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.

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.