Generate User Reviews

If you are doing any kind of Social Media Marketing, no matter what size your company is, you should know how important it is to leverage reviews in both online and offline marketing efforts. Some studies are showing that 72% of consumers trust online customer reviews as much as a personal recommendations. Who’d have guessed, huh? Obviously any reviews no matter how or where it comes from can help to get customers to make buying decision.

There are of course a few areas that can make you get a little worried about reviews. There is of course the fear of negative feedback. Then there is the fear of time needed to develop and implement a successful reviewing tool while obtaining trustworthy, relevant reviews.

To help you, here are a few ways to help you get user reviews without really trying too hard.

1. ASK YOUR FANS: 

It’s not against the rules to ask. Really, just ask the 3 F’s (family, friends, fans) to make their love of you and your services known to the world, via a formal review. After all if you can’t as your 3 F’s who can you ask?

2. FOLLOW UP A POST-SERVICE/PURCHASE:

There’s a key time frame to follow up with a customer who has purchase a product or service from you to allow you to ask for a review. I cannot tell you what that is because it is different for every kind of company category, but one exists. You might need to test different time lengths to find what the optimal follow-up period for your business is but then you will know and you will never have to miss an opportunity to send a follow-up email, letter or phone call asking how a customer’s experience was.

3. ESTABLISH A PRESENCE ON MAJOR REVIEW SITES:

Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle, Storeboard, Citysearch, etc. are all good trusted sites to get and posts reviews. Or at least they want you to think so. Now I’m not argue so go get your company listed with a profile, then keep it updated and respond to all user comments both good and bad. These review sites also impact SEO, so by establishing a profile, your company can gain greater visibility, attract more hits and, hopefully, more reviews.

4. MAKE IT MULTI CHANNEL FRIENDLY:

As those in the online space are well aware, mobile and tablet usage is gaining traction. To ensure that customers visiting your site, regardless of the kind of device they are using, can easily access and enter their reviews, you need to make it multi channel friendly. Need help with this, call us and we can make it happen.

5. CREATE USER PROFILES:

As ego-driven people, we tend to act or as the case may be, write differently if we know someone is watching. By not allowing anonymous reviews, customers are not only likely to give more accurate reviews, but also more helpful ones because their name is on it (literally). In the B2B world, user profiles can also create an opportunity for user promotion, as a reviewer they can enter their company name as the user name and get a company plug.

6. PUBLISH REVIEWS FOR THE PUBLIC:

There’s no sense asking for reviews, if other people cannot see them. Additionally, those who previously read reviews that encouraged them to make a purchase, are more likely to come back and review their own experience.

7. OFFER DIFFERENT WAYS TO REVIEW A PRODUCT/SERVICE:

Not all of us are great writers. So the problem is if a customer , who isn’t great writer, could give you are great review you might want to offer them an option of multiple choice questions in order to rate your product or service on a scale of 1-10, this way all those non-writers will be able to leave an favorable opinion.

9. OFFER TRIAL PERIODS:

If you want reviews, but don’t have any customers, to leave them, one tactic is to offer trial period for your service. Do not make the condition that they have to review your service in the end, but offer the service and hope your quality offering and your follow-ups brings them back to give you a positive review.

10. WORK WITH A REVIEW AGGREGATOR:

There are companies out there that help companies generate reviews through referral engines (like us). They help to take the guess work out of the process by sending follow-up emails on your behalf, working with your social media profiles and offering customers a follow-up options to your business.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Social media can be made to be better. It just takes a little work. Now you know a few more tricks of the trade.

And if you want your business to be more and have more, call us for an appointment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

10 Reasons To Use Social Media Marketing

Ok let’s go to the basics here. Social Media Marketing can work in bringing in new business. I know I have a number of new accounts that I can attribute entirely to my social media sites.

But what are the top 10 reasons you might want to take a little bit of your time to putting your efforts into SM, or at least my top 10?

1. Cost EffectiveMost social media sites are free or have a free option to start with. Going in free is a good way to test the water and see if there is any action your company can take advantage of. If the site produces you can then belly up to the table and buy into more and a higher degree of exposure.

