Quality Prospect Generation by using Postcard Marketing
Let's face it. Without quality prospects then you will not generate sales. For your business to survive in the 21st century, you must develop a consistent and quality Prospect Generation System.
We can help you generate Local and/or National Prospects for your sales force by creating customized Postcards to mail to suspects.
According to the Direct Marketing Association 2005 Response Rate Report, the following industries are the major users of Postcards:
Postcards investment as little as $24.99 for 100 without creative services
Postcard creative services is $100.00 per hour per project
Postcard Mailing Services
For a preliminary postcard marketing recommendation, please call us at (614) 759-8500.
Or, you can e-mail us: businessconsulting@kennardbrown.com
We provide B2B Telemarketing service for your outside sales force or for your sales department.
For a preliminary B2B Telemarketing recommendation, please call us at (614) 759-8500.
Or, you can e-mail us: businessconsulting@kennardbrown.com
The Realistic Remote Sales Cycle based on my REAL WORLD 16+ years of telemarketing & telesales cold calling experience
|
Suspects |
Prospects |
3 to 12 months or more to close 33% of Prospects |
|
Target Market |
Interested in more information |
5 to 12 conversations to close 80% of sales |
Suspects
Suspects are people that may have an interest in your service or product. Most companies utilize telemarketers to call a suspect list to turn suspects into prospects. The inside sales cycle (the time it takes to generate an inside sale) is longer because the telemarketer is trying to turn suspects into prospects. In most cases, the suspect that turns into a prospect is not ready to buy when you first call him/her.
It takes 5 to 12 conversations to close 80% of sales in reference to inside or outside sales. This fact must be taken into serious consideration when you develop any marketing strategy. Additionally, you will only contact 30% of the people that you attempt to contact via telephone on a daily basis.
If you sell expensive services or products via telephone only, the inside sales cycle can be much more than 12 months.
Prospects
Prospects are people who have an interest in your service or product. You can generate a prospect by calling them first and they express interest in your service or product. Additionally, people become prospects by contacting you first via direct mail, direct response TV or an ad placed in a magazine, newspaper or yellow pages. When a prospect indicates that they are interested in your service or product by initially contacting your company, they usually are in an immediate buying mode. When you focus on a prospect that contacted you first and is interested in your service or product, the inside sales cycle is reduced.
Telemarketing & Telesales
Telemarketing is generating prospects from a suspect list. It is another way to market your services or products. Telesales is generating sales strictly via telephone only. It is effectively executed by a realistic inside sales cycle and marketing strategy.
Inbound & Outbound Telemarketing
There are companies that successfully combine telemarketing with a prospect generation system by placing ads via different medium (TV, Postcards, Pay-Per-Click . . . etc) that are designed for a suspect to call the company for more information. When a telemarketer/telesales representative receives the phone call from the suspect, then that suspect has become a prospect. This type of telemarketing is called inbound telemarketing. The Postcard is a cost effective direct mail tool that is used to generate quality inbound telemarketing calls.
Inbound telemarketing is much more effective than outbound telemarketing because the prospect is calling your company and is interested in the services or products that you advertised on your Postcard. The advertisement, NOT a highly resistant outbound telemarketing promotion message, was used to transform the suspect into a prospect.
Outbound telemarketing is truly COLD CALLING because the business has not indicated that they are interested in your service or product BEFORE you contact them. This type of telemarketing is very difficult.
Business B2B Telemarketing
Yet, based on my REAL WORLD experience, B2B COLD CALL telemarketing can be very effective if you are realistic about the inside sales cycle. There is very little resistance to B2B telemarketing so there is less B2B telemarketer turnover. The KEYS to B2B telemarketing is knowing how to get past the secretary and knowing the name of the person to contact BEFORE you call.
Again, the average cold calling sales cycle can be
3 to 12 months or more. Additionally, if you sell services or products that generate a very high profit per sale, then the amount of cold calls that you have to generate to produce prospects is lower. Yet, the inside sales cycle tends to be
longer for services and products that cost thousands of dollars.
The key to developing a solid foundation for your business is to develop an effective quality
prospect generation program.
We can teach you how to cost effectively generate quality prospects.
Telemarketing, Telesales, Postcard Direct Mail & Pay-Per-Click, is one of the most cost efficient ways of marketing and generating sales for businesses. The key is to combine
Telemarketing/Telesales and Pay-Per-Click with a consistent Postcard Direct Mail Program.
Sales prospects consist of people that are willing to consider your services or products after initial communication with your company representatives.
If you increase the volume of prospects, then you should increase revenues.
