respondents and was based off of data from 29billion emails and 2 billion online display ads.

Those are facts from real live programs run by people who know what they are doing.


Larson Notes & Satire:  There you have it. The costs are up but the payout huge. If you want more mileage out of your list, mail wins hands down. Now, just think if you do a combo of Mail and Telemarketing.

Now nothing is for certain but when you put direct mail piece together with a telemarketing follow up I can almost guarantee you get a bump in your numbers by 5 to 8%. Now if Uncle Howard’s math in correct you could have a double digit program running. Put in some social media marketing into play and . . .


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Friday, July 6, 2012

Social Media Metrics Exposure vs Frequency

GM pulled of its ads from Facebook, this led many marketers to wonder if advertising on facebook or any social media site is a good thing. It is, and it isn’t. With 900 million (900,000,000) active users can you ignore facebook and all of social media? Is it worth paying for? Another good question.

In a study by Resolution Media and Kenshoo seperatly, they7 looked at the effectiveness of Facebook ads, these 2 companies analyzed global data of 65 billion (65,000,000,000) Facebook ad impressions and 20 million (20,000,000) Facebook ad clicks over a wide range of brands and categories. Now remember these are ad clicks and not what social media or even (in my humble opinion) how social media marketing should be used to get maximum exposure for you.
What is the long term viability of facebook and social media advertising?

“Social media has quickly become one of the preferred channels for brands, and when done right, can foster meaningful relationships between brands and consumers in ways that were never before possible,” says Alan Osetek, president of Resolution Media. “The purpose of this study was to define what ‘doing it right’ means in terms of measureable actions and outcomes, and giving marketers a model for demonstrating effectiveness.”

The study showed that Sponsored Stories and Post Ads receive about double the click-through rate (CTR) of Social and Web Ads, which means that ads with social context resonate better with audience members likely due to a personal connection. Additionally, Post Ads draw more attention because they usually feature special offers and are larger than normal ads. I guess this is true because they did a study on it but, well I usually ignore those kinds of adds myself unless I see it and it really matters to me at that specific time.

The data also shows that higher CTR leads to lower average cost-per-click (CPC) rates, with Post Ads averaging a CPC of $0.24, Sponsored Stories averaging $0.46, Web Ads averaging $0.59 and Social Ads averaging the highest CPC at $0.78. But for advertisers that choose the cost-per-thousand (CPM) model, Sponsored Stories are the most expensive ad type – averaging a CPM of $0.31 compared to Web Ads that averaged the lowest CPM of $0.18. That could become a lot of money, couldn’t it? Hope you have deep pockets  for the start up. This might be more pricy than direct mail.

The study also showed a new metric called “Exposure Rate,” which measures targeted engagement on Facebook. This metric determines the percentage of the target audience that you are reaching out to and exposing your message to. High exposure rates correlate to a high CTR and conversion rates, with the ads that reached 76-100 percent of their intended audience also receiving an average CTR of .038 percent and conversion rate of 31.92%. In comparison, ads that only reached 0-25 percent of the intended audience resulted in an average CTR of 0.028% and a conversion rate of 11.81 percent. High exposure rates don’t guarantee success, you need to balance this metric with frequency and I might add time of day, to find the number of times the average Facebook user has been exposed to your ad. The study shows that there is a conversion rate drop-off of 32 percent when ads are shown to consumers more than six times. This means that the ad is being shown too frequently, your target will start to ignore it. Additionally, the CTR averaged 39 percent lower after the sixth impression.

One way that marketers can optimize exposure rate and frequency is by maintaining a CPC above the maximum recommended bid. This is because the study’s data showed that the exposure rate was higher for ads with CPCs that were greater than the maximum recommended bid, driving the average exposure rate up by 11.5 percent. Additionally, the data showed that frequency dropped when the CPC was above the maximum recommended bid, by an average of 1.7 exposures.

Larson Notes & Satire:  We all are not made of money and for most of us PFC makes no sense.  Social Media still comes down to the 3 F’s, family friends and fans.  Nothing else really matters. Keep your F’s safe, close, protected, happy and interacted.

When “they” say “doing it right” what are they really saying? Do I hear spend money? In almost anything I read from street smart marketers and sales people it is interaction. Seems funny that my postings are getting an exposure rate of 12-18%. It does not seem to matter what time of the day it is, the % is almost always the same. Would PFC be a good thing?

Then I need to really question paying a higher rate for CPC. Come on who is fooling who here? I’m not a big advocate of paying for clicks in the first place. Now it may have its place but does have its place but not as the center part of your marketing plan. Think long term, think organically.
Then start thinking trichannel. social, telemarketing, direct mail and watch your numbers really take off.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Friday, June 8, 2012

SEO 5 Tips to Bring Organic Traffic to Your Website


You have a website. You finally sat down wrote some content and got it up and running. Yea! It’s done. It’s up. Build it and people will come. Only if they can find it.
You worked hard to get the words just right weaving in your key words soothe copy flows just right. Maybe put in some graphics. Now what?

