Callbox Blog

A Perfect Blend Of Lead Scoring And Lead Nurturing

by: Jan Loyala

There are various ways that your company can generate much needed business to business sales leads, from online social media to advertisements to word-of-mouth. However, it is necessary to come up with a strategy to make sure that those b2b sales leads convert to sales, if not soon, then in the near future.

It is a given that only about 15%-20% of your generated b2b sales leads will convert to sales immediately, give or take a few. So how do you make sure that there are no wasted efforts and all leads convert to a sale? The best way to do this is to plan a lead nurturing strategy and complement that with an effective lead scoring system. A lead nurturing strategy alone is all well and good, but without a means of effectively measuring how likely your leads are to convert into sales, you will end up directing all sales leads through your lead nurturing program, when they could have already converted into a sale earlier with just a little bit more aggressive marketing.

Not all sales leads will follow the ladder of cold, warm and hot. Certain unforeseen events may take place that could take them directly from cold to hot: a sudden change in corporate leadership, essential operational equipment breaking down or unexpected changes in company workforce numbers. Even an unfortunate reverse transition may occur with the leads in your lead nurturing program. Unchecked sales and marketing agents who fail to follow up on leads, unintentional communication errors that end up frustrating executives, again – changes in corporate leadership and other lamentable factors.

Your lead scoring system must be tested and compared against previously closed sales to ensure its reliability, and explicit and implicit scores must be well defined. Since implicit scores define attributes that are specific and unique to each sales lead, this should be utilized more as the basis for scoring throughout lead nurturing. Explicit scores define a broader characteristic for identifying sales leads, therefore are more effective in scoring during sales lead generation than during lead nurturing.

Continuous lead scoring throughout lead nurturing would immediately alert your sales team when warm sales leads skip a level directly to hot, allowing you to take advantage of the situation right away. It will also allow your marketing team to implement appropriate procedures to save a backtracking lead before it’s too late.

6 Magnificently Unfavorable Oversights in Running A Business

by: Jan Loyola

Running a business whether big or small, requires far more than just proper planning, expansive budget and great marketing. Critical decisions need to be made regularly, but there are recurring management decisions borne out of misconceptions that must be corrected to prevent disastrous consequences. Although no company can succeed without experiencing mistakes, the following errors can be safely avoided:

• Nurturing the “sacred cow” – if your business has been running for quite some time and you notice that progress seems to have stopped, take a good look at your operations and identify if you have “sacred cows” roaming around your workplace. These are policies, rules, practices, or even employees that have outlived their productivity or effectiveness. Outdated marketing strategies that fail to generate sales leads, veteran appointment setters who fail to meet appointment setting objectives or evaluation procedures that fail to recognize poor employee performance.

• Hiring an outsourcing firm and expecting them to do everything – No, it does not mean they are inept. You just have to check-in every once in a while to check on progress (how many business appointments can you look forward to next week?) , problems they have encountered (is the revised appointment setting process productive?), and so on.

• Settling for revenue plateau – businesses should strive for growth. Just because you’re earning according to your annual revenue forecast does not  mean you should settle for just that. Find ways on how to increase your revenue by seeking out new business sales leads and opportunities  enhancing your business plan, or optimizing marketing strategies to maximize profitability.

• Going derailed over media – PR is not your priority, customer satisfaction is. Spending too much on advertising without leaving a budget for product development spells disaster. Sure you will generate new business sales lead but without an effective product to back up all the hype you have generated, these leads would never convert into sales.

• Over hiring – Although it is a sign of a growth when your company decides to hire additional workforce, there are important things to note before making this decision: will the projects be able to sustain the additional employee salaries? Will the additional workforce increase productivity on a long-term basis? Are you merely taking advantage of the large number of unemployed individuals willing to be underpaid? If you answered yes to the last question, then you’re definitely making a huge mistake.

• Hiring under-qualified applicants - good talent comes with a price. Not a few business owners have hired cheap under- qualified applicants with the hopes of training them through the process, only to end up micromanaging their entire business instead of developing ways to grow the business. Hiring talented and skilled employees is an investment that company leaders should not be afraid to make. They are the people who turn your plans into reality, bring innovation, and carry your business to success.

