By Nancy Landl
January 14th, 2010
Sales slow? Sales people sluggish? Here’s a quick fix to jumpstart sales so you can have a happy 2010.
Try tele-prospecting—pick up the phone and systematically call your prospect database. Your sales team can do it, or for a small investment per call you can outsource a program that will get leads flowing to your sales team—so that all they need to do is close the sale.
Think about it. The average sales rep is able to log maybe four or five calls per day. A professional agent can rack up 10-15 per hour. That’s 80-120 contacts per day, or 400-600 per week that can be made by just one rep. Put a team on it and you’ll speed up the progress.
Even if just a message is left, you’ve imparted knowledge about your company that the prospect previously didn’t have. Better yet, when a person-to-person connection is made and a conversation begins, you’re one step closer to gaining a new customer. There’s very little downside and a whole lot of benefit to reaching out and touching prospects again and again.
One of our clients recently said that “the only customers they didn’t already have, were the ones they hadn’t yet called.”
How many new prospects do your inside/outside sales teams contact per day? Have you ever outsourced tele-prospecting to boost lead generation?
By Emily Butler
January 12th, 2010
On SiliconValleyWatcher.com yesterday, Tom Foremski wrote about the “Killer Pitch.” What Foremski sees next is PR pros being able to drive traffic to news stories ourselves. We’d be able to dangle this carrot in front of reporters to make our pitch more enticing.
Foremski says:
“ ‘… and we have the ability to drive a lot of traffic to your story.’ In a world where reporters are increasingly rewarded not on the quality of their work but on how much traffic their stories attract — this becomes the killer pitch.”
Foremski contends that PR pros don’t yet know how to drive traffic to news stories. I agree to some degree.
But, the bigger point goes back to something that we discuss frequently here at B2BFishbowl. Ding, ding, ding – PR is changing.
Today, it’s in PR’s court to drive traffic to our content. It’s no longer enough to hit homeruns with stellar articles. We not only need to place our clients in articles, we need to publish content ourselves, optimize it for online eyes, and promote it directly to our clients’ customers. PR has more jobs to do these days, and content development is making its way higher on the list.
But, one thing remains the same—media bring third-party credibility that we cannot hope to duplicate. So, our pitch strategies must always address what reporters need. If that means helping to increase pageviews for their articles, then that’s an area PR pros will learn to deliver.
Do you think there is an ethical issue with pitching that PR pros can drive traffic to a reporter’s story?
By Megan Reisig
January 8th, 2010
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “PR is changing.” As much as that phrase makes me cringe, I think B2C and B2B professionals alike can agree that PR is ever-changing. This list of Ten Trends Affecting PR Professionals in 2010 sums up the trends that PR pros are likely to see this year (thanks to Crenshaw Communications for putting this list together).
Here’s a quick list of my takeaways:
- Social media will drastically change public relations in 2010—so be prepared and be educated about the many ways you can use social media.
- Reputations will be fragile and harder to control. With social media increasing, everyone will have a say in brand management. And, with this, crisis communications preparation will be more important than ever.
- The way people get information will change. Therefore, the way PR pros reach their target audiences will change. We need to get information to our audiences where they are looking for it.
In the end, the PR pros that embrace these trends and adapt to them will come out on top in 2010.
What do you think? How do you see PR changing in 2010?
By Matt Hensler
January 4th, 2010
Happy New Year! First, let me congratulate anyone who managed to keep their New Year’s Resolution until now. Keeping a resolution is difficult, and if it involves being healthier, then you probably won’t make it through the College Bowl Games, and definitely not past the Super Bowl.
As the first official b2bFishbowl post of 2010, I felt added pressure to kick off the year with profound advice that can be applied to your B2B marketing efforts (and maybe your personal lives). I’ll keep it simple for those working off a post-holiday hangover. Your one marketing challenge in 2010 is this:
Decide how you want to define yourself and aspire to be that every day.
Spend time to determine how your brand, products and services are defined for your target audiences. Then, each day, follow through to make sure the marketing communications you execute live up to that definition. Give your company appeal and purpose in the markets you serve. If you do it right, you’re sure to make your life as a B2B marketer a lot easier, and you’ll create strong relationships with customers and prospects in the process.
And, like other resolutions, if you begin to struggle or feel yourself straying from your goal, lean on others for support.
What is your New Year’s resolution? Do you have a B2B MarComm mantra that you are determined to follow in 2010?
By Adam Garcia
December 23rd, 2009
Being a graphic designer, color is one of the most important tools to convey a message. Color can be a deciding factor on whether a design makes it or not. And, a keen eye for color is a must-have trait of designers.
But we all use color in our everyday activities; whether we are picking out an outfit to wear for the day, or deciding what color to paint the living room. Did you know that 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency? What do you think your color IQ is? Try taking this color test to determine how well you see color.
In B2B advertising, there is a trend to stick with “safe” colors and stay within the norm. Here is a little neat tool that helps us art geeks find color combinations that we might otherwise not have thought of and bring new and creative solutions to keep things fresh. Also, props to PANTONE 15-55519 for bringing home color of the year.
In what ways does color affect your everyday life? Seen any breakthrough color combinations in B2B marketing materials lately?