A website is of little or no use if nobody can find it.
Mastering the organic or natural search ranking has proven to be a fundamental part of the online marketing mix and should be part of yours.

Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) is setting your site up for increased visibility in organic searches and work and rework the content are important to hit the higher end of a search for prospect awareness and customer acquisition.

About 50% of people begin their search from the results of an organic search. 70% those people click on the organic listings before they click on a sponsored link. You know those listing in color (pink?) at the top of a search page.

So how can you up in the rankings and not land on page 43? Even if you get up to page 4 you’re lost because most people don’t even look that far back.
1. Create online WOM buzz about your site, product or service. Push out online press releases. There are distribution services on the Web that offer no-cost packages, sites such as PRlog.org, Free-press-release.com and others. Post a link on a news release to your social marketing sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

2. Start an inbound link program. Set up a reciprocal link page. Start a blog roll (a listing of URLs on a blog, as opposed to a website) that contains links from industry sites that would be willing to swap links with your page, keeping in mind that relevance, rank and quality ia paramount when selecting linking partners. Search engines not only hate it but might black ball you for doing what they call link harvesting which is a collection of links from random websites that have no relevance to your site, so find link partners that have a similar or a working synergy to your business.

3. Create great content and a link back to your site. Look into putting original, useful, valuable and action related information with relevant high quality content directories such as eZinearticles.com, ArticlesBase.com and Goarticles.com. This is a great way to increase market awareness, as well as inbound links to your site. Keep your content targeted to the directory & the audience you want to attract. There is also a syndication opportunities, as third-party sites and people may come across your article when doing a Web search and republish your content on their own websites.
4. You web pages should be keyword-rich and related to your business. Make a list of your top 10 to 15 keywords and variations of those words and incorporate them into the copy on your site. Search engines crawl Web pages from top to bottom, so your strongest keywords should be in that order on your home page and sub-pages with the most relevant on the top, the least relevant on the bottom.

You'll want to do the same for your tag lines. Make sure your title and meta tags are unique and full of your keywords. And your alt tags/alt attributions (images) should have relevant descriptions, as well. It all counts when the search engines spider through your page.

5. List your site on any online directories and classified sites you can find by category, region or topic. The more the merrier and getting more push up the search engine page ladder. Some directories like Business.com have a small fee involved but there are many other directories and classified sites like Dmoz.org, Info.com, Superpages.com and Craigslist.org that are free and can be targeted by location and product or offer type.

Then before you start your SEO program, find out how many hits your site is getting now so you can measure both pre and post SEO hit numbers and statistics. You can upload a site counter which counts the number of visits to your website if you want, I find them sort of useless but it’s your site. You can get your site's traffic ranking at Alexa.com or Quantcast.com, or get your site's daily visit average from Google Analytics or another application Perhaps your host does it for you like mine does, then chart your weekly progress.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Now understand that natural organic search may take several months for a site to be optimized and gain in the search engines, so be patient. You will eventually see results.
Don’t get trapped by the companies that go out and guarantee number one page ranking. Heck I can do that with my eyes closed. Give me your money and I’ll do it.

But to get #1 page ranking takes time, energy and dare I say talent. It is a combination of all you do, from the front end to the back end of your page, to your url name, to any landing pages you set up, to your social media work to blogging, to everything you say and do on the web.
That is why people come and throw their money at people and companies like mine.

And if you do need a host and or web site we do that as well.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Rule of 40-40-20

So you’re asking what the heck am I talking about. In marketing there is a rule of thumb that 40% of a targeted marketing program or a direct mail project should be n the list, 40% should be in the message and 20% in the creative. It is one of those things that history has shown us is a truism.
It is like a lot of things in advertising, marketing and graphics people want to take short cuts. It happens all the time. (See yesterday’s blog) like when I want to add a mailing program with a telemarketing program. So in a mailing program when we talk 40-40-20 people ask why do I need great creative? I have 80% with the good list and a powerful offer. Well that might work in a solid telemarketing program but when ink hits the paper… it better look good.

But why make a big stink over 20%? If the best you can do is put in a “REPLY NOW” tag, if everything in the page is so important that the whole piece is in a bold type face, try again. With the right deal the right target odds are you will get “good” results but is that what you’re about, good, when you could have great?

Larson Notes & Satire:  one of the tag lines I use a lot reads: “Making good businesses great and great businesses even better” That is what we are about. Not just good enough, not making things great but making great even better.