Are Your Management Skills Effective?

by: Jan Loyola

It’s been said over and over again: good leadership and management qualities help a team produce positive results. If your telemarketing team are not delivering the results that they are supposed to, don’t be quick to assume that you need to replace them with fresh new talent. It may just be that they are highlighting your managerial lapses.

Read on and see if these problems are present in your current management, then take the appropriate action.

• Inappropriately skilled team -Your telemarketing campaign will never be productive no matter how many members are in your team if none of them know how to make effective telemarketing calls. Hiring an under-qualified telemarketer because of time-constraint will only cause your campaign to lag even more. Equally counterproductive is a team of underperforming professional telemarketers and one or two over achievers. The top employees will only end up shouldering the weight of the rest of the team, and the underperformers will keep underperforming. It would be better to reverse that ratio, or better yet, put your best telemarketers together in a team and strive to foster good competition among the members.

• Ineffective incentives – most managers think that money and power are the only motivating factors for their employees. Great employees are also motivated by other, more altruistic factors like a challenging new project or a chance to work on something they are passionate about. Take the time to ask your employees if they find their work challenging enough, and if they don’t, give them a chance to work on bigger projects. You might be surprised how well they can improve your sales and marketing operations.

• Not listening to your team – Conflicting ideas that aren’t settled immediately often lead to people following what they personally think is right, which could result to delays in reaching your goals. For example, members of your telemarketing team may have conceptualized new cold calling techniques that they believe would greatly improve your tele prospecting strategies; they did not  get a chance to share their thoughts, but they went with their new strategy anyway. To avoid unnecessary mishaps, let your people speak, then hear out their opinions. This way you can incorporate the best suggestions to your plan, or explain to them why their suggestions won’t be effective.

• Destructive criticism – Avoid scolding a telemarketer who has made a mistake on the floor, in front of his team. He may appear to be able to get over it afterwards, but inside he never will. In fact this will effectively breed contempt, and your employee will eventually lose respect for you. Instead, take him to your office, and correct his error there. He will respect you more for it.

Startup Basics

by: Jan Loyola

Of the hundreds of startups that launch every month, over 99% of these are bound to fail. There are varying reasons for their failure, but more often than not, it is due to inadequate planning.The 1% of the equation usually credit their success to great timing, proper marketing, passion and unbending determination. Your business can have a better chance of joining the privileged 1% by following these basic guidelines.

• Secure budget specifically for your startup. Starting a business often requires more than your initial budget, and amateur entrepreneurs often end up dipping into their own pockets to supplement business operational expenses. If left unchecked, this habit could lead to serious financial problems. By separating your personal and business expenses, you can avoid going bankrupt.

• Specify and research your target market so that your sales and marketing efforts are optimized to reach the right audience. Take note not to forget that a percentage of your market may be disconnected from the Internet, and you may have to prepare a different marketing plan for them.

• Outsourcing is not your enemy. Try to find a reliable outsourcing firm where you can outsource operations in your business that require expert technical skills. A good idea would be to find a firm that offers all the services that you need outsourced, then start by outsourcing just one service and observe how they perform that function. If you are satisfied with their performance, you can talk about outsourcing other services to them.

• Do not hog social media. These days, no matter what product or service you offer, your target market will expect your business to have a website AND social media presence. Building your own website and hosting it is relatively easy enough, but what about social media? There are plenty of social media channels that launch every few months, and even from the longer-running brands, there are still too many to choose from. It is best if you focus your online presence on a few but important sites that are guaranteed to deliver sales leads (with proper social media marketing, of course!).

LinkedIn - this is perhaps the most important social media channel that any business must join, more importantly if your company requires B2B sales leads. It not only allows connecting with businesses in your target market, but also with larger enterprises that could lead to possible investments, partnerships and other profitable business opportunities.

Blogs – reliable and informative content is the cheapest currency for buying customer attention in cyberspace. It’s not necessary that you publish new content everyday, but at least stick to a schedule, like twice a week or every other day.

• Lastly, startups usually find initial business among friends and existing acquaintances. You don’t want these dormant prospects to lose interest in your business prematurely by always ending up drunk in parties. Try to assume a professional attitude not only in your business affairs but also in your personal life as well. You are, after all, the face of your business.

Utilize Your Comment Box Wisely!

by: Jan Loyola

There is a high chance that your company is using a popular social media channel for sales and marketing purposes. That is all well and good. But are you really using this marketing tool to its best capacity?

