Be Scien-terrific: B2B Telemarketing and the Scientific Method

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Be Scien-terrific - B2B Telemarketing and the Scientific Method

The scientific method is an organized way of testing a theory or a hypothesis by adjusting variables and measuring results against a controlled condition. If you take a look at it, a telemarketing campaign can also be a form of hypothesis. Every telemarketing firm has the hypothesis that a certain calling approach will yield the best results to sell a product or service.

And just like any hypothesis, a campaign is conceived as an “educated guess” and, through a chain of tests as the campaign goes along, that guess can be reduced to a more “proven” claim of a better telemarketing method.

Using the scientific method, telemarketers can spark improvements to a campaign:

  • Look at previous campaigns to set benchmarks. Success or failure can be more accurately measured within the structure of the campaigns before the current one. Past experiences can serve as the “control” scenario and succeeding efforts can serve as opportunities for adjusted variables or trialing.

  • Do experimentation on the script. A campaign has the luxury to consider using more than one verbal approach. Using the scientific method, one can “refine” the script by trying out several script ideas.

  • Track and offer inputs towards the individual telemarketer performances. Telemarketers themselves are variables that could be measured. When a particular agent is ineffective, he could be subject to evaluation (again, through scientific methods) and find out what new changes can be made to improve his work.

  • Play with different calling schedules. Campaigns can also start out trying a assortment of timetables for calling, and then measuring them to see if there is a significant difference in results as far as availability and receptivity are concerned.

  • Tweak the calling list according to reaction statistics. The scientific method could also be used to make adjustments in the pipeline, particularly on the contact details and grouping. If the response is high, marketers need to expand the reach and make the most out of it through segmentation and analysis.

  • Execute campaign “tests” to rule out product issues versus approach issues. It’s either the telemarketing approach is not effective, or the product itself is not selling. To make an accurate distinction, marketers can apply similar methodologies to different products (or vice versa). This helps in finding out whether a certain approach needs to be modified, or a certain product or service needs to be repackaged.

Belinda Summers

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What Happens When Sales Leads Get Poor Customer Service

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What Happens When Sales Leads Get Poor Customer Service

You know, the funny thing about being in business is that we tend to assume that we know how to best serve our customers. Unfortunately, that is far from the truth. The only people who knows and understands how sales leads should be best treated would be themselves.

That is the reality of B2B lead generation. No matter how hard you do things, there will always be someone who will not be happy with what you have done. But that is no reason for you to be sloppy in your customer service. If you do, then things can really go south. I tell you, when that happens, it can get really hard to get back up.

So, what will happen when your B2B appointment setting campaign gets a bad rep?

1. They leave you – this is the most common result of less than satisfactory service. A good rule of thumb you should remember is that a quarter of your current customers (no matter how long they stayed) will leave once they receive less than stellar customer service.

2. They back out – now this would be a real pain during your B2B leads transactions. You would certainly be frustrated if a business prospect you could have had backs off from the negotiations. If there is anything to blame, then you could probably blame them to sloppy customer service. Your best bet is that half of the ones who walked away were because of that.

3. They get angry – now that would be a real pain, especially if all they do is shout at you. But that is to be expected, especially if you used B2B telemarketing, and even more so if poor customer service got involved. In retrospect, if we can trace all the reasons that people give why telemarketers are so bad, then most of these would be bad customer service.

4. They spread the word – if there is anything that would totally mess up your sales, then it has to be customers and business prospects that were not happy with the way you treated them. Honestly, a good product may be good, but that does not matter if the people selling it do not put the customers’ perception as priority.

As you can see, customer service means a big thing in terms of B2B leads generation. I mean, it is not about the product that you sell. Everyone can offer the same thing. What really makes a difference in your B2B lead generation is the kind of customer experience that you provide them. Try putting yourself in their shoes.

Would you buy something from someone who does not properly serve you? Who does not please you with their actions? Who actually gives you some doubts over their reliability? Surely, these are just some reason why you would not make a purchase, right?

Really, if you are a marketer, you should be sure to make your customer service is top notch. That is one half of a successful B2B appointment setting campaign.