I am a big advocate of the 40-40-20. Yes I will do a 40-40 and leave the rest project and I know I will get blamed for less than stellar results, but in the 37 years of being in business that part has not changed. Clients cut corners when we don’t tell them or give the reasons why. Even when we do, they try to cut.

So next time your thinking about a project, try Me. Blame me. After all I am from the city of big shoulders.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Extend Your Reach and Make an Impact

The Reach
In the US there are over 149 million residences, businesses and PO Boxes throughout the country.
Did you know that 98% of people residences and businesses, bring their mail in every day it is delivered and 77% sort through it immediately?

That 15% of all consumers receive at least one catalog and 12% are receiving at least a letter of postcard or flyer from a company looks at and makes a purchase on that company’s web site?
According to one survey of 6,400 online shoppers households that receive printed catalogs shop online more often and spend more time at a company’s web site regardless of age, income, region or education.

The Impact
Direct mail is over 52% of all mail in the United States
The Direct Mail industry employs over 3.1 million people
The global direct mail advertising services is forecast to reach $25 BILLION in 2015.
On average those who receive a catalog spent 28% more and buy 28% more items than those who do not receive a catalog
Direct order B2B Direct Marketing sales are projected to increase 5.4% over the next year.

Larson Notes & Satire:  So why am I so excited about direct mail? The percentages and the numbers make if (still) a force to be reckoned with. Think about it double digit percentages? How you ignore it. Then you add in a few other channels and …..

And the growth? Looks like above GNP to me!

I really don’t care of your B2B or B2C. This has to be one of your channels you are using.  In any comprehensive lead generation plan I put together I put in direct mail, (usually a postcard) Why? (Let me bang my head against the wall for a second), a direct mail program will net you 1% to 3% return. A telemarketing stand alone program should net you 1% to 3% return. Though in a little Social Media and you are going to be getting 12%-15% return. Most people and companies don’t do it because of the cost or perceived cost.

Oh well you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Myths of B2B Word of Mouth


Myth 1: WOM is not influential in B2B.Fact: WOM is the #1 influencer of B2B purchase decisions. Few B2B customers ever buy anything without first asking around about their experiences with the vendor and/or product. In a recent survey of B2B decision makers by Forrester Research, 84% of respondents said Word of Mouth recommendations influence their purchase decisions. While nearly all B2B companies have blogs, only 24% of respondents said they trust blogs. Other research firms also have found that WOM rules in B2B.
84% - WOM
60% - Salesperson
59% Web sites
58% Print publications
45% - In person events
43% - Analysts
43% - Social Media
41& - E-Mail
40% - Web events
30% - Interactive Media
24% - Blogs

Myth 2: Business people are not active users of social media.Fact: Business people are first of all people and they are buyers and furthermore even more socially active than the average consumers. They buy things not just for themselves but for their businesses as well. Forrester recently surveyed B2B buyers to learn about their usage of social media. The results were off the charts. B2B buyers are nearly 20% more active creators of social media and twice as active consumers of social content. Based on the survey results, Forrester told B2B marketers: If you’re not using WOM/social as part of your marketing mix, you’re late to the party.

Myth 3: Businesspeople don’t advocate companies and products.Fact: Businesspeople are more active Advocates of companies and products than consumers.
Another myth that has pervaded B2B marketing is that businesspeople don’t advocate companies and products. Fact is, B2B executives are more active recommenders than the average consumer, according to a study conducted by WOM research from Keller Fay. The study showed that business executives have 118 WOM conversations weekly compared to 100 for consumers. On average, executives mentioned 102 brands times per week compared to 77 for consumers. In 61% of the WOM conversations, executives recommended a brand or product to a peer or colleague. 40% of B2B Buyers are Advocates.

Myth 4: B2B companies only have a few Advocates.Fact: B2B companies have many Advocates. As B2B marketers know, within a single account there are multiple people who spread Word of Mouth. This includes end users, gate keepers, technical buyers, decision makers, and others. While some are more influential than others, all of these people are part of a Word of Mouth Community within any one account. At a single company, there may be 500 people who are part of a Word of Mouth community. Thus, a B2B company that has 100 customers may have a total Word of mouth community of 50,000 people (100 accounts x 500 people.) Assuming that 40% of these people are Advocates, the company could have 20,000 Advocates (40% of 50,000). This number is a large, highly influential, yet under-leveraged Virtual Sales force. By energizing their Advocates, a B2B companies can amplify positive Word of Mouth and drive qualified referral leads and sales in a continuous flow.

