Misc

There’s a great quote doing the rounds at the moment. It’s by a personal growth author called Dave Hollis and it goes like this: “In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”

With lockdown now coming to an end, and what feels like a dark winter finally giving way to spring, some semblance of normality is just around the corner.

For the business world, however, what does that normal look like? Our traditions and even culture have been turned upside down. We’ve discovered flexibility and the gift of time and space in some cases, with busy commutes and late trains seemingly a thing of the past.

EVOLUTION

According to the cloud communications platform Twillio, the pandemic has led to an incredible 5 years’ digital business evolution in just 6 months. That’s quite a pace of change.

Inevitably, there will be good and bad in this change but it’s almost certain that much of the digitisation is here to stay. What does that mean, especially for smaller businesses where costs may be challenged as investment is needed?

Regrettably, some of these cost savings will have been met by redundancies and while this may work for the short term, when the economy picks up and volumes rise, there will be tasks that need completing and possibly a lack of manpower to do so. It is at this point businesses will need to consider whether to re-employ or outsource.

Some of the traditional barriers to outsourcing (whether real or perceived) have also been obliterated by lockdown. Remote working is now seen as highly feasible and productive and it will be the lack of a physical office presence that would have put off some business owners from sending out critical tasks such as telephone answering or customer engagement. From now on, surely, we will be less bothered about where someone is and more focused on what they can achieve?

NEW BEGINNINGS

The rise of outsourcing is potentially good news for the UK’s economy, as we are known for being a nation of self-starters. It may be that some of those made redundant during this year-long crisis can create a new future for themselves, using long-held skills while maintaining what we now know as the reality of work-life balance.

At eDivert, we’ve seen the impact of the pandemic on so many different levels. We’ve seen an uptick in clients needing support as they run with leaner teams and the support we offer has become more diverse, especially in areas where technology leads the way. Online chat, social media networking, and email marketing are all growth areas for us and save our clients time and energy when they are outsourced.

We’d love to know from our followers, clients or otherwise – what your new normal will be? Do you already have plans to rebuild teams or will you try operating a more lean workforce with outsourced support as and when you need it? Use our Facebook page to let us know.

Business-to-business (B2B) refers to a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. Reaching new customers is not an easy thing to do. Selling B2B requires a different mind-set than selling to consumers. Great sales people do more than stay in touch with their customers—they look for ways to improve the customer experience and provide additional value.

Business to business selling requires a fairly long sales cycle; this can be challenging for your sales force. Careful implementation and management of your B2B marketing strategy will help you sell successfully; and strengthening the B2B supply chain will help you improve your business sales and service.

However, many small business owners don’t want to sell, some even think their product or service is so great, it should sell itself. So this key part of the business – sales – is often overlooked or neglected until it’s a significant problem for the business.

1. Research and Networking

Be the most knowledgeable sales rep your customers have ever known. Ask them how you can learn more about their business and develop that deeper understanding of how they compete and succeed in their marketplace. Attend user meetings or meetups, industry conferences and speaking engagements, not necessarily to generate new business (although this can certainly happen), but, more importantly, to become better acquainted with their challenges and hot trends. This gives you an open opportunity to learn from your customers and from their competitors at the same time. You can gain and offer valuable insights by listening to them, talk about their competition’s positioning, strengths and weaknesses.

2. Don’t get emotionally sucked in.

Without an established sales process, it is easy to get caught up in your emotions during a sales call, and this only serves to generate further fear and nervousness. Rehearse and refine your sales messages again and again, preferably with someone you know and trust who can give you constructive feedback.  The more familiar you are with your pitch and the information that you need to share with your prospects, the more confident you will feel. Always visualize a positive outcome before every sales meeting. Your thoughts can strongly influence the outcome and if you are able to imagine a situation in an optimistic manner, then the result will be much more likely to be positive.

3. Tailor your Pitch

Since B2B sales are often larger sales, there is a need for a customized solution to the customer, so they can make sure it meets their needs, and it’s worth the effort for the sales person since the commissions per sale are correspondingly larger as well. The more the proposal specifically addresses the customer’s needs and solves their current problem, the more likely they will be to purchase it.

4. Awareness

Don’t wait for the phone to ring or the email to arrive. Keep track of your customers’ news, events, blogs and social media updates by following their company on LinkedIn and hashtags they use on Twitter and Facebook. You may also want subscribe to their blogs.

5. Map the market and break it down

There is no such thing as the B2B market; in fact, it is a general label to describe hundreds of markets, each with their own particular requirements and selling points. If there is one consistent message that successful B2B sellers repeat, it is that business customers respond best to a sales pitch that is tailored as much as possible to their circumstances. How you break down the market depends very much on what is being sold and the value propositions it presents to business customers. Other lines markets can be divided along include age, income, political or cultural beliefs and buying behavior – in the technology space, for example, identifying early adopters can be important.