Belinda Summers

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Modern SEO Marketing: The “Must-Not-Do” list

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Modern SEO Marketing: The “Must-Not-Do” list

It’s as if B2B marketers were bewitched by the supposed promise and potential of SEO that they tend to believe in it unwaveringly despite the challenges or rapid changes in trends and algorithms. They’ve been doing it for a long time, yet, the same mistakes are repeated endlessly, most of which are not even hard to detect and repair.

These issues must be given proper attention, as they would cripple the very foundation of SEO, eventually affecting the lead generation hopes of a business, not to mention its reputation amongst other online marketers. These are 6 erroneous habits every SEO marketer must avoid:

Duplicate content – In SEO, when you have two similar content pieces appearing in more than one webpage or URL within a website, you have duplicate content. For example, your business homepage may be reached through the URL http://www.business.com/index.html or http://www.business.com/home. The problem is that Google will not be able to decide which content to index, so eventually this web page will not appear in search results. This also happens to other pages of a website, and to resolve this, marketers need to consolidate similar pages, delete redundant content, or redirect the duplicate ones to the original page.

Not optimizing tags – We see a lot of sites tagging their titles with generic words like “home” or “default” or their brand names. Marketers tend to forget that title tags are important SEO elements that should be part of on-page optimization. It helps in attaining good ranking on Google, and it also lets other people see the tags in the SERP whenever they see the results.

404 errors – These errors tell a lot of things about your site quality, especially when people stumble upon good external links only to end up in a 404 error page.

Your site is un-crawlable – If search engines can’t crawl to your content (or if you just forgot to link to it), your SEO will be in peril. Perform a spot-check: if you have thousands of sitemap pages and Google only indexed 20 pages, chances are your site is not crawl-friendly. You can also use other tools like Screaming Frog or the “site:” command in Google.

Unrealistic SEO goals – You can’t just aim for good SEO results if your design is crappy, your content is boring or your marketing team is sloppy. First things first – you need to fix the basic flaws before you dream of something bigger.

Not keeping up – Those who have failed in SEO are usually the ones who refused to let go of their old ways and not look at current trends in the business. It’s not to say that “new” is always better, but if there’s something out there that could make your business better, is it not worth a look?

You might also like: A Listing of Interesting Facts about SEO, Google and everything in between

Belinda Summers

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Do Your B2B Prospects a Favor – Simplify their decision-making

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Do Your B2B Prospects a Favor – Simplify their decision-making

We’ve all been customers at one point in our lives, and we’ve been through times when it became so hard to make a purchase decision that we ended up not buying anything at all.

Last year, Forbes found out that the simplicity of a prospect’s decision-making process was the top influencer in their tendency to buy. In the B2B lead generation industry, this is an important fact. This means that if marketers could find a way to make the sales cycle easier for prospects, the likelihood of conversion would hike.

But how would you do that?

Regulate calls-to action. Most of the time, the biggest problem in making decisions is having too many options. In the case of websites, prospects are more likely to be overwhelmed if they are faced with so many distracting calls-to-action. What you would want is to guide them on a clear path to the next level of the process, not confuse them with a blinding barrage of buttons.

Let them know what’s in it for them. Another thing that breeds reluctance on prospects’ part: being vague on commitment details. Before you ask them to click on or sign up for something, inform them what they’d be getting in return. It makes deciding easier for them.

Deliver what you promised. If they signed up just to see a useful link, give them the link. If they filled out a form just to download something, give them the download. If they answered a survey so they could get an email copy, send them the email. When prospects do their part, you should do yours, or else that interaction is likely to end early.

Your pricing should not be a secret. Why risk the chance of being doubted as fishy or scam-ish? They’re going to find out later anyway, so to help them make the decision, disclose the price as detailed as you can. Everybody hates hidden fees (including you), so don’t let that ruin your opportunity.

Provide product guides. Potential buyers would want to learn more about your products and services before going into any type of commitment. Why not give them the research that they need? Dedicate a page just for detailing all they need to know about what you are selling.

Post testimonials. Nothing can give them more peace of mind than seeing other companies take confidence in doing business with you. For some buyers, testimonials are actually a must-have. It’s the strongest evidence a business can have to prove its worth.

You might also like: How to get Business-Friendly Testimonials from your B2B Clients

Belinda Summers

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7 Content Marketing Predictions for 2014: An early look

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7 Content Marketing Predictions for 2014 - An early look

Jayson DeMers, marketing blogger at AudienceBloom.com and contributor at Forbes.com, reveals his predictions as to where content marketing, as an integral tool for B2B lead generation, is headed in the coming year 2014.

