Monthly Archives: February 2011

Powerful Cache For B2B Lead Generation

Posted on February 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

In today’s competitive market rapidly developing B2B companies do not depend exclusively on just one lead generation technique. The companies are forever equipped with a store house of tools for effective sales lead generation.

What Is A Lead?

  • In simple terms leads are potential customers that the company hopes will come back as customers and maintain a long term relationship.
  • An individual interested in the products and services offered by a company can be called a viable lead for the organization.

For Reaching The Determined Sales Prospects, Here Are A Few Considerations For Successful B2B Lead Generation-

  • Be Market Oriented-
    It is very crucial to ensure that the business leads are interest shown by companies / people, occupied in the same industry that you deal in.
  • Identify The Potential Prospect-
    A potential lead prospect is one who is duly interested in the products / services of your company. Hence, try to maintain continuous communication with the prospective customers. It is to be noted that probable prospects have an enhanced probability of driving traffic to your site.
  • Subsist Where Your Prospects Are
    The method of B2B lead generation is a crucial and effective technique. The base of your business may be in one particular city but it is absolutely mandatory to target the leads by city and by location.

Lead Generation in a competitive B2B market is just as much about quality as it is about quantity. It is a known fact that companies covet for numerous numbers of leads, but if not any of the leads are turned into customers, it is understandable that the wrong audience has been targeted. Thus it is crucial to assemble business leads that serve as advantages for your business. The above mentioned system can be a successful cache for effective B2B lead generation.

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Posted in B2B, Business Leads

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Useful Tip For Sales: Building Rapport On Phone

Posted on February 24, 2011 | 4 Comments

The use of phone in B2B world has become mandatory. Every B2B sales person has to make use of a phone to establish contacts or build fruitful relationships with prospect customers. In this whole process, great rapport with the customers can be built, by just using your voice as a tool. The best tip to gain rapport with your customer on phone is by using voice as a primary means. And, avoiding this tip may not bring positive results and then the rest just depends on sheer luck. No rapport with customer or prospect means limiting the level of trust building. So, it is essential to form rapport with the customers.

The key of building rapport with the clients on phone is by voice matching. The trick to match voice is quite simple. All you are required to be is focused.

  • Firstly, listen to the way, your prospect or customer speaks.
  • Have some open ended questions so that you can make an idea of how the customer speaks.
  • Then accordingly, as per their way of speaking, respond and match up their speed as well as volume.
  • When you speak exactly opposite to their way then it can be an issue. So, keep on practicing at different volumes as well as different speeds.
  • The best tip can be to flex the delivery of your words as per the way of speaking of the person you are talking to. Therefore, in sales effort, flexing voice as per the customer is significant.
  • Now, once you start matching your speed and volume as per the customer, make notes of the important words or key phrases that the clients use. Keep on making notes in a notepad so that you can use those words time and again with the prospect/customer. It is stupid to rephrase what they say, indeed use the words or phrases in the same manner as they use. Obviously the words that they use have extra meaning for them and these words are preferably their trigger points.

Following these simple ways can surely develop a rapport with them. Apart from this, use emotionally charged phrases as they have more energy behind them

Check List:

  • Form A Mental Picture Of Your Prospect Or Customer
  • Have a word with the customer/prospect and clear your mind by having an internal talk
  • Maintain a swift yet steady emotional state
  • Be focused on the purpose

After reading the write-up, you must have got an idea that voice matching is a key to building rapport with the customers or prospects. Hence, it is quite essential to talk to the prospect in the same pitch as he/she does.

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Posted in B2B, Sales, Sales Technique

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Low Risk, A Winning Concept In B2B

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

One of the key to being successful in B2B sales is by being a low risk provider. Here, people often mistake low risk with low cost. But these two concepts are light years apart and do not signify the same thing. Being a low cost provider often leads to negative results and should be avoided at all costs.

Low Risk Vs Low Cost
In B2B relationship, being a low cost provider is an unhealthy position for the most sales people. This is owing to the fact that more often than not the customers will find another sales person who will sell for a lower price than you offered. And in cases, when selling is done strictly on price, the low bid always wins.

However, being the low risk provider is an entirely different sales strategy. In this case, even being the highest priced sales person wouldn’t be detrimental if the buyer suddenly sees you as the real low risk provider.

Low Risk Provider Lowers The Fear Factor
This is due to the fact that low risk allows the buyer to win and stay on the job longer. The primary fear that buyers seldom suffer from is making a poor decision or one that comes with high risk. Risk is one thing that most corporate people shy away from. The corporate persons want little to no risk in their lives and their decisions.

Often risky situations results in a “no decision” in case of corporate people because a no decision is often like status quo and maybe no one noticed the extra cost or the lost opportunity of a “no-fault” decision.

Therefore, lower the risk with your customers more will line up to buy from you. Another key is to come back after the buying decision and showcase the good to excellent results. This action has a twofold benefit. First, it validates the results you offered at the time of the sale. And, second, it shows you are truthful and trustworthy for future decisions and actions. This can thus result in added sales down the road.

