 WebProWorld Marketing Forum |
Does cold calling still work?
Yes, if you're careful of the fine line between being a welcomed addition to a customer's day, or an intrusion. An article by Kevin Stirtz posted on the Better Local Marketing blog addresses the issue of cold calling, because there are underlying truths in that it works.
Daisy Duke Needs a Blogger
Today's article brings a few opportunities our way. First, there is an interesting job offer from the folks at CMT concerning a full-time position blogging about the Dukes of Hazzard! Cool stuff.
GM Talks Blogs, Podcasting and RSS
A few hours ago, Shel and I had the pleasure of an 18-minute conversation with Michael Wiley, Director New Media, GM Communications, at General Motors.
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IABC Chair Blog Can Succeed
Fellow IABC member and blogger Allan Jenkins posted a scathing commentary about IABC and Chairman David Kistle yesterday (and has attracted a bit of flack in the comments to his post as a result).
Can Coporates Blog?
When it comes to the blogosphere, companies can be damned if they do and damned if they don't, so what's the answer? For some time, weblogs were seen as the online equivalent of standing on the street corner and shouting incoherently.
Effective List Management Can Save You Big
Let's talk about how to keep your postage costs down.
Skype Approaches a Crossroads
Is Skype reaching a sort of crossroads with its internet phone service in terms of customer satisfaction ...
Understanding Work Teams
In the last fifteen years, organizational structure has undergone a shift from the individual climb up the corporate ladder to an increasing emphasis on work teams and groups.
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03.15.05
Effective List Management Can Save You Big
 By Jeremy Cohen
Do you know how effective each of your individual marketing tactics is? Many small business owners market in a vacuum. They spend money on brochures, advertisements and web sites with no real way to tie specific results to specific endeavors.
If you are unable to associate leads and sales with the specific marketing efforts that generate them you have no way of knowing what is working as an effective marketing mechanism and what is not.
The money you invest in marketing your company is precious. In order for you to maximize your marketing dollars you need to know the results individual marketing efforts generate. When you know the results of your marketing tactics you can make intelligent decisions about how to better allocate your marketing budget.
For instance, if you concurrently run a direct mail campaign, a search engine advertising campaign and weekly ads in industry periodicals without some method to discern results you will not know which effort generates the lions share of any new business.
If you don't know that your direct mail campaign yielded 90% of your revenue with a 2% response rate, you are powerless to make the wise decision to reinvest in the direct mail campaign and make changes to or drop entirely the other campaigns. What's more, if you can figure out how to double the response rate of your mail campaign, you can nearly double the revenue your marketing campaign without spending money on search engine marketing and periodical advertisements.
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Measuring your marketing results will help you save money by allowing you to eliminate unproductive marketing tactics and at the same time, will help you make more money by allowing you to reinvest in productive marketing tactics.
Do you have a method for measuring the effect of your marketing?
Here are four tips for gathering the information you need to make wise marketing investment decisions.
Use a Database
Start by designing a database to keep track of individual marketing efforts and the leads and sales they generate. Make sure you include fields to track the dates of your campaigns, campaign descriptions, the number of leads generated and sales made. Once you have a central storage location for this information you will be able to make queries to glean the information you need to make wise marketing decisions.
Ask Questions
When you or your staff speaks with a prospect on the phone make sure you ask how they heard of your business; was it a referral or an ad in the local newspaper? It's such simple way to gather valuable information many small business owners overlook it.
Be sure to ask your prospects how they heard of your business.
Make It Easy for Your Prospect to Help You Make it easy for your prospects to properly identify the marketing piece to which they respond. If you have multiple phone lines into your office you can easily accomplish this by assigning a unique phone number to individual marketing efforts. This way, you or a staff member can ask what number your prospect dialed or, if you have the right phone system you can look at the phone to see which line the call is on.
Data Entry Should Be Easy Too
Once you or a staff member have garnered the information you seek from your prospect, make it as easy as possible to have this information to be entered into your database system. If you employ a staff, make certain everyone is up to speed on your latest systems. Training is a must.
Move Your Marketing Forward
The idea is to gather as much information as you can about which marketing mechanisms generate the best (and worst) response, who is responding and why they chose to respond.
Once you have this information you will be better able to think like a future client, cater your marketing material to their needs and generate more leads and sales.
What are some other steps you can take to measure the effect of your marketing efforts?
Copyright 2005, Better Marketing Results and Jeremy Cohen
About the Author:
Copyright 2005 Jeremy Cohen, Better Marketing Results.
All rights reserved.
Marketing Coach, Jeremy Cohen, helps small business owners and
professional service providers attract more clients, grow
their business and be more successful with his coaching
services and free marketing guide: Jumpstart Marketing: More
Profits, Clients and Success. Get the FREE guide at:
http://www.bettermarketingresults.com/ |
