RIP Cold Calling, Survived by Social Networking

Cold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business.

I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.

Consider the following data I found online...

In a test which spent an equal amount of time cold calling and using social media (9 AM - 5:30 PM; M - F).

Cold Calling Results

• Outbound calls made 325
• Meaningful conversations (pitches) and brand touches 80
• Meetings made 4
• Sales made (as a direct result of cold calling) 0

These are average conversion ratios for time spent but it comes with much overhead.

Social Media Results

• Inbound calls generated 8
• Meetings as result of inbound calls 3
• Sales as a result of inbound calls 2
• Brand touches (from site statistics unique views of content) 422
• Visitors to sales associate's blog Subscribers (RSS) to sales associate's content 27
• People following sales associate's Twitter 12
• New contacts 71 (on LinkedIn, Facebook, WeCanDo.BIZ, etc)
• Listeners to sales associate's Podcast 83
• Opportunities to sell found 21
• Online conversations had 39
• Warm call list (names generated expecting a call) 11

The cost of the social networking blitz to find new business opportunities, other than time and internet connection are small, if anything at all. Most importantly 2 sales were closed, covering any cost associated with the activity and generating a very healthy return.

The central question, however, is do modern-day sales people have the level of skill required to conduct a social media campaign individually? The simple answer is no. Not all salespeople will have the necessary skills, but having a skills gap is nothing new on the sales floor otherwise we wouldn’t have the multi-million pound training industry!

Can the skills be taught quickly and cost effectively? Yes. I have always taught people that sales is a process: follow steps one through five to achieve your aims. Social media networking can be processed as well, giving salespeople clear guidelines on the ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. We spend millions every year teaching salespeople to cold call better, use the latest CRM (customer relationship management) system, be better team players and so on; and so it must come to pass that companies will need to train all staff to be ‘social media savvy’ as it extends far beyond just sales – marketing and service need to be in on the picture as well. 

Naysayers?... Agreed, updating your Facebook page with pictures of the weekend, playing silly games, nudging or poking other people is not the best use of your company’s time. But creating engaging, thought-provoking, discussion-opening content, centred around your products or services is. 

Social media networking will reduce dependence on cold calling. I am not saying it will eradicate the need for the telephone – that perhaps is to bold an idea. But I am certain it will become the first step in prospecting for new business.

What kind of results are you seeing when you pin Cold Calling vs. Social Networking?

And In This Corner...

What research is available to demonstrate the superiority of online market research versus traditional -- in terms of "soundness" and validity -- and and vice versa?

In my experience I do find that online marketing methods are more efficient than traditional marketing in terms of "soundness," "validity," and most importantly, measurability and ROI, however, I feel an integrated, 360-degree approach is really key to the marketing mix.

Here are some great statistics on the effectiveness of online marketing but it also speaks to integration as a winning approach:

http://www.clickz.com/3626795

I agree with (name ommitted) who asks whether online is really considered nontraditional at this point. However, given the current economic climate, I find online marketing the more efficient of the two.

Unfortunately, the traditional marketing and advertising sectors are bearing the brunt of the current economic conditions budget cuts. Emarketer reports that 59% of marketing executives initiated a decrease in spending on traditional marketing in 2008 and 65% decreased budgets for traditional advertising. Additionally, the Newspaper Advertising Association of America reports that total newspaper advertising revenues fell by $3-billion in the first six months of 2008, marking the lowest level in 12 years.

In stark comparison to the struggling traditional marketing sectors, online marketing firms have been steadily building market share for several years and are surprisingly unaffected by the current failing markets. Displaying a clear strength in a clearly chaotic business environment, both paid search and online advertising revenue have grown by over 28% since 2007. Marketing Sherpa reports that nearly half of medium to large businesses plan to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) spending in the upcoming year.

I find online marketing benefits outweigh those of more traditional methods in that online offers...