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The Changing Business Trends

Posted on February 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

With the advancement in technology, each and every aspect of human life is changing or to say developing. With the changes in technology, changes in business trends have also emerged. Every aspect of business, right from marketing, advertising to delivery has taken a huge technological leap. Let us throw some light on how the business trends have evolved over the years.

Local Market Trade
In olden times, that is the time before the advent of the internet, business transactions were undertaken either by letters or by telephone calls. As long distance calls were very costly, people preferred to advertise their business or products through letters. Also, most of the business transactions took place by letters that were delivered, in ancient times, on foot or by horse, and in more recent times by other modern means of transport. Delivering products or letters by foot or on horseback used to take months and sometimes years by which the required product either went out of trend or was damaged. Due to these adverse consequences, business people preferred conducting business operations in the local markets.

Emergence Of The Internet
With the advancement in technology emerged the new trend of advertising and marketing that is online through web pages and sites. As the most popular invention, the internet evolved, there came with it a huge leap in all walks of life. Business people started displaying their advertisements and products online on popular business websites as well as on their own Customized websites. As internet gained popularity, so did the businesses that were selling their products online. And as internet is considered a very fast medium of communication, it took only minutes for people to look through business websites and order products. Even the products were delivered on time as airways made the delivery process much easier and efficient. So, businesses started expanding globally and garnering huge business locally and internationally.

New Trend: B2B Marketplace
Another major trend that developed was the B2B Marketplace. B2B Marketplace is basically a business to business marketplace that functions online. A B2B Portal is a web product where all the businesses, whether manufacturers, suppliers or exporters, are listed according to the products and services they are rendering. A manufacturer can look for a supplier on a B2B Portal and vice-versa. Just with the click of a mouse button, you can contact a manufacturer or a supplier online in just a few minutes.

Business Through Mobile Phones
All the latest mobile phones are equipped with the facility of 3G and Wi-Fi that enables phone users to access the internet through their mobiles1 anytime and anywhere.

With the help of advance technology, the changes witnessed in the business trends have been significant. The changes have been positive and have led to further progress in the field of business as well in the field of technology.

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Influencing In B2B Environment

Posted on February 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Influencing is a skill that is required to attract customers towards your goal. Excellent communication skills and person to person persuasion is required for influencing effectively. Influencing is therefore a gamut of personal skills that needs to be attuned to one another in order to obtain effective results.

Push And Pull
Influencing behaviors can be of two types- pull or push. The pull or push behavior helps to determine which style may be used in the past and want to use more in the future. In a B2B environment there is room for both but in modern consultancy selling, the pull variety generates more success. Pull influencing entails motivating people with the effect of your forceful personality to pull people towards your viewpoint. In other words, imposing your will on the customer but at the same time satisfying their cause.

In case of push influencing, it involves the opposite. Here you use your skills to persuade and move the customer to the position of change which leads to the win-win relationship. Logical arguments and facts to persuade, bargaining and negotiating, bribes or rewards to coerce the customer are used in this type of influencing.

Styles Of Influencing In B2B Selling

  • Blend of both pull and push has to be used successfully to acquire the ultimate results
  • The salesman should be flexible in their approach to acquire maximum advantage
  • Personal power with the help of a pleasing personality should be effectively used to build a relationship of trust and rapport
  • The salesperson should motivate themselves to enter into the customer’s shoes to ferret out his problems and issues
  • Ability to diagnose the customer’s challenges and goals and what matters to them in their department or team or sector
  • Customer centric approach should be adopted
  • Finally the goals can be assertive to overcome their concern and provide a compelling vision or case.

Power Play
Besides power also plays an important role in B2B marketing. Personal power or the magnetism of the personality can act effectively in influencing the customer in B2B marketing. Positional power or the power of rank in the organization can also dictate the hold over your customer. Besides, reward power and coercive power can also result in effectively persuading the customer in certain cases.

Influencing the customers in B2B Environment is an important task. Today, competition in the corporate world is stiff and entrepreneurs have to look after their own vested interests.

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3 Tips For Effective B2B Branding

Posted on February 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

What do you think as a B2B marketer is the most valuable asset for your business? The answer is ‘Brand’. In this fast moving age where everyday there is a launch of new company, it is difficult to create a distinguished position for your business and carve a niche in the industry. A business needs to position itself in the market and build a separate identity for itself. But, building a brand identity is not an easy game. It requires persistent efforts as well as significant research to position itself as a trusted resource in the market. Here are the best B2B Branding tips that can surely help your organization to become a leader in the industry:

  • Coming Out With Innovative & Useful Content

Now-a-days, most of the companies are media centered and hence, it is much easier to provide customers with relevant as well as informative content. There is practically endless number of communication channels, through which the information can be provided to the clients. Be it company news, blog, Twitter or YouTube; there are many modes through which the information can be disseminated.