6. Direct marketing and telemarketing can work in B2B

Telemarketing is an invaluable B2B marketing technique for businesses. Even if a prospect isn’t ready to buy, the phone offers a great opportunity to personally introduce your brand. By leaving a positive image, cold calling encourages and nurtures the possibility of a future sale. Cold calling shouldn’t stand alone. It should be fully integrated into your marketing campaign, as it is often most effective when accompanied by email and direct mail communications.

7. Build trust and credibility

Business buyers are often spending large amounts of their company’s money and if they make the wrong decision in can have an impact on their career. Based on this, these buyers will need to have a higher level of trust in the business and its products before buying.

8. Finalize the Sale

Once the terms are agreed on, a purchase agreement, or contract, is signed to finalise the agreement. Send the final proposal over to the client, along with a contract they can sign and return to begin the process. Once the signed document is received, the sale is complete and the implementation process will begin.

We hope these tips will be useful to your company and give you a guidance of how to build up your sales campaign, which will lead you to a successful sale. If you have any questions or are thinking about starting a new email- or telemarketing campaign, feel free to contact us on 01628 637 900, info@eDivert.co.uk or check out our website www.eDivert.co.uk for more information.

Building visibility, familiarity and a positive reputation takes time and a series of memorable contacts. How many contacts (or “touches”) it takes depends on many factors, such as price, complexity of product, “need vs. want,” competition, etc.  But the truth is, the sales process is exactly that – a process.

Effective frequency means an advertiser’s determination of the optimum number of exposure opportunities required to effectively convey the advertising message to the desired audience or target market. Effective frequency is the number of times a person must be exposed to an advertising message before a response is made.

There was a study from Microsoft investigating the optimal number of exposures required for audio messages. They concluded between 6 and 20 was best. In fact, a famous advertising frequency theory was written by Thomas Smith in 1885. Funnily enough, it looks like the terminology he used back in his day is still current today:

1. The first time a man looks at an advertisement; he does not see it.
2. The second time, he does not notice it.
3. The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
4. The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before.
5. The fifth time, he reads it.
6. The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
7. The seventh time, he reads it through and says, “Oh brother!”
8. The eighth time, he says, “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
9. The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
10. The tenth time, he asks his neighbour if he has tried it.
11. The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
12. The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
13. The thirteenth time, he thinks perhaps it might be worth something.
14. The fourteenth time, he remembers wanting such a thing a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it someday.
17. The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum to buy it.
18. The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
19. The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
20. The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys what it is offering.

Market research continuously proves the obvious:  a person needs to know you, your reputation, and your product or service before he or she is willing to make a purchase. Interestingly, science has discovered that information transmission within our brains, such as what takes place during the processes of memory encoding and retrieval is achieved through a very complex process using a combination of chemicals and electricity. Importantly, three things can be done to increase the transfer of a single-minded message from electrical memory to chemical memory, which is when that message is stored in our brain.

1. Increase the relevancy of the message
2. Increase the frequency of its repetition
3. Increase the relevancy of the message and the frequency of its repetition… see a pattern developing?

Some marketing experts say repeating a message three times will work, while many believe the “Rule of 7”applies which states that a prospect needs to hear the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they’ll take action to buy that product or service.

Marketing experts like to debate the “right ways” to calculate effective frequency.

The rule of 7 is why “information marketing” is so effective. By providing free information to your prospects on a regular basis, you are building a solid relationship. Information offered in a newsletter or blog doesn’t set off alarms because it’s not a sales pitch; it’s a genuine attempt to educate and help.

Finally, simplify or automate the marketing process as best as you can. Too many entrepreneurs only market sporadically because they are “too busy” to market themselves. Then they wonder why they don’t have enough clients. Set aside regular times to engage in marketing activities, even when you’re busy. If you continue marketing even when you’re busy, you’ll have fewer slow times.

So you still want to know how many times you need to run your next advertisement?

The truth is: there is no single “right” answer. ’Effective frequency’ might mean that a single advertising exposure is able to influence the purchase of a brand,” says John Philip Jones, a noted author on advertising and marketing. “But the phrase was really coined to communicate the idea that there must be enough concentration of media weight to cross a certain threshold — that there has to be enough of it before the consumer buy a product to influence their choice.”

There is one thing everyone in marketing and business generally agrees on though: messages are more effective when repeated and sends the subliminal message to our customer’s brain which means eventually they will make that purchase.

At eDivert, we offer E-mail Marketing, Telemarketing and Social Media Management. Our services help businesses to automate their marketing process and have a regular influx of leads. If you have any questions or are thinking about starting a new marketing campaign, feel free to contact us on info@eDivert.co.uk or check out our website www.eDivert.co.uk for more information.