Social media channels are seen by most marketers today as an excellent tool for sales lead generation and especially for advertisement purposes. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow your customers to “share” and “retweet” your announcements and promos, providing you with a larger audience and letting your followers feel like they are a part of your company. But this is not the only way your customers will interact with you through your Facebook or Twitter account.

Social media presence is seen by active online consumers as a way to communicate directly to you. When your target market is unsatisfied with the service or product you have provided, they will not hesitate to post a comment on your account’s wall stating their dissatisfaction for all the world to see. You might think that regulating which comments appear on your wall would be the easiest answer. Well, it can be. Except there is a better way to deal with such expressions of opinion.

These comments can be a great way for your company to show how much you care for your customers. This functionality of social media is often neglected by marketers, which leads to a large percentage of disgruntled consumers. Why not leave those unsightly comments that appear on your company’s social media wall and instead focus on finding a remedy for the stimulus which instigated the comment? Then, post the solution or answer as a reply to that initial comment, rather than just leaving a “please contact our support hotline” message. People will see this as a sign that your company actually has a live social media presence. Not just one of those fan pages created to advertise a brand and then left to collect dust in cyberspace.

Companies who respond to user queries and issues are more likely to retain their customers, and having solutions handed to them directly will provide better satisfaction for your customers. A satisfied customer will not think twice about referring your brand to his or her friends and relatives, inadvertently becoming your brand evangelists and providing great chances of generating more sales leads for your company. Additionally, when others encounter the same problem, they can check your social media wall and find the answer there. This would lead to a good chance of people “sharing” or “retweeting” your solution, which equates to more publicity for your company.

These discussions and queries can be also used by your company for optimization of products and services and future marketing decisions. The multinational corporation, Dell, is already taking advantage of this strategy, so why shouldn’t you?

Kodak Memories: The Conclusion of Kodak’s Moment

by: Jan Loyola

It was reported in the news on January of 2012: the image-capture icon, Kodak, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Kodak dominated the photography industry in its heyday. There is no need to mention how much of the market it held or how much it raked in sales. Now, as industry sharks wait for Kodak to go bankrupt so they could buy its assets at a cheaper price, people turn to ask “what did Kodak do wrong?” By highlighting the great company’s errors here, hopefully today’s fledgling  businesses might be able to avoid a similar fate.

Restraining Progress

Kodak’s executives were so sure of the future of film photography that any new technology their engineers developed was put aside in favor newer cameras but still using analog film. With the arrival of mobile phones with built-in cameras, however, consumers began shelving their bulky and single-function cameras.

Let us put this scenario in the perspective of a BPO company, one of today’s exponentially booming industries. Most BPO’s initially began as call centers or telemarketing hubs. However, it didn’t take long for people to become annoyed with incessant telemarketers and bills were eventually passed to protect these consumers. This should have lead to the demise of the call center industry, but it didn’t. Instead, existing telemarketing companies adopted other services to augment their telemarketing services. SEO, consultancy, web design, appointment setting, lead generation and other services were added to make what is now a BPO company.

Had Kodak executives been as bold and explored other ventures, they would have easily monopolized digital imagery with the technology that their engineers were developing even before the digital age arrived.

Failure To Accept Change

In 1975, an engineer named Steven Sasson created the first-ever digital camera for Kodak. Short-sighted executives would throw this first digital camera prototype into a dark storeroom out of fear that it would affect the sales of their film rolls. Afterwards, company executive Larry Matteson predicted a switch from film into digital by 2010, but this was largely ignored.

It is ironic how the reason for the fall of this great company is its failure to grasp the digital age, considering it was the inventor of the first digital camera. In 2001, amidst decreasing film sales, Kodak executives decided to shift to aggressive marketing strategies in an effort to slow the shift into digital. In the years when rivals Canon, Olympus, Minolta, and Pentax already had TV cameras, Kodak was only beginning to venture into the electronics business.

How should marketers learn from this mistake? Perhaps the greatest example would be with the use of social media. As television and radio advertisements became increasingly ineffective, new age marketers decided to turn to social media channels to boost sales lead generation. It does not need to be mentioned how this marketing tool has been helping startup and established businesses since.