1. Quantifiable Results.  Businesses who advertise online or use SEO can track and measure precisely how their company was discovered, the keywords used in a Google search, click through rates on advertisements, and direct sales results based on internet ads or searches. With this specific knowledge, tailoring campaigns to a particular market becomes easier and ROI can be easily monitored.
2. Flexible Messaging.  With traditional marketing and advertising methods, there are no second chances at making an impression or communicating a message effectively. Once an ad is placed and printed it is essentially permanent. Online marketing is a much more forgiving and flexible option. If it is shown that internet ads are not getting enough attention, companies can quickly and easily make strategic adjustments and reap the rewards.
3. A Focused Approach.  Using internet marketing, a company can hone in on specific customers that are searching for a particular product or service. Rather than convincing a customer to try their product, internet marketing works to position a company as a resource for those consumers actually seeking their specific business offerings.
4. Cost Effectiveness.  SEO and internet advertising is quite cost effective in comparison with traditional marketing and advertising.

Now more than ever it is important to think strategically about where and how a marketing budget is spent.  With online marketing options showing marketers greater value, flexibility, and insight into the changing trends of the market, we can expect to see more companies advertising online to help their firm weather succeed in the future.

What is the most important variable in your marketing mix?

Online Audience Development for Content Owners

It is true when they say content is king. But "relevant" content is key to success. All publishers need to make sure they have the right content for the right people in their audience.

How is the online content consumed?

A pull strategy (bringing people to your online content) requires SEO/SEM or display advertising to acquire the audience. This can be expensive.

A push strategy (delivering content to the people) is likely going to be key in getting cost-effective results and ROI. The best way to do this is delivering relevant content in a timely manner via email. In this case content is targeted to individuals based on their preferences and behavior.

Here are some more on some /pull techniques:

• Search engine optimization and search engine marketing  Seems obvious, but how many publishers do this? If you publish media in a given space, the huge number of topics that your publication or Web site covers makes SEO/SEM a totally different challenge.
• Co-registration  This is easier said than done for publishers that sell advertising, but basically the idea is that anytime someone signs up for an e-newsletter subscription on another Web site that's topically related to your Web site, you negotiate a relationship whereby your newsletter subscription is offered as another checkbox on that other Web site's e-newsletter sign-up form. Not surprisingly, Marketing Sherpa uses this tactic on a lot of marketing vendor sites. One advantage: They have a paid content model, so there's no conflict of interest. I'd like to see an example of an ad-supported publisher doing this with suppliers in their space.
• Landing page optimization  I know most publishers aren't using this technique. The idea is that the very design and layout of the sign-up page (for our purposes, called the landing page, the place where the moment of truth occurs, when readers decide whether or not to opt in to your site, newsletter, magazine, advertiser white paper, etc.) greatly influences the number of readers who "convert" or complete the form. By testing different versions of the page, you can increase conversion by up to several hundred percent.
• Tracking/Analytics  This is the adroit use of Web analytics programs to give you feedback on metrics that are meaningful to publishers. How many people subscribed to which e-newsletter products, and which were the most effective sources of traffic, both internally and externally? If you're doing paid search, which keyword groups yielded the best ROI? Which should be scrapped? Anyone doing paid search without tying it to some ROI metric is throwing their money down the drain.

Do you have a system for determining the relevancy of your content?

Email Marketing Tips for Targeting Inactive Subscribers

I've been managing an email marketing campaign for one of my clients for the past few years. The database grows slow and steady but it seems it is the same people consistently opening and interacting with the email content.

How can I get the others to participate?

Well, the first critical step is complete, I've
identified those recipients of your email campaign who are inactive.

The point of identifying your inactive recipients is to treat them differently - not to delete them, ignore them or cry over their inactivity. Your goal after identifying and segmenting your "active" and "inactive" subscribers is to spend more productive time on actives and attempt to re-engage inactives.

Here are some things one can do to re-engage inactives:

• Special Offers
  If you are a retailer, for example, consider a special offer such as discounts or free shipping. If you are a B2B marketer you might offer a special white paper that will motivate the recipient to re-engage with your communications.
• Survey Subscribers
  While you are not likely to get a significant response, consider surveying these recipients to help provide insight into their inactivity.
• Update Profile
  Using incentives, drive subscribers to your profile update page where they can change email addresses, update format preferences, demographics and interests. This updated information may now enable you to send them targeted and relevant emails.
• Understand Their Demographics/Profile
  Perhaps a large percentage of your inactives share a common trait. Perhaps they opted in as part of registering for a white paper or seminar or promotional offer. Or perhaps a majority are women, while your content is oriented toward men.
• Try Different Send Days/Times
  If you always mail on the same day or time of day, try some different distribution times (what do you have to lose?).
• Modify Frequency
  Now that you've segmented your list by actives and inactives, consider adjusting the frequency of your sends. If you normally send twice per month, you may want to test sending three times to active subscribers, but only once to inactives.
• Create Different Content
  If your analysis has been able to uncover some common threads among inactives, consider packaging the content differently for this group. For example, a newsletter from a job search-oriented business might logically find many subscribers becoming inactive after completing their job search. For these recipients, the company might want to focus its newsletter content on managing people, careers and the hiring process. Uncovering this type of trend should lead to providing different newsletters or dynamic versions based on a person's profile or stated preferences.
• Try Different Formats
  Test using a text version, for example, that is very simple but with specific links and messaging intended to drive action.
• Test Different Styles of Subject Lines
  If you've used a particular style of subject line, try a different approach with the inactives. Creative subject lines could be one of your most effective strategies in getting recipients to re-engage.
• Monitor Seed/Proof Lists
  Send your messages to proof and seed lists for key domains. Monitor if content or images are causing your messages to be filtered or treated differently with specific ISPs and companies. If problems are detected, consider developing different versions of the messages that may not trip filters.
• Send a Postcard
  If you have your subscribers' mailing addresses, consider sending them a postcard that offers an incentive if they'll update their email preferences and profile.
• Re-engaged to Active Status
  After each email message sent to the inactives, change the demographic status of those recipients that clicked a link to "active." This helps keep your focus on converting the inactives and tracking your success in those efforts.

Here is an extremely useful blog post from Seth Godin where he discusses the efficiencies and inefficiencies of two different email marketing campaign case studies.

What are you doing to re-engage inactives?

The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords

Those of you who have tried in vain for years to rank high for your head keyword of choice know what I am talking about. To those of you who are newly introduced to this wondrous world of SEO, I’ll say this: roll up your sleeves and prepare to wait. Or you can do the smart thing and just target long-tail keywords. You won’t have to deal with all that fierce competition for popular head keywords, and you will be a few steps closer to getting your site rank high.



It comes with one warning: the traffic volumes will be considerably lower than that from a head keyword. But then, the probability of your ranking high for a head keyword is less than unlikely, so the traffic from that keyword will amount to, basically, nothing.

It’s a quantity vs. quality argument. And when you do the math, you will find, the long-tailed keyword is the bird in the hand.

Last month, Google introduced an algorithm update and many webmasters saw a drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long. However, Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to you? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

• Ease When you try to rank for a head keyword, you essentially go into competition with millions of websites. And the odds of your ranking high for that term are very low. For example, if you try to rank for the head keyword “online learning” you’ll have to beat at least 36 million other sites to rank high. Instead, if you use a long-tail with niche terms relevant to your site, like, “online learning in South Carolina” the competition drastically drops to under three hundred thousand. And your odds of ranking high will improve too.
• Speed
  Thanks to the diminished competition, you don’t have to spend nearly half your life optimizing your site and building links before you can see your site ranking high for long-tail keywords.
• Relevance
  Since long-tail keywords are more often than not, specific strings of keywords with a niche term; the chances of then meeting the exact search needs of users are very high. This aids the target marketing methods of your overall mix and ultimately drives…
• Conversion
  The fact that search users will find sites targeting long-tail keywords more relevant contribute another point to chalk up in its favor. Reports attest to the fact that users with specific search queries know exactly what they are looking for and are more likely to turn into customers.
• Exposure
  This is perhaps the least known advantage of targeting long-tail keywords. Using long tail keywords over a period of time will eventually help you rank higher for your head keywords as well. As your site gains authority and builds its trust quotient, the long-tail keywords will help provide enough targeted traffic and also enough ‘exposure’ to your head keywords that your attempt to target them alone won’t prove to be all that disastrous.  

A great thing about targeting long-tail keywords is that you can play around with all the niche terms relevant to your site and try and rank for a series of long-tails. You don’t always have to target “online learning in South Carolina,” “online high school in South Carolina” can help send an entirely different set people swinging to your site. However, targeting keywords on your site alone won’t help you achieve all this, and I doubt if I have to reiterate the importance of building credible links with the right anchor test. Try to have your targeted keywords in as many incoming links (internal as well as external) as possible, combined with your on page optimization efforts, it will do wonders for your ranking.

What are some of your long-tail keyword success stories?


By Jennifer Pricci