“We’re poised to see explosive growth in the way businesses ‘do’ marketing,” says DeMers, and this is partly due to the fact that consumers “increasingly crave the type of genuine, customer-focused information”.

So what should the industry expect to see next year? Here is a summary of his predictions:

  1. Content marketing will finally be defined. DeMers believes that even though most business today are engaged with producing content to generate leads, it is still an ambiguous concept that needs defining. In 2014, marketer would be able to “explain what content marketing is, how it aligns with their larger business goals, and why it’s important.”

  2. The rise of “Directors of Content”. As the role of content marketing expands within an organization, the top responsibility of marketers would also be geared towards managing content production and use, thus making a “director of content” (or any alternative title) the top marketing job to shoot for.

  3. Mobile Content will be the winning ingredient. It has been long predicted that mobile usage will overtake desktop in the next 2 years. Consequently, marketers would have to adjust strategies and give more focus to mobile content more than it has ever been given.

  4. SAAS companies will help marketers in calculating content ROI. Nobody has really come up with a clear measurement of content ROI; in fact, nobody is even 100% sure it’s measurable. In 2014, however, due to the imminent rise of content, software companies will see the demand for a content measurement tool and respond to the call.

  5. Marketers will “attempt” to automate content marketing. Businesses will find ways to make content marketing more efficient by the use of automation, but according to DeMers, “these attempts will result in lower quality content, which will cause entire strategies to backfire”.

  6. Google+ and Slideshare will be the BFFs of B2B content marketers. Content dissemination will be a crucial element of content marketing, and these 2 platforms will make it easier due to its influence in Google Author rank and Authorship.

  7.  Brick-and-mortar businesses will thrive on location-based content marketing. Again, this is proportionate with the rise of mobile devices next year. As a response, businesses will tap location-based services to incorporate into their content mix. “While this technology already exists, it will become pervasive by the end of 2014,” DeMers concludes.

You might also like: Hitting the Play Button: Why companies are boarding the video marketing bandwagon and why you should, too

Belinda Summers

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B2B Halloween Edition: How to Create Content a la Stephen King

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B2B Halloween Edition - How to Create Content a la Stephen King

No one has shaped contemporary horror and suspense literature more than Stephen King did. He’s the man behind great novels such as The Shining, Carrie, It, Pet Sematary, The Stand, and Salem’s Lot . He has authored more than 50 novels, 13 collections and 5 non-fiction books in a span of 40 years.

In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , King recounts his experiences in becoming a writer, as well as his insights on how to write effectively. It has been considered by many as a helpful “manual” on how to use the right motivation and skill to achieve one’s best work in writing.

In the spirit of Halloween, let’s take a look at how marketers could create compelling content (just like King) and improve their B2B lead generation efforts.

Focus on great content; don’t waste time trying to prove how great your company is. King once said, “I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.” His motivation in writing was never about letting people know how gifted he is a writer. He showed that by creating quality content. Content marketers should also remember that content should not always be about advertising.

Thrill your readers and keep them curious. The thing that makes King’s stories so great is the elaborate way he describes things that happen within the narrative. He has a famous knack for creating genuine suspense and plot twists that boggle the mind. Imagine how moved readers would be if your business this kind of content – not by horror, but stimulating the imagination just as well.

Make it shareable. You’ve probably seen a lot of horror movies without knowing that it was adapted from a Stephen King novel. The Green Mile. Shawshank Redemption. Secret Window. 1408. Apt Pupil. Children of the Corn. King’s stories are so universal that they even made it to theather, television and comic books. This is the mark of great content – when people can share it through different media for different types of audiences.

Let your own work inspire you. When the content piece that you’ve written is your own source of inspiration, it would be easier for people to appreciate it. In King’s own words, “You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

Kill your darlings. If you’ve ever read one of King’s novels, you know how he likes killing most of the beloved characters. It’s his trademark, and it goes to show how much of a risk-taker he is. In creating great content, you should not get too attached on things within your comfort zone. You must learn how to go outside your cocoon and venture on new stuff that your audience – and you yourself – would find surprisingly satisfactory.