2. ReachSocial Media allows you to reach a wider audience. Consumers and companies are increasingly more reliant on technology and social media. SM gives you a way to reach out to people who would not know about your company if you did not post up a few profile pages.

3. Connection Social Media can allow you a more personal way to connect with your prospects and customer base. A traditional marketing campaign misses out on the back and forth communication your business can engage in with your target. Only telemarketing can give you that same hands on communication.

4. Timely Social Media allows you to instantly send out information to your followers. As in a good well-crafted email SM is the best non offensive way to be “in their face”.

 5. FlexiblySocial Media gives you the kind of flexibility a real time promotion needs as you adapt it to needs and comments of your audience. It might seem too informal to tradition marketing or PR managers but it gets you to the very heart of your prospects needs, wants and desires

6. PromotionsSM is an excellent way to run out a promotion to see what kind of fish are biting, today! You need to get the word out and get it out fast which is why your 4 F’s (followers, friends, fans and family) as so important. SM allows you to share more faster.

7. An Easier Referral WOM or Word of Mouth advertising or marketing is made more compact through Social Media. SM makes if vastly easier for your customers to share in your information with their 4F’s as you transform your WOM a more encompassing marketing attack.

8. Increased Wed TrafficThis is fact, the more you promote your web page just on sheer weight of your postings you will get more people looking at your web page. And as we all know the more hits you get you 1, might get some sales and your site will seem more important to the Google spiders and you will get a better organic ranking.

9. BrandingAs you seek to establish who and what your company is or wants to be the messages, photos, links and videos you post on your pages  build an image of your company. Think before you post and you will create a consistent tone and message about who and what your company is.

10. HiringAs you grow you will need new people joining your company. Well, maybe yes and maybe no, but this will or can put you in front of new possible associates. They will know you, understand you and want to be part of what you are doing before they even contact you about working for your company.
 
Larson Notes & Satire:  Always go back to the basics every now and then. Basics can get you back to center so you can move forward. Yes, even I get on a target that leads to No-Wheresville. That is the time to look at what got you to where you are so you can get to where you need to be.

 It takes time, it takes patience, it you don’t have either one of those SM is just a play toy. I can tell you I have gotten business off of Social Media, (yes I to track every new customer as to how I got them). So I know this works but only if you work it.

“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.

Watch Your Content

In bringing in new customers you need to move away from thinking like you are in charge of your message. With the advent of Social Media Marketing you need to engage your prospects. If they don’t like it, you had better not like it.

So what is a poor marketer to do?

Ask yourself a few important questions:

1) What are you trying to say about your product or service that will help to influence the customer to buy from you and not your competition?

2) Can you help customers identify which of your products or services will fit their special needs?

3) In what way can you address unseen objectives that might stop the sales process?

4) Are there others out there in your network that can justify and validate your product or service?

5) What will keep you at the top of your customers mind as they go through the sales process?

6) In the fast paced world of today will let you gain customer loyalty

7) Keep your basic message consistent. Nothing ruins a good marketing campaign more than inconsistency. You might be tired of your message but for most of your target it is new.


Larson Notes & Satire:  Can your marketing program cut the mustard? Keep a clear message that moves with the customer in ways they need, not you. You don’t count.

“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.

Keep The Basics Upfront

Why do you think that businesses are not getting the kind of results out of Social Media Marketing that they are expecting?
Quite simply they are reacting rather that evolving. Social Media Marketing is too new to be totally understood. Every day there are new players entering the marketing in ways which we cannot imagine, and that is not to ever consider the plans of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as the look to secure their importance and the beach head they have established in SMM.

I’m here to tell you to keep the basics of good selling and marketing at the forefront of your plans because even with new tools (and all there are, are tools) the old ways are still really the only way.
The question you need to be asking yourself is, are you a reacting company or are you evolving?
In the mad rush to “do” Social Media Marketing have you lost your way? Are you in a state of flux in the redefining of your goals from hard hitting working sales into retweets, getting more of the 3Fs, and just trying to be linked?  If you all you want to do is be linked up, go out and join your local Chamber of Commerce and they will be happy to shower you with love. Then sit back and see what happens. My bet is nothing. No knock on Chambers but yes, been there done that, and SMM is just the same thing only online.