Latest company’s news can be disseminated through:

  • Email marketing campaign
  • Video marketing on YouTube or company’s website
  • Interviews with influential people and blogging them on website

So, whichever channel you select for promoting your brand, through content dissemination, you assure your customers that you are concerned and thus emerge as a thought leader.

  • Digital Networking or In-Person Networking

Direct involvement with the customers can further your prospects of brand positioning as the credibility that lies in words doesn’t lie on paper. Besides, also with the increased use of social communities, businesses can target audience from this segment only. Integrating with Twitter, Linkedln, Facebook, or any other network can effectively position your brand.

How Can Social Media Help You?

  • Through social media, you don’t force customers to buy your products, you just convince them by engaging them in your conversations
  • You don’t look for masses, but just the target sector
  • Before selling, social media lets you hear and listen

So, take advantage of online communities to spread keynotes and participate in panel discussions.

  • Don’t Fake

Be a unique character and relate to the consumers. Allow users to relate to your brand and don’t make false promises. If you will preserve credibility while showcasing yourself to the audience, more number of customers will turn up to you. So, be different and unique.

These were the main points that must be kept in mind for effective branding. Also, try to showcase yourself differently from the other competitors and thus enjoy a successful business.

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B2B Search Marketing: Buyer Is The King

Posted on February 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

If you are a businessman, your sole objective must be to attract more and more prospective buyers. In this current era or to say the web dominated era, most of the B2B businesses are conducted and largely promoted online using various marketing strategies. But having online presence doesn’t really translate success. Scared! Confused! Don’t be..Success can easily be attained only if you track the way in which prospective buyers search for a certain product or service. Now you must be thinking how you will achieve it…it’s simple by carefully drafting your search marketing or keyword marketing strategies.

Here, in this write up we will let you know the tips that will help you in making effective keyword search strategies for optimized websites. Following these will better your website’s chances to be displayed on organic search results.

Each Buyer Is Different:
Usually online marketing strategies fail because they do not cater to the whole group of buyers but are focused towards few. It should be kept in mind that when a buyer makes a purchase it is mostly a collective decision. So, your marketing plan should be not for one person but for a group.

  • The interests, needs and agendas are diverse for different people and thus their way of searching differs.
  • One person can look for technology while the other can base its search on cost-effectiveness or the easy operation.

So, what becomes essential is that your keyword strategy should be relevant to all.

Terms Used To Describe Products Should Be Known To All:
Keywords strategies include use of vernacular web terms. Prospects are not well-versed with that industry lingo and thus tend not to reach your products online. These mistakes should be avoided in order to gain an effective web presence.

What To Do?
Following are the points that should be followed in order to promote its business in the right manner using keywords strategies.

  • Put in user-friendly terms that can easily be used by the prospects while searching.
  • Brand names are not known to all, so avoid using them as keywords.
  • Use of advanced technologies hampers keyword searching.
  • Spot out the buyers and influencers that are involved in your prospects’ purchasing process.
  • Think on the lines of your customers. Think both about the products and the solutions the prospects look out for.
  • Create various landing pages on your website that act as entry points and thus facilitate different search techniques.

Taking care of the above mentioned points will assist you in creating an effectual search marketing strategy for your business.

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Email Marketing Strategies Useful For Your Business.

Posted on February 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

With the advancement of time, online business promotion has taken a new dimension. Marketing experts have come out with various new strategies; email marketing is one of them.

What Is Email Marketing?
It is an online marketing strategy under which an informative as well as promotional email is sent to a list of prospective customers. This is sent with an aim to promote the products and services offered by the company.  It is a widely used strategy that helps business to grow expansively. But not every entrepreneur is well-versed with the email marketing strategies and can thus carry out an ineffective campaign. To avoid such situation, read ahead as we provide you with effective email marketing strategies.

Hire A Consulting Firm Or A Consultant:
Rather than running an unsuccessful email marketing plan, it is better to take advice of an expert. To select an ideal consultant you need to consider certain points like:

  • Experience in the field.
  • Addresses your questions properly.
  • Elaborately gives you the solution.
  • Give utmost priority to your project.

If the consultant or the firm live up to all the above then you should surely opt for it.

Email Correspondence Course:
A course that is related to the products you are providing can be offered as an email marketing strategy. The course should indirectly compel the visitors or prospects to visit your website for further details.

e-newsletters:
Distributing e-newsletters has become a trend. It informs the prospects about the company’s current position. Growth graphs, new launch etc. are part of the e-newsletters. Also, links of the website are there in the e-newsletter, which bring quality traffic to the site.

  • Carefully draft an e-newsletter and ensure that it does not fall under spam.

Track Down The Results:
If the results of the email marketing campaign are not tracked down then it is difficult to measure its effectiveness. By evaluating the results you get to know the successful as well as ineffective elements of the email marketing campaign. Then you can stress on the points that are helping your business to grow and remove the irrelevant ones.

By following the aforementioned can certainly help your email marketing campaign turn into a successful promotion strategy.

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