You might also like: Staring at a Blank Page: A Guide for a First-time Business Blogger

Belinda Summers

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Don’t let sluggish, boring content impede your B2B lead generation

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Don't let sluggish, boring content impede your B2B lead generation

Last year, Corporate Visions’ Sales and Marketing Messaging Report, based on a poll of more than 440 B2B salespeople and marketers, found out that among marketers that focus on B2B lead generation , 80% are having problems with content, and are considering it as the biggest barrier to their success.

To break it down into more specific details, 37% of the respondents said that the biggest challenge is creating content that is engaging or provocative. 31% of them cited the lack of marketing or sales alignment as another major obstacle, while 12% attributed it to budget constraints.

This only proves how content is crucial in generating leads. Unlike B2B telemarketing where companies “go out there” to hunt for leads, content marketing is more of an inbound lead generation strategy. Thus, considerable amount of emphasis must be put on the quality of content, since it is the only force that could drive prospects into a business.

Related posts: How to create content for prospects who are too busy to read

According to the same study, 60% of the respondents’ content templates generally focus on their products, features and services while 40% focus on their buyer grievances and pains. This could very well explain why they were struggling with lead generation. Prospects aren’t always drawn into reading product details, because they would always view that as direct marketing. When they hop from one site to another, they’re usually looking for answers.

There’s always time to position your products later on in the marketing process – there’s no need to rush. The initial goal must be set on getting the prospect’s interest first, and certainly, producing dull and irrelevant content is not the way to go.

To gain traction in lead generation, majority of the content must touch on customer education, sharing of useful insights, and acknowledging their experiences. It’s the kind of content that they can relate to. When they stumble upon something like that, they’d think, “Hey, this company actually understands me, I might as well take a look at what they can do.” That, then, makes your lead generation efforts much easier.

Simply put, content must be, one, not boring, and two, able to address customer needs. According to Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions, “If salespeople and marketers are able to work together to implement these two strategies successfully into their campaigns, they will be able to motivate prospects and win more business.”

Belinda Summers

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How to create content for prospects who are too busy to read

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How to create content for prospects who are too busy to read

Information overload – it’s the calamity that destroys any audience’s chances of capturing true and useful content amongst a flashflood of online information. There is just too many stuff floating around in the internet that the really good ones get lost in the mud.

Marketers are very much aware of the problem that this poses, and unless their manner of delivering content is made to outshine the rest, the very purpose of content marketing is in peril. What’s the use of creating content if no one is attracted enough to check it out?

According to LookBookHQ, a content marketing firm, companies must focus on accessibility and excellent storytelling to make their content stand out from the mediocre ones. By creating a quality package of content, marketers can influence marketers (the smart ones, hopefully) to determine which content is worthy of their precious, busy time.

Everyone loves multimedia – According to their findings, content that include multimedia get 77% more responses compared to text-only posts. It’s not really much of a surprise – with the ever-evolving internet experience we’re enjoying, multimedia is the next big thing.

Straightforward and concise – It may be a shock to know that 79% of online readers skim or scan over text instead of reading word by word. For your content not to be treated like this you have to bank on an eye-catching headline and a style of writing that would hook them right from the start. As long as it carries the message through, it doesn’t have to be lengthy.

Outstanding and memorable – They estimated that regular netizens see about 5,000 marketing messages per day. That’s a lot of information, and if your content is indistinguishable from all the other stuff they see online, your company will be drowned in the noise. Always look for more creative and memorable angles in telling your story. A piece that was able to move a person will always stand out in memory, no matter how crowded it may be.

Make it easy to find – A whopping 700,000 Google searches are performed every 60 seconds online. People are always searching for something, and most of the time they don’t really know what it is they’re looking for. Your content must be structured, polished and packaged in a way that people will easily (and consistently) find it, appreciate it and remember it.

Belinda Summers

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Overcome Objections through D.E.A.T.H. – Discovery, Empathy, Acknowledgment, Testament, Help

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Overcome Objections through DEATH – Discovery, Empathy, Acknowledgment, Testament, Help

One of the main reasons why telemarketing is still alive is the existence of objections. Businesses need to address any doubt, hostility or protest that customers may have with their products – a task that content, social media and email cannot effectively handle. It can only be done by living, kicking, and talking telemarketers.

Imagine if objections didn’t exist.