Myth 5: The impact of Word of Mouth can’t be measured.Fact: The impact of Word of Mouth can be measured as precisely as any form of online marketing.
There are dozens of tools that enable B2B marketers to measure the quantity and quality of Word of Mouth about their companies and products in the blogosphere and on social networks like Twitter.
Advanced Word of Mouth analytics enable B2B marketers to go beyond measuring buzz to measuring business and marketing results. For example, advanced analytics track Advocate impact on open rates, click through rates, and conversion rates. These advanced analytics enable marketers to harness the proven power of Word of Mouth and track its impact as precisely as a PPC or email marketing campaign.

Larson Notes & Satire:  There are many good ways to marketing a company and no one way works good all by itself.  If you can work 3 or 4 tools in tandem you will have a much better attack and you results will follow off the charts. Point is that most of us are not working our 3 f’s (family, friends and fans) hard enough. We don’t engage them, we don’t work with them, heck are we even telling them what they need to know to push us and our companies out to their spheres of influence.

Now I never ask for or give recommendations to people or companies I know nothing about. I get enough requests from people asking for referrals that I have no knowledge of and I’ll be damned if I will recommend someone I know nothing about nor have I ever used their service of product.
Make you one of my friends or fans? Yes that I will do but you need to earn the right to get more out of me.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.




Thursday, May 31, 2012

Why Housing Matters


April Home Sales Shoot up. Sales of U.S. existing homes surged in April, according to the National Association of Realtors, which reported an increase of 3.4 percent from March levels and a 10 percent jump from April 2011.

 All four regions of the country saw upticks in sales volume, and the median prices for homes sold was $177,400, an increase of more than 10 percent from the same month in 2011.

 Also, sales of new homes improved in April to an annualized volume of 343,000 homes. That’s well below the peak of more than 1 million built during the real estate bubble, but it represents a 3.3-percent bump from March’s sales figures. According to the National Association of Home Builders, 100 of the country’s 360 markets that it indexes are now deemed “improving” markets. Only 12 markets were considered “improving” when the NAHB started the index last fall.

•Permits. Permits for new single-family homes in April reached an annual rate of 715,000. More permits were issued in March (769,000), but April's number still is 23.7% more than in April 2011.
•New construction. Ground was broken on nearly 30% more homes in April (717,000 annual rate) than in April 2011 (and 2% more than in March this year). YCharts.com puts the improvement in perspective with a graphic showing new housing starts since the crash began in 2007.
•Homes completed. The number of finished homes is rising, too. Privately owned homes finished (651,000 annual rate) were up 10% over March and 20% over the same time last year.
•Homebuilder confidence. New surveys show homebuilders more optimistic about their prospects than at any time in the last five years. Analysts follow builders' sentiment carefully, because their ground-level knowledge of their local markets is thought to predict housing health. Writes USA Today:
Sales of existing homes. The number of transactions is growing. The National Association of Realtors reports that sales of existing homes rose 3.4% in April over March. They were also 10% higher than last year at the same time.

As the US Housing Market shows signs of recovery it is time to rev up your marketing efforts towards this area. Why are new homeowners so important and desirable? They buy things. Not just buy but at a higher rate than other market segments.

For large brands they buy more big ticket items like appliances and furniture. For the small business person this group more times than not have a loyalty to local businesses.

So why does housing matter? They buy things.

Larson Notes & Satire: 
So consider this:35% of new homeowners buy bedding
33% of new homeowners purchase lawn equipment, tools and hardware
50% of new homeowners purchase home decorations and accents
15% of new homeowners purchase computers, home security and automobiles

Within the 1st few months > The average new homeowners spend more in the first 6 months than established residents spend in 2 years.
> The average new homeowners spend more than $9000 of purchases within the first four months of a more
> Within several weeks nearly 60% of homeowners and 40% of renters purchase furniture
> New homeowners establish 71 new business relationships with in the first few months of their move
> 35% of new homeowners just had a new baby or are planning on it.

Look at the things this group of people buy. Do you sell any of these things?

If so, how do you attract them? Well we have our ways but one of the best is the new blanket zip code mailing by the US Postal service. Great deal with blanket coverage. Then you can go after making connections with relestate offices, agents and the like. Need help? Call us.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

What Is Up With B2B Social Media Marketing

As we move into May or 2012, I thought it might be nice to take a snap shot of what other B2B Marketers are doing in Social Media at the moment. Looking at the usage below, you will find no real changes in B2B SM Marketing. LinkedIn still rules with blogging and Facebook neck and neck.
30% - LinkedIn
20% - Blogging
19% - Facebook
16% - Twitter
 8% - YouTube
 6% - the 3 Fs (Friends, Followers, Family)
 1% - Google+

B2B User Preferences
LinkedIn is heads above everyone else, Facebook and Twitter (Blogging is not a SM site) virtually tied as alternative social media channels by b2b marketers. Then as you can see above YouTube, the 3 F’s, Then there are the other “guys” like Flickr, Digg,  Stumbleupon and Tumblr as favorite social channels.