After a hundred years of service, it’s sad to see how Kodak’s errors have caught up with it. There is nothing left for Kodak today except for businessmen to strive to emulate the company’s success and learn from its greatest failures.

Should Marketers Pin Their Hopes On Pinterest?

by: Jan Loyola

Pinterest has been stirring up excitement for users, marketers and investors this 2012. Marketers familiar with  the site have been touting it as the next biggest lead generation tool.

Operating on open beta since 2010, the site has been awarded the best new startup of 2011 by Techcrunch on its annual Crunchies Awards. The recent addition to the social media family is securing its niche in the art of hogging: DIY crafts, recipes, fashion, beauty products, tourist destinations, home decors, gardening ideas, etc. Practically anything on the internet that you find interesting. It’s “pin” button will allow you to take any content from anywhere on the web and pin it on your theme board.

For now, the site is invite-only. This is probably because, as a startup, the developers are still doing ongoing modifications to the site, and the invite-only policy is to prevent overwhelming their servers while they roll out site updates. That, or it’s just a marketing tactic to instill a sense of security or exclusivity to the users.

The site’s users are mostly female (a whopping 82% of the users are female, making it the most gender-biased social media site) who pin anything from manicured fingers to interior decoration. All pins are represented by an image, to which a link is attached that would take the viewer back to the original site should they want to view the original post. Pinterest is an image-heavy site, which makes it highly attractive, and the clean background is pleasing to the eyes.

So what makes this online scrapbook so effective? Should marketers join Pinterest?
To get a better perspective, here are a few of Pinterest’s statistics:

• Pinterest already has 10.4 million registered users in less than two years.
• Research statistics done by Shareaholic reveal that Pinterest “drives more referral traffic to sites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined”.
• As of February 2012, Pinterest has generated 1.05% of referral traffic to websites, beating out Twitter who only drove .82%.

It’s true that this new social media will do wonders for businesses catering to women, babies, and children in particular. But UK’s pinterest user statistics reveal that there are actually more male (56%) users compared to females (44%), and more than 20% of these users have income ranging from $100,000-$150,000. Now that’s something for marketing people to think about.

Pinterest’s backlinking capabilities also offer great SEO opportunities for your company’s websites, providing excellent lead generation potential. Also, the user’s pins usually reflect what they need and want; which provides a great standard for enhancing your sales and marketing strategies to better appeal to your target market.

Since it’s an extremely visually stimulating site, marketers who have businesses that deal with anything but creative are having doubts on whether it will help with lead generation from their target market. However, companies offering like, say, automobile services, can still use this site to attract customers and inevitably generate sales leads by utilizing colorful and informative infographics, or create upcycled crafts from old automobile parts that customers can try themselves.

Perhaps the most important thing for marketers is that they have to be present where their target market is. It’s the same thing as Facebook and Twitter; being where your market is increases your chances of being noticed. And the markets are currently congregating in Pinterest.

The Seven Deadly Phrases In Telemarketing

by: Marlon Julius Mata

Telemarketing is one business that has been able to keep its pace over the years. If you think about it, the mere fact that it has stayed around this long is a testament in bringing more business opportunities for the company that decides to use this. It works, and many companies believe that telemarketers are the key to success.

Sure, if the telemarketing team you hired is one that knows what it is supposed to say. There are a surprisingly large number of telemarketers who commit a lot of telemarketing faux pass. Words are a powerful medium of communication. Choose the wrong term or phrase and everything falls down. But that should not be a serious problem, since it is fairly easy to avoid them – provided that you know these.

“How are you today?”– this is a question that is often used by telemarketers. And this is the one question that can create a lot of complications. For example, what if the prospect says that they are not fine since you called? A better tactic is this: Don’t say it. Just go straight to the point and tell the person at the other line who you are and why exactly you are calling them. Reserve that question once you have built a relationship with the prospect and that you are calling them back.

“Is this a good time to talk?”– more likely than not, you are going to get the answer as no. In addition, this question tells nothing at all to the person answering the phone. It is like you are giving them a shady deal or something that they can be better off without. Again, here is the better advice: go straight to the point. The earlier you say your reasons for calling, the more grateful the man at the other end of the line will be.

“I can’t”– say that word, and you are heading straight into trouble. Never, ever tell a customer that you cannot do it. You are advertising to them your capacity to serve them. The statement will certainly run counter to what you want to say. Instead, give them a set of choices and tell them what you can do.