We give advice covering any of the following five areas:
We design direct marketing solutions that are designed to help you company generate better
prospects. The main concentration of our direct marketing consulting service is the methodology of generating
prospects by developing an effective Postcard Direct Mail program, Pay-Per-Click & B2B Telemarketing
prospect generation system. Please complete our FREE preliminary
recommendation on how to generate better
prospects by clicking:
Direct Marketing
Please e-mail us at businessconsulting@kennardbrown.com or call us at (614) 759-8500 if you have any other questions. We look forward to helping you improve your business!
Is it because you are not satisfied with your current income and/or you need more time to enjoy your current income? My business consulting experience has revealed to me that this is the main reason why most seek business opportunities. So, there are a lot of people that are not satisfied with their current income and/or the time that they have to enjoy their income.
The amazing thing that I discovered is that MANY people are not willing to do what it takes to succeed in a business! They want almost everything done for them or they don't want to schedule the time necessary to be successful. They look at their business as a hobby instead of an income generating system.
Realistically, to be successful in the 21st Century, you must develop, hire or outsource the following skills:
If you are not willing to develop or outsource the above skills, then you will have GREAT difficulty in creating a successful business in the 21st Century.
Most people when they start a business don't have the money (working capital) to give them the best chance of succeeding. One of the solutions to this problem is to get a loan via the Small Business Administration (SBA).
In order to get business financing, you must correctly write a business plan.
This is the key to obtaining business financing. If you're not willing to learn how to write a business plan or at least a marketing plan [which is a plan that explains HOW you will produce sales for your business-it is a VERY important part of a business plan], then owning your own business is not the right career path for you. There are many books in your local library that will teach you how to write a business plan and there are some good software programs that will simplify the process. I suggest that you get the software program that the SBA recommends:
Ultimate Business Planner
Additionally, you must have some kind of collateral for conventional business loans. If you're getting an SBA loan, then you must contribute upfront cash toward the amount of the loan. Collateral is a valuable, asset(s) [house, car, business equipment, commercial property . . . etc] that banks can take if you default on your loan. Please be careful about offering collateral. It should be collateral that you can afford to lose if you default on your loan.
For SBA loans, you must contribute 10% to 20% of the loan amount. For example, for a $200,000 loan, you will be required to put down $20,000 to $40,000 to get the loan approved. Remember, the U.S. government will help anyone motivated and driven to start their own business because the government realizes that small businesses ultimately create more jobs.
If you don't have collateral or you don't want to use collateral to get a business loan; don't have 10% to 20% to contribute toward a SBA loan, then you should seek venture capital opportunities. Venture Capital is monies given to a business owner with the understanding that the individual or entity that funds your businesses will receive a percentage of your business revenues.
If you're interested in starting SMALL and patiently growing your business into a LARGE firm, then there is hope! The government has a program called the MICROLOAN program that provides very small loans (up to $35,000) to start ups, newly established or growing small businesses. You can take up to six years to pay back the loan. Please click MICROLOAN for more information.
Additionally, if your vision for your business is to create a corporate empire like Microsoft, then please review the other SBA loan programs by clicking SBA loan programs.
If you don't have sufficient collateral to get a SBA loan or Mircoloan, then another option (in addition to looking for Venture Capital) for obtaining necessary working capital is to utilize your full-time job as working capital for a part-time business. You should be able to spend at least 10 hours per week building your part-time business and you should pick a business activity that will not conflict with your full-time job. I highly suggest that you start your business on a part-time basis until your business income exceeds your job income and you have little or no debts.
Friend, if you're not willing to work as hard as you work on your current job, then you'll not be successful as a business owner. When you're working for someone else you're considered an employee because your employer employed you. When you have your own business, you are employing yourself. This simply means that you have to work just as hard as you work on your current job.
I understand that you can't schedule 40 hours to operate your business because you are working for someone else. Yet, you should be able to devote at least 5 to 10 hours per week. If you can't do that, then owning your own business is not the right career path for you and I suggest that you educate yourself to become a Network Engineer (this is one of the hottest occupations in the United States; Network Engineers make good money, yet it does require a major investment of money & time).
So, whether you become a small business owner or a network engineer-YOU'LL STILL HAVE TO PUT THE NECESSARY TIME, MONEY AND EFFORT TO SUCCEED! One of the reasons why network engineers are paid so much money is because people know that they work hard. They don't have a choice! They usually manage 200+ PCs and their responsibility is to make sure that information is properly shared from one PC to the other.
What do you REALLY want to do? If you desire a profitable business, are you willing to put the time, money and effort needed to succeed? If you are, then I'll do the best I can to help you reach your goals. Yet, I can't do it all for you. I can only help you help yourself.
Interesting Facts
Kennard L. Brown
CEO
P.O. Box 506
Brice, OH 43109
Office: (614) 759-8500
eFax: (614) 340-7255
E-mail: businessconsulting@kennardbrown.com
©2008 Kennard L. Brown Co.