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.