In many ways SMM is the same thing only online. Nothing really has been invented, just redefined to happen at the speed of cyber. What once took 1 month or 1 week, now can take 1 day or 1 hour, but the rejection is still there.

As SMM evolves todays successful sales and marketing people are using techniques of earning their prospects purchases. They are using the new tools of Google, Facebook and blogs to answer their prospects needs and problems. Do I hear the word “probing”? When prospects understand their problems clearly they are more ready and willing to be excreted towards the answers you and your service/product provides.

Larson Notes & Satire:  If I did not know any better this sounds like sales 101. Yes fans nothing new here only a new way of doing it. You still need to probe, probe, probe to find the needs and wants, the pain of not buying from you, your customers and prospects need to get an answer for.

If you don’t know or understand the basics you will not understand selling and marketing in the new cyber world we are all expected to be working in.

“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.

4 Degrees Of Separation

According to Facebook there are now only 4 degrees of separation in the world. And you know they might be right.


For years, there's been a theory that every person is only separated by six degrees, or relationships. I found it sometimes hard to believe when one year when not thinking hard I found that I was only 3 degrees of separation from the President of the United States. Like WOW!


Then in comes Facebook, with its data of over 700 million people and their al their relationships and interconnections with friends. Facebook is saying we're all just four degrees of separation apart. Below you can see how many degrees, or "hops" apart people are around the world.

Larson Notes & Satire: THAT does not do you any good if you don’t do anything with it. You need to be there, and everywhere all at once. It might be easier said than done but it is getting easier to be everywhere and anywhere all at the same time. Yes maybe you now can be 2, 3 or more places at the same time.


“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.



Customers, Prospects, Engagements

As a lead generation – telemarketing company we are in a constant dilemma as we shift though and search for prospects, leads and customers for our clients.


We are suppose to be the miracle workers, finding golden nuggets where normal sales people cant or aren’t able to.


It’s a not nice world out there. We don’t always get want we want nor are we able to get the desired result we are looking for.


That is why I love the rule of #2. The rule of number 2 states that every account is already owned by someone. Muhammad Ali after fighting Joe Frasier once said “You got to beat the champ, you don’t just trade punches you go to beat him.”

The same holds true in sales. You got to beat the current supplier not just match his price or service. You have got to be better; you got to beat the champ.

In the land of Customers and Prospects maybe what we should expect more is engagements. Yes that might be lowering our expectations but we need a legitimate place to start the dialogue to becoming a customer. Don’t think I am trying to lower the bar on my work expectations. No, what I am saying is that we are going after the bull’s-eye but when we do find a company willing to start the engagement process that is not a lose.

It is far better to have a prospect you are engaged and conversing with than no conversation at all. Your real problem is to be able to measure the level of conversation. As long as you are communication with the prospect you have or should have some level of progress along the sales cycle. And while there is no true gauge for measurement every marketing and sales program should have distinct goals.

So what is a successful engagement? Is in increased sales? That would be nice and very trackable. Is it responses? Again very trackable and countable. As we move though the sales funnel we start to define more specifically if this is a quality lead or a “tire kicker”. An email campaign, direct mail program, all help to keep you in front of and on the mind of the prospect. I would hope you are in for the long term and not a one close, one sale wonder. Email, direct mail, social media marketing are areas of engagement or continuing engagement. It is keeping the flow of conversation going until you not just bid on a job but get your first sale.

The number of channels you can engage prospects is ever growing. Not just Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter but MerchantCircle, Storeboard and the ning sites to name a few more. It is getting more complemented in some ways which it is important you keep track of what works and what does not work.


Larson Notes & Satire: Telemarketing can only take you so far down the sales process. Sure sometimes we get quote specs off a cold call right over the phone, we get appointments, but sorry more often than not we get companies in the ball game for them to do the job of closing the deal.


We have created a program that some companies follow and some don’t. Their choice of course. Most sadly take only a part of the entire program so they don’t receive the full benefit.


As stated best is a multichannel attack because one size or one approach does not fit all. 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.

Are You Yelping?

I have been playing a little bit, a very little bit with Yelp. It is not my main push as a marketing tool that being a B2B company but still I play just in case I have a client that needs to be there.