No, most marketers engaged in SM are using a combination of several channels, there are clearly defined preferences. When b2b marketers were asked to choose the one most important method that they use for their social outreach), LinkedIn was the clear leader, chosen by 30% of respondents. Following it were blogging (20%), Facebook (19%) Twitter (16%) and YouTube (8%).

The Obstacles
The biggest problem B2B marketers are facing when it comes to SM is (after the legal department) an overall lack of resources. 70% of Business Marketing Managers find this to be the major problem toward implementing a good solid social media marketing program. Other problems encountered are: 57% a poorly defined success metrics and key performance indicators.  44% a “lack of knowledge about social media” is holding them and their companies back. Management resistance, cited by 22%, may stem from the preceding three obstacles.

Larson Notes & Satire:  As you all know I am working Facebook, then LinkedIn with some twitter. But with Ping.fm I can get a unified message to Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Plaxo, Google Buzz, Tumblr, Bebo, Flickr to name a few extras with one quick “PingIt” And, the faster the better

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Are Trade Shows Back?

In a survey by the Center for Exhibition Industry, their CIRE index overall trade show activity grew by 2.7%. Considering this is after 3 consecutive years of reduction there was of course cause for general excitement in the industry.

The index goes and scores 4 areas of performance.
+2.7% - Net square feet
+2.3% - Number of exhibitors
+3.4% - Number of exhibitors
+2.3% - Ad revenue

The area of strongest growth were machinery and finished goods showing a very strong 11.2% growth, with the building, construction, home and repair category going down 5.3%.
Does it make sense for you to make the trade show plunge? Are your prospects and customers there?

Do you have the staff to work a booth? Do you have the money to put together a minor booth and stock it with necessary flyers and brochures?

Larson Notes & Satire: Should your business be in or back into exhibiting shows? The do have a cost and it can be pricy. Chamber of Commerce shows might be within reach and you might only need 3 or 4 new accounts to break even, but when you jump to the major shows you better have a plan to make it cost effective.

We at Larson have a service where we will go in and call all the attendees to invite them to your booth, we set up appointments for you while at the show so you have quality one on one time with the prospect (and your competition doesn’t) then after the show is all closed up, our post trade show calling service where we will call up all the business cards and badges scanned to see if they got the information they needed, to find out if they had any questions, if they need to see or talk to a sales rep again and above all else see it they are ready to talk to a sales rep to buy. If you don’t have a system for follow up you and I both know what will most likely happen. You will hand those leads to your staff; they will call the first 5. Get 5 no’s. Throw up their hands saying these leads are junk and stuff them into the top desk drawer never to see the light of day again.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hot Leads Or Are They?

What makes a lead hot or cold?

Your company might choose to score leads by assigning points, using rankings like A, B, C or D, or using terms like “hot,” “warm” or “cold,” but what exactly constitutes a qualified sales lead, and can your marketing and sales departments’ productivity, efficiency and synchronicity get better with a scoring system?

Does quality lead scoring there are rules you need to decide upon such as:
 •What your ideal buyer profile is
 •What a prospect has to explicitly tell you in order to move forward in the buying cycle
 •What activities must be observed for a prospect to move forward in the buying cycle?
If lead scoring methodology is shared between sales and marketing and a qualified ranking of those leads is made to determine their sales-readiness sales should go up with less wasted time for the sales staff. Leads can be scored based on interest they show in your business, place in the buying cycle, and their fit with your business.

The first step in lead scoring is determining your ideal target. Creating this perfect buyer profile requires sales and marketing to sit down together (now there is a new concept) and come together on the definition. Then you can use both an explicit and implicit scoring to create a picture of each lead’s value. Explicit scoring is based on the information the prospect tells you, whereas Implicit scoring is based on the information that you observe, or infer, such as their online behaviors.

Use this checklist as a starting point to identify the key demographics that are relevant to your organization, as well as the key behavior-based scores to consider. We have listed more than 50 explicit scores and more than 200 implicit scores to help you find the ideal scoring rules for your company.

How to use this checklist:

Check off the attributes you think should be included in your perfect customer. Next to each attribute mark whether it is critical, important, influential, or negative.