Marketing would be a walk in the park (although, come to think of it, the commercial world would be in chaos since everyone agrees to any business proposal). But still, think of how easier a telemarketer’s job would be if no one objected to a pitch, especially the discourteous ones that love to slam the receiver. It’s such a fantasy that you’d wish objections would just choke to death.

And death, it seems, is indeed the answer.

Whenever you encounter an objection over the phone or in person, just think of death – well not really death (unless you’re that morbid) but rather, the techniques that the letters stand for:

Discovery – This practice is more of an objection-preventer than a direct counter. The amount of knowledge you can gather about a prospect’s current business situation, their urgent needs and wants, how much their budget is or how their buying process takes place, is tantamount to the confidence you can build within yourself to address objections.

Empathy – Sometimes, prospects object to proposals not because your offer wasn’t good, but because they think you couldn’t (or wouldn’t)  understand them. If they don’t feel sincerity in your tone or the genuineness of your responses, they become hesitant to commit and therefore they are left with no choice but to object. If you don’t want to be inhumanely rejected, be a human.

Acknowledgment – Remember the golden rule? Yes, it applies even in this field. But telemarketers don’t object back to prospects, you might say. Wrong. Of course they do. When a telemarketer derides or dismisses what a prospect has to say, it’s the same as objecting. Even if they’re viewing things illogically, don’t reject their sentiments. Acknowledge that you have understood what they meant, and use that to transition to your pitch.

Testament – Whenever you see a sales guy demonstrating a blender or a vacuum cleaner in hardware stores, you rarely hear people making a negative comment on the product. That’s because they’re already seeing that it works, and there’s nothing more to object to. Over the phone, you have to find a way – through words – to make your prospects “see” that what you’re selling works.

Help – If you’ve accidentally dropped your grocery bags and someone approaches to help, would you be mean to that person? Of course not. Even if you don’t need his help, you would still be kind enough to say “I got it, thanks”, but you would never object to his assistance. If prospects feel that you are indeed just trying to help them, there’s no reason for them to be rude.

Belinda Summers

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3 signs that your Business Website is not going to live a full life

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3 signs that your business website is not going to live a full life

We see a vast collection of websites online, majority of which are for sales and marketing, but only a few really stand out from the rest. Despite their constant efforts in incorporating the latest technologies in website design, hiring the best bloggers, posting amazing multimedia and vigorously sharing on social media, their websites still fall short. Why?

To sum it up, it’s because of a wrong mindset on what a website’s purpose of existence is supposed to be.

New businesses pop up every second; hence, new websites also come into place every now and then. Most of them think that as long as their sites possess the things that are “hip” or “in” these days, everything will be alright. What they fail to see is the long term principle behind putting up a website in the first place. Without knowing that, a website’s life may not live to see its mission carried out.

These are the 3 things that you would NOT want your website to become:

1. An online brochure

Newsflash: putting up a website is more than just to post endless information about your products or services. Although people would need those information, sure, but those are not the things that convert them to customers. Provide fresh content, interactive landing pages, call-to-action buttons, new media, social conversations, and other content assets. You don’t just convince them through empty words; you have to give insights, ideals or even advice. Be a thought-leader to earn their trust, and everything will follow. Otherwise, your site will become what marketers fear most: static.

2. A one-size-fits-all experience

This year, Amazon tops the list of companies with the best reputation in the US according to Forbes. In fact, in the last 3 years, Amazon is always in the top 10. Considering that Amazon is purely an online company, it goes to show how much effort they put into making a customer’s online experience memorable. When users go to amazon.com, they are greeted by name. The site knows what the customers like and even recommends products that may be of interest. Customers would then feel that the pleasant experience is tailored specifically for them – and they’re right! Business websites should not be formulaic, but dynamic, to suit every customer’s needs.

3. A site built for the company, not the customer

When a company decides to put up a website, the process usually requires the involvement of the marketing team, a professional designer, stockholders, executives, senior leadership, regular employees and even an outsourced firm. But does anyone ever think of getting the opinion of the customer? Are they ever asked how a website should work for them? No. The truth is, customers go to a business website in the hopes that their problems will be solved. They don’t care how awesome your landing page is, or how high-tech your buttons are. Those “features” will matter later – but first, build your site for your customer.

Belinda Summers

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