But how long will Yelp be around? Does it, can it make money?


Well, it doesn't! At least, not yet.

The company lost $7.6 million through the first nine months of the year on revenues of $59 million. They (industry experts) think if should become profitable, it will be due to advertising, specifically local advertising, which stands at at $40 million and is 70% of its total revenue through the first nine months of this year. Brand advertising stands at $13 million is 22% of revenue. And "other services," like Yelp Deals, remnant ads, and revenue from reservations is 9%, or $5.4 million.


Here are the most important details:


Revenue: $22 million in Q3 2011, up from $12.6 million in Q3 2010.


Yearly revenue: Yelp brought in $47.7 million in revenue last year. It brought in $58.4 million in the first nine months this year, compared to $32.5 million in the first nine months last year.

Profits: Yelp lost $3.8 million in Q3 2011, up from 2.9 million in Q3 2010.


Yearly profits: Yelp lost $9.6 million last year and lost $7.6 million in the first nine months this year.


Visitors: Yelp had 61 million monthly unique visitors as of the end of its third quarter.


Reviews: Yelp has 22.4 million reviews on the site as of the end of its third quarter.


Advertising: 71 percent of Yelp's revenue comes from local advertising, compared to 21 percent from brand advertising and 8 percent from "other services.

"Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website accounting for more than half of the visits to our website from Internet searches during the nine months ended September 30, 2011," the S-1 filing reads.


CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1 percent of Yelp. The company's investors own 61.1 percent of the company.


Yelp has $23 million in cash, down from $27 million at the end of 2010.


And here are some interesting tidbits:

42 percent of Yelp's customers are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 33 percent are between the ages of 35 and 59.

45 percent of Yelp's customers are college graduates.

Nearly half of all reviews (23 percent each) are restaurant or store reviews.

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin owns 13.8 percent of Yelp.

Yelp has spent $4.4 million on infrastructure this year so far, up from $2.9 million in 2010.


Yelp's business could be adversely affected by "earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as computer viruses or terrorism."

Yelp says it does not intend to pay dividends in the future.

Yelp employees outside of Stoppelman only own 14 percent of the company. Stoppelman, his investors and Levchin own a collective 86 percent of the company.

Yelp's employee with the second-highest ownership is chief operating officer Geoff Donaker at 1.6 percent.


Larson Notes & Satire: My yelp numbers are going up? Are my prospects there? Yes, prospects can be everywhere. It is all in how to touch them in a way they want to be touched.


As Henry Ford once said, he knew half of every dollar he spent on advertising was wasted. He just didn't know which half.


So where should you be advertising and marketing everywhere and anyway you can be 90% effective. The key is to be as effective in each area you are involved in so you own that channel. A multichannel attack works because one size or one approach does not fit all. 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.

Cold Calling Brings Relationships

With so much emphasis being focused on Social Media Marketing these days it is easy to under estimate the power of the phone for establishing deep long lasting customer relationships.

What I think you need to remember is that of all the channels you can use for Marketing, Cold Calling is still one of the FEW ways if not the only way to be proactive in your marketing attack. Everything else waits for the prospect to contact you! With cold calling you go out and contact the prospect. In addition it is one of the only marketing tools that will give you an instant two way conversation with your prospect to allow you to secure a long lasting relationship.


So here are 5 ways to set up and focus yourself on attaining desired cold calling results:


1. Define your criteria. In any sales and marketing attack you need to define your target as narrow as you can. The more specific the better. Narrow nitch yourself


2. Have a preset agenda. You need a road map to get where you want to go. If not a “script” have an outline of where you would like to guide the conversation towards. Use open ended questions (how many times have you heard that?) and pointed questions. Might as well find out if their needs are real and what their time table is on your product or service. 1 day, 1 week 1 month 1 year, ask and find out.


3) Keep it relevant. To be effective you need to be relevant to the prospect. If it’s not important to them they will not care. So before you pick up the phone ask yourself, Why am I calling and why should they want to hear about it. If you cannot answer this question, you might as well not even pick up the phone in the first place and go on making that paperclip chain.