Relationship scoring rules:
Title
Role
Purchasing authority
Number of direct reports
Level of manager (to whom do they report?)
Years of experience
Specialties
Type of email used (Gmail, corporate, Yahoo)
Years at current position
Designations/Certifications
Honors and awards received
Social network participation
Social network connections
Social network influence
Public recommendations
Affiliations - groups and associations
Career interests
Personal interests
Degrees received
Rankings/Stock Indexes: Fortune 500/Inc 500, etc
Number of employees
Company revenue
Revenue growth (growing, declining, etc)
Company financial viability
Number of divisions
Number of products sold (SKUs)
Location
Account type (Potential vs. Actual)
Previous relationship
Website traffic
Website plug-ins
Year founded
Organizational structure (proprietorship, partnership, corporation)
Geographic markets served
Competitors
Partners
Fiscal year end
Industry
Product(s) purchased
Complimentary technologies used (CRM, ESP, ERP, CMS, MRM, MA)
Recycled count
Lead source

Did everyone on your Sales and Marketing team the same attributes? We all look at things from our own personal perspective. Discuss and see if you can come up with the perfect relationship as a team.
200+ Behavior-Based Scores to Consider:

Budget defined (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually)Timeframe (Project completion deadline)
City
State
Zip
Country
Phone area code
Headquarters or satellite
Location of branches
Size of branches
Customer
Partner
Competitor
Prospect
Investor
Ex-customer
Lost opportunity
Website
Sponsorship
PPC
Content syndication
Online ad
Surveys
Search Activity Podcasts
Online courses Videocasts
Certifications
Tradeshow
Visited
Completed
Viewed results
Participated in multiple surveys
Searches for company name
Searches for product name
Searches other (scored on term)
Search engine used
Listened
Listened multiple times
Downloaded
Subscribed
Viewed information on
Registered for
Completed
Registered for multiple
Completed multiple
Viewed
Viewed multiple times
Downloaded
Viewed information on
Registered for
Received certification
Received multiple certifications
Attended
Visited booth
Watched demo
Attended multiple tradeshows
Livestreamed events Web pages Community Additional Behaviors
Registered for
Viewed
Commented during
Asked question during
Reviewed follow-up recording
Rated event
Viewed landing page
Fills out form on landing page
Uses instant chat functionality
Uses request a call back functionality
Viewed - any
Viewed - product specific
Viewed - pricing
Viewed - customers or reviews
Viewed - multiple web pages
Viewed - multiple web pages in 1 WK
Shared via social sharing
Browser used
Submitted an idea
Submitted multiple ideas
Read about best practices
Read about ideas
Visit knowledge base
Read about product information
Asked a question
Asked multiple questions
Answered a question
Answered multiple questions
Shared a best practice
Shared multiple best practices
Roadshow/Seminar
Microsites
Registered
Attended
Attended multiple events
Viewed
Shared via social sharing
Again ask did you all mark the same attributes? Discuss any that don’t match and figure out what really matters. There might be some major disagreements but you need to get on the same page!

Bad Behaviors (Implicit data)
Email unsubscribe
Non-product web visit
No website activity for a long period of time
Change in purchase timeframe
No progression in buying cycle
Added to “Do Not Call” list
Spam complaint
Negative social media comment
Declines contract/warranty renewal
Career page
Press room
Investor page
Leadership page

While most action items give positive scores, there are actions that don’t. Don’t ignore these negative pieces of the sales and marketing process when building your model. You need to be honest with yourself. The only one you will be hurting if your not is yourself. If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods.

Larson Notes & Satire: If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods you may as an individual have developed you will start to find areas of attack where your odds of winning are stacked in your favor. Being a cherry picker from way back I like to pick the low handing fruit.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

5 Steps Of Effective Delegation

I have found in some 37 some odd years in business that there are 5 steps to better delegating and supervising that will bring you the kind of results you want to get your expectations met and successful results are achieved.

Step One: The first step in delegation is to be totally clear about the results that you want to achieve out of the job or project. The more clarity YOU have the greater the direction you show with towards the results expected. The easier it is for you to select the right person to do the job.

Step Two: The second step in this process is to select the best person based on their previously demonstrated ability and success at doing this kind of job. You want people all people to be successful so don’t set them up for failure. Never ever delegate an important task to a person who has never done that kind of project before. That is not to say you don’t want to push people into achieving a higher level to action that expands their abilities, but keep in mind their strong points and work into those when possible. It is essential that you delegate every task to the best person you have who you have total trust and belief in their ability to complete the task at a high level.

Step Three: Third, explain to the person exactly what you want done, the results that you expect, the time schedule that you require, and the preferred method of working. You have probably already mastered the task you’re delegating out to so use your knowledge of the job at hand to help them help you. Taking the necessary time to teach and explain the best way to do the job based on your past experience is not only an excellent way to ensure that the job will be done the way you want and on schedule I might add, but when a similar job comes up you have a ready trained person do delegate out to, again.

Step Four: Step four is to set up a schedule. The more important the task the more important it is to set up a schedule. Always build some slack into the timetable whenever possible. Then have a system to check on the progress of the task at regular intervals. Leave nothing to chance and you will be a happier owner or manager.