“But . . .”– never say that if you want to keep your prospect. Words like this will sure to turn away prospects from you. Smoothen it with the word ‘and’ instead.

“I do not know” – then why are you in business? You would be better off if you just say that ‘you can find it out’.

“The only thing we can do . . .”– this instantly limits your prospects, and if there is anything they hate about, it is the limited choices. It is just better to list down the various options available and let them choose the one they prefer.

Keep a close eye on these little verbal missteps. Avoid all these and you are sure going to save yourself from a lot of misery.

Protect Yourself From Telemarketing Fraud

by: Marlon Julius C. Mata

In this day and age, what could be the biggest risk that a company could get themselves into? That would certainly be fraud, of course.

Indeed, that is one problem that entrepreneurs had to constantly deal with. It can take up many forms, but the most common would be outsourced telemarketing. Why is that so? It is because of the fact that a telemarketing firm is one of the easiest guises a group of tricksters can assume. Indeed, there are hundreds of stories already of small or medium business owners getting tricked out of their hard earned money. The worst part is that they are often left with the hanging in the wind.

Now, this makes it very important for companies to protect themselves and their investments. Take note that the reason telemarketing exists is to help firm generate a lot of qualified business leads. Business leads are just some of the most important assets a company can use to improve their operations. Think of it as the fuel that can keep the business engine going.

To protect those assets, it is important to follow some precaution. Just a few of these pointers are:

1. Know your telemarketers – it is one of the simplest means to identify the real ones from the fraud. By asking intelligent questions, as well as inquiring about their history, one can get an idea where things are fabricated, or the telemarketing firm is the real thing.

2. Be an investigator – sure, this may entail a lot of work, but this is certainly one of those sure-fire ways to unmask the conspiracy. By using the internet, print media, or even eyewitness accounts, a company would be able to know if the telemarketing firm can really deliver what they promise.

3. Consult the experts – It’s possible that the prospective telemarketers are working well below the radar, probably due to it’s low-profile image, limited advertising budget, or simple non-disclosure agreements from their other clients. By asking related agencies and associations, it is possible for the firm to actually tell if these telemarketers are the real deal.

These three tips are just some things that a company owner should know about when they are looking for the reliable telemarketing company to work with. FPA2CPZJZBW2

Why More Companies Choose Modern Marketing Than Traditional Marketing Methods

by: Febrina Tanghal

Marketing has come a long way from those days when sales staff utilized some form of traditional marketing schemes such as advertising, to current marketing methods such as SEO Marketing (search engine optimization), E-mail Marketing and Social Media Marketing. However, be it traditional or modern, marketing is a technique generally used to promote products and/or services to possible customers. Aside from this, it also aids in setting up a client or customer base. Anyway, whichever marketing strategy it is, marketing still enables the business owners to connect and relate with their customers in every possible way.

Technological innovations have driven most businesses to go with the changing times to modify their lead generation and marketing methods. From those old school conventional processes, these flexible business firms are open to try modern changes to execute their marketing campaigns. They have tested novel ideas and concepts in advertising their products and/or services in order to beat the competition. Though several companies have depended on the contemporary marketing nowadays, there are still some firms who prefer to make use of the tried and tested conventional practices to carry out their marketing.

There are actually numerous traditional marketing strategies that organizations apply to promote their market offerings, but since the surfacing of current innovations, they opt to these fresh approach in marketing. Rather than spending millions on a firm’s resources (such as on TV advertising or any other conventional marketing schemes), businesses can simply cut down their expenses by employing some new marketing strategies such as b2b telemarketing, SEO and email marketing and advertise it just as efficiently.  E-marketing is another term for online marketing. It’s a selling tactic which is gradually more  being implemented versus the traditional types of marketing. For those companies which intend to build an online presence in an economical way possible, then this can be the most favored solution. One of the benefits of e-marketing is that it can hit a bigger client base because it makes use of the World Wide Web as an effective channel to connect with more than enough prospective customers.

A successful business entails a careful research of the market, products and services. Indeed, it takes time and effort to know what strategies work for the company. Business owners have to find ways to look for the right techniques which can meet their customer needs. To carry this out, firms can outsource their marketing needs to reputable call centers to beat out the competitors.