4. Have a voicemail strategy. Ya sorry but you got to figure that at least 75% of your calls are going to voice mail. That is just the way it is. Have a 15 to 20 second voicemail advertisement ready to go. If they want it, if they need it, they will call back.


5. Integrate your marketing channels. As a standalone you can and will get activity off your telemarketing attack but… if you can put it together with a planned multichannel attack you up your odds of success. You give them ways to approach you that they might find more suited with their nature.


Larson Notes & Satire: Telemarketing works cold calling works that is why we do it. If it didn’t people would not pay us to pick up the phone on their behalf and make the calls.


As stated best is a multichannel attack because one size or one approach does not fit all. 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

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.

Lead Gen: When Where How

You want new customers, I want new customers, everyone wants new customers. (Well not everyone, believe it or not but in some of my calls some owners tell me they don’t want any. Go figure.)


Lead Generation is a game, cat and mouse, back and forth, win or lose, give and take. If you’re in it you want to be taking more than your giving, I would hope. And if you want your business to survive you need to win more than you lose. Even in losing you want to win.


So how do you win in a mostly loosing game, and you will lose more that you win.


1) The Rule of #2. It’s ok to be number 2. Now you’re asking yourself if I have lost my mind. No its still there, I think. But let’s think about this. You out there going after a new account, which btw belongs to a competitor who wants to keep it. Now think further that you the owner or the account and 2 other competitors also want THAT account. Yet you would really like to have that account as a customer. Use the rule of #2, which is be the number 2 supplier (even if that does not get you any sales) so when #1 messes up (and we all mess up at one time or another) the account already knows you and your capabilities so you can take it over.


2) The Little Things: There is no magic formula in getting new accounts, no magic pill or secret potion or wand waving (sorry Harry Potter but there is no such thing as magic). It’s just doing a lot of little things right for a long long time. Then once you get a lead nurturing it till it grows up to be a real customer.


3) Don’t get tired of your message. As you’re out there in the land of self promotion you are going to get tired of saying the same thing over and over again and again. You might but guess what your prospect wont. To them, it is new and or you are being consistent which to me means you are a candidate for a reliable supplier. Just don’t lose faith in your message. You don’t change horses midstream.


4) They need to know you to buy from you. You can’t play turtle, hiding in your shell and expect people to find you to buy from you. Fact is, if you’re not out there promoting yourself, people will not buy from you. Period, end of story!


5) Look for yourself. Are you a needle in the haystack? When was the last time, or first for that matter, that you did an online search for yourself, of for that matter did a keyword search for yourself? Well get cracking, if you can’t be found they can’t buy. And oh yes, don’t forget the power of the landing page.


6) Engage yourself in Social. This for the average to above average sales or marketer is no longer an option. The creation of a powerful Social presence centered around your marketing strategy will come back to pay major dividends. Work it right you make friends and money at the same time.


7) KISS. Yes, Keep It Simple Stupid. We all or so it seems, seem to go into the world of complex or industry jargon at times. Know your place. You need to be able to talk the talk yet at the same time, make it so everyone, even my 86 year old mother can understand.


Larson Notes & Satire: Two interesting things happened yesterday. First we got 2 new accounts, always exciting. One was thought Online and Social Media marketing the second from just sort of hanging around till the project dropped, which took 9 months. Go figure. But what we do and say does work; you just need to have the consistent staying power. We are now getting 4 to 5 new prospects just from our online social marketing a week. At the same time we still use the “old way” to go out and find customers.

Second is I got a cold call from a company who had down a “inspection” of my web site and were telling me how they could fix my errors and get me listed first on Google. After I got the guy to SHUT UP, I said yes my site age makeup errors but did he do a key word search because if he had done a keyword search he would have found out that I am listed 1st page on Google, Yahoo and Bing for my key word strings and if he could get me higher than 1st page we could talk wherein he went back into his canned speech on how our page had all kinds of errors and on and on and on. He did not listen nor did he care what I said or even wanted to pretend to listen. Now while I might care that my website has errors, fact is, it is coming up on page 1. Then 1 minute later a young lady, from the same company called saying the same thing. Told her I just talked to someone form their company, I am number 1 and get me OFF their call list NOW! Dare I say it was an Indian Company using auto dialers? If that is what you want, they do work cheep.