Step Five: Step five is to inspect what you expect. Delegation is not abduction. You are not dropping and running. Just because you have assigned a task to another person does not mean that you are no longer accountable for the project at hand. That is why you are the person in charge. The more important the project, the more important it is that you keep on top of it.
What task can you effectively delegate to someone else? Which one of your employees can handle the task efficiently?

Larson Notes & Satire: My way or the highway. The hardest thing about delegation is the lack of control. As most of you know, I look for clones of me to work with. Ya, lots of little Me’s running around. I shudder at the thought. Now I do some things very well, other things, I would truly be best finding a trusted person to make a hand off to. Let them do for me what they do best. Use your strengths and find people to fill in your gaps. This makes others around you stronger and you even more larger than life.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”
Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?

Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

75% of Ad Campaigns for New Account Acquisition

No wonder we are getting so busy. 75% of all b2b marketers will be or are launching ad campaigns designed to focus on new account acquisition. That, of course, is our primary job. To find our customers new sales leads now. The remaining 25% is divided. 15% is on brand awareness and 10% for customer retention. 29% of would be marketers are increasing their 2012 budgets.
In order to achieve their goal of finding more customers, marketers will but using a variety of on and offline ideas. The largest investment will be, of course, online. E-commerce is the fastest going demographic of customers and companies know that they need to reach this wellspring of potential income. 74% of marketers increased their online budgets this year. 41% increased event marketing and 36% their direct mail.

For those of you who what to see where everyone else is spending keep reading but I will warn you, don’t use another companies marketing spending as a cookie cutter approach to creating your marketing planning and spending. Your company is, I am sure, not like theirs even if both companies are in the same market. Yet it is a good idea to look at what other companies are planning to see if you missed something and might want to tweek your plan.

Spending Plans 2012 vs 2011

Marketing on outside websites
  5.8% - Decrease
35.1% - Increase
31.7% - Same
27.4% - Do not use

Direct Mail*
12.6% - Decrease
31.2% - Increase
38.1% - Same
18.1% - Do not use

DR Radio
  3.8% - Decrease
  9.9% - Increase
11.8% - Same
74.5% - Do not use

Direct Response Space (newspapers, magazines, etc)
  9.6% - Decrease
18.6% - Increase
27.4% - Same
44.4% - Do not use

Direct Response TV
  3.8% - Decrease
  7.7% - Increase
12.6% - Same
75.9% - Do not use

E-Mail*
  1.4% - Decrease
64.7% - Increase
30.1% - Same
  3.8% - Do not use

Inserts
  7.2% - Decrease
  9.0% - Increase
29.6% - Same
54.2% - Do not use

Mobile Marketing via Web/apps
  0.3% - Decrease
35.1% - Increase
15.3% - Same
49.3% - Do not use

Mobile Marketing via text/SMS/phone
  0.8% - Decrease
24.9% - Increase
15.6% - Same
58.7% - Do not use

Search Engine Marketing*
  3.8% - Decrease
51.0% - Increase
28.8% - Same
16.4% - Do not use

Social Media Marketing*
  3.0% - Decrease
63.0% - Increase
18.7% - Same
15.3% - Do not use

Social Media Paid Marketing*
  2.2% - Decrease
30.7% - Increase
21.6% - Same
45.5% - Do not use

Telemarketing*
  6.0% - Decrease
20.3% - Increase
25.2% - Same
48.5% - Do not use

Webcasts
  2.5% - Decrease
27.4% - Increase
20.3% - Same
49.8% - Do not use

Marketing Technologies Planning 2012 vs 2011

Bar Code QR Codes, etc
  1.1% - Decrease
25.1% - Increase
15.6% - Same
48.2% - Do not use

Automated Response/Trigger Messages
  0.8% - Decrease
39.2% - Increase
19.5% - Same
40.5% - Do not use

Blogs*
  0.8% - Decrease
45.5% - Increase
18.1% - Same
35.6% - Do not use

Content Marketing*
  0.8% - Decrease
62.2% - Increase
20.0% - Same
17.0% - Do not use

GPS/Location Marketing
  0.5% - Decrease
10.2% - Increase
  9.0% - Same
80.3% - Do not use

Loyalty Programs*
  1.1% - Decrease
27.1% - Increase
21.4% - Same
50.4% - Do not use

Mobile SMS
  0.8% - Decrease
19.7% - Increase
11.3% - Same
68.2% - Do not use

Mobile Optimized Website
  0.5% - Decrease
37.8% - Increase
11.8% - Same
49.9% - Do not use

Mobile apps
  1.1% - Decrease
31.5% - Increase
11.5% - Same
55.9% - Do not use

Personalization*
  0.8% - Decrease
44.7% - Increase
23.3% - Same
31.2% - Do not use

Personalized URLs (PURLs)*
  1.7% - Decrease
24.4% - Increase
13.4% - Same
60.5% - Do not use

Podcasts
  1.4% - Decrease
16.4% - Increase
11.5% - Same
70.7% - Do not use

Response Boosters*
  1.6% - Decrease
12.3% - Increase
11.9% - Same
74.2% - Do not use

Variable Data Printing*
  0.8% - Decrease
16.4% - Increase
15.7% - Same
67.1% - Do not use

Video
  1.1% - Decrease
52.1% - Increase
13.2% - Same
33.6% - Do not use

Webinars*
  1.4% - Decrease
35.1% - Increase
16.4% - Same
47.1% - Do not use

Delivery Use Methods 2012 vs 2011

Advertising on outside websites
 56.2% - 2011
46.6% - 2012

Affiliate Marketing
 40.8% - 2011
32.6% - 2012

Direct Mail*
 69.0% - 2011
65.8% - 2012

DR Radio
 15.1% - 2011
11.2% - 2012

Direct Response Space (magazine, newspapers, etc.)
 29.3% - 2011
27.9% - 2012

Direct Response television
 14.2% - 2011
  9.3% - 2012

E-Mail*
 86.3% - 2011
83.3% - 2012

Insert Media*
 28.8% - 2011
23.3% - 2012

Mobile Marketing – Mobile Web Apps
 31.8% - 2011
12.9% - 2012

Mobile Marketing – text/SMS/phone
 24.9% - 2011
10.7% - 2012

Search Engine Marketing*
 58.9% - 2011
46.8% - 2012

Search Engine Optimization*
 66.8% - 2011
51.5% - 2012

Social Media Marketing*
 67.4% - 2011
56.4% - 2012

Social Media Marketing – Paid Advertising*
 34.8% - 2011
19.2% - 2012

Telemarketing*
 35.6% - 2011
31.2% - 2012

Webcasts
 34.2% - 2011
20.8% - 2012

*Designates primary Larson Service

All this is not an open checkbook on spending by businesses. If you read between the lines you will be seeing a spending that takes into account careful consideration of what is happening in the economy. The major growth is where the traffic is highest and thus so is the return in advertising budget.
Direct mail and E-mail continue to be the most used marketing channels used.  Both have a high return rate in both customer retention and new account acquisition.

Social & Mobile are the big growth areas, not because of result but partly because they are new. Social Media Marketing will continue to be a time eater for most companies who don’t know how to keep a balance in monitoring and their legal department’s reluctance at possible bad exposure. Adding to the dilemma is the unknown ROI (Return on Investment) because they can’t keep records of what they are getting in response. So, when, where and how is the real question here. If you get into mobile you can expect to see 10% to 15% more hits on your web site and that is never a bad thing, for possible sales and for page ranking.

Web and SEO Marketing You want to own the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo Search. Dominate that 1st and 2nd page that comes up in your key words for your organic search. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing (SEO) (SEM), content marketing, landing page creation, blogs, and social media marketing can all help you own that 1st and 2nd page. Can it happen? Oh yes! Can it happen for you and your business? I know it can if you want it bad enough. You can have 3, 4, 5 if not all the listings on the 1st page of an organic search and most people do not get past page 1 maybe page 2, but that’s it.

What is “The Next Big Thing”? Bar codes, QR codes or maybe Web video? You tell me. Indications are that QR codes are finding their place in marketing but not as much as we were lead to believe at this time last year. Yes you will see more of them but it is more of an afterthought in marketing not a major piece of the puzzle.

Larson Notes & Satire:  So what your next move?  I am betting that when the gurus of marketing do their mid-year surveys we are going to see some major swings as to what companies are doing and how they are changing their plans. The surveys we review where based off of 56% of companies less than $100,000. 16% of companies $100,000-$499,000, 5% of companies $500,000-$999,999, 10% companies 1million to $5 million, 7% over $5 million and 6% in I don’t know land. My guess is that these statistics are going to be in line with you, the kind of people and companies that are reading my blog here.

So now you ask, where am I putting my efforts this year? Well my 3 legged stool attack remains intact. Telemarketing, Social Media and Direct mail, that my friend is not going to change, it is just too powerful. Then add in my blog and email staying deep penetration in our multilevel attack. The new big “spend” in money and time is in F2F networking. It has been a few years since I was out and about doing in your face networking and 2012 will see this area as the MAJOR push for me and that is not even on the charts is it? Considering it has brought in 2 new accounts all ready this year how can we knock success?

When we look to hiring for 2012 we see a personal increase of 17 people in our telemarketing department at a minimum, and our web work will remain pretty steady with maybe 1 or 2 new hirers with support staff increasing 2 or 3.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.