At Larson & Associates we don’t work that way. We listen and respond to what the customer or prospect says. What is important to them is what is important to 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.

Facebook Time

If you did not already do it, do yourself and your business a favor and make a Facebook Fan page. If you can make a Social Media Profile page you can make a Facebook Fan page.



In looking at Time Spent On web sites even the most callus person has to admit that Facebook not only rules but Is Growing At An Astonishing Rate.

In the United States we now spend roughly 16% of our online time on Facebook. Just stop and think about that and what are your chances of being seen and where?

In Q3 2010, the number was around 10%. That is not good for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, which are getting hammered. Of those four, only Google had any increase over the last year but not even Google could come close to matching Facebook's growth face paced growth.

Larson Notes & Satire: It all somehow works together. If done right push one and you get responses on the rest.

Why? Ask the little web spiders not me. As for spiders, start liking and embracing them. They are your friends. And as for friends try liking and becoming a fan of my companies Facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans .

I thought I was a late comer to Facebook as I clung to my love for Myspace but now that I’m there (and the rest of the world) I have not just embraced it but am working it like a mad man. I have often said, “Be where you are” and for now, I’m on Facebook.

“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.

Starting Anew: Social Media Marketing Plan

It seems to me that most would be marketers using Social Media; yes even the big dogs have a major challenge in getting it right. Now right can be a very ambiguous term in talking about Social Media Marketing because what is right for you is not right for me or anyone else. Then you throw in the big dogs into the mix. They clog up the screen with banner ads, sponsored ads, pay for clicks etc. What the big dogs have that you might not have is money, time and people power to throw at it. But money and the amount of it you can throw at Social Media is not what it is about nor is it going to take you where you want to be. It’s not about the money but about the conversations and influence.


You need to get yourself in front of the right people looking for that edge in branching out to the channels where these people are.


When I start out a new plan for a customer I have them wipe the slate as clean as possible, most people have a Social Media presence of some kind so it is hard to start from scratch. I mean you don’t want to go losing all your current 4 F’s (family, friends, followers, fans) but what I do have is a 5 step plan.


1. As yourself why. Why do you want to do social media marketing? Why personally or as a company do you want to be suing this channel? What is your motivation for it? What do you expect to get? What are you willing to put into it, be it time or money?


2. Then ask who in your customer base is now out there using social media. A survey of engineers and industrial professionals showed that only 15% of those people had a twitter account and that those that didn’t, did not don’t plan on creating one. That being said, if your market is engineers, twitter is a useless tool for you as well might be any social media. So think, maybe this is not where you should be putting in your time and energy.


3. Next, open your ears and shut your mouth. At least for a little while. Then when you open your companies twitter account run some searches on key words and key terms. Start with your company’s name. Do a search on your name. Read blogs in your industry and your clients or prospects industry, and don’t forget to read the comments.


4. Now sit back and take it slow. Small steps are best. Comment on the blogs. Join an existing community group and offer some thoughts and advice if you can. Find and follow some key people on twitter and retweet their posts Post your own tweets with links to articles and information your clients will find useful. Start to become a trusted resource.


5. Once you have a good sense of what is out there in your area both your industry and your client’s and prospect’s industry (‘s) get more active. Launch a LinkedIn group (our LinkedIn group is "The Sales Lead Funnel”) or ning site of very your own. Create a Facebook fan page and a blog for your view points to be made and commented on. The more relevant you are to your target the more you and your company start to become the industry expert.


Larson Notes & Satire: I’ve been working Social Media as a lead souse for over 5 years now. That makes me an old timer. Am I an expert? Hardly. I don’t believe there are experts in this field. I feel there are only people that are working it better, are a little more advanced in using the technology, and pushing harder, that is until something changes.


Now you ask, am I getting sales leads off of Social media? Yes, about 1 a day. Am I making sales off of those leads? You better believe it. If I wasn’t I would stop doing what I am doing. Now good is it for me? Let’s just say my currently my largest customer came off of Social Media Marketing.


Could I put a program or run a Social Media Marketing program for you? Probably.


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


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