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Quick Telemarketing and Email Campaign Fixes You Need to Know

May 14, 2018/in Lead Generation /by Katrina Chua

B2B marketers are faced with a lot of tasks in terms of generating quality leads. No doubt, much of these efforts involve contacting the right audiences using a variety of marketing channels.

Aside from social media, B2B companies also depend on good old-fashioned telemarketing and email marketing in seeking out potential opportunities and nurturing people into buying product or solution.

Sure enough, various industries focus a bulk of their marketing resources on these two approaches, considering the value that they entail towards the bottom line. Telemarketing, for example, provides a lot of benefits along the lines of filling prospects in on your services and goods. For B2B buyers, sales calls are still effective in terms of informing them about a product they will find a need to purchase. In much the same way, emails can make for effective follow-ups to initial discussions, enabling prospects to learn a lot more about an offer and make a decision.

Telemarketing and email marketing makes it possible to educate target audiences about your offers. But just like any marketing approach, B2B telemarketing and email market have challenges that should be addressed.

Sure enough, both strategies have been at the receiving end of complaints by potential clients. Invalid phone numbers, inaccurate mailing details, and improper call scripting can no doubt result in lackluster results.

These reasons and more have contributed to telemarketing and email’s supposed unpopularity. Still, it all depends on how well B2B marketers are able to recover from errors, mistakes, and failures in the way they talk to a potential client or structure a newsletter.

Different companies have different ways of dealing with these issues, but often you will find these common solutions to engagements that went downhill.

Using inaccurate data

When you are out looking for the right audiences to engage, data should always stay at the top. But even more than that, accurate data is always the best way to make sure you interact with the right people.

Inaccurate marketing data is a problem, especially to B2B companies. It becomes even more complicated as businesses will have to handle and manage large volumes of lead generation data, creating a path to unsuccessful marketing campaigns that would put a brand in an uneasy position.

If your campaign fails due to incorrect data, never fret. On your next campaign, implement a marketing automation platform to help you validate your contacts list, eliminate inconsistencies and bad addresses, and enable your team to focus on real-deal prospects.

Ignoring your prospects’ needs

Forming potential partnerships involves a great deal of understanding what your audiences want. But in this case, it doesn’t help if you look at the general picture and formulate a strategy on general assumptions.

B2B clients are unique in their own little way, and being able to communicate in their own individual terms helps in building stronger ties with them. Marketing personalization is key to building relevant discussions around your product or service and keeping prospects interested, so it’s always best to consider the things your contacts know about the most and the issues that would affect the way they grow their businesses.

Implement your campaign again and this time, listen attentively to what the prospect says, conduct intensive research on the nature of their business, and create emails that “talk” to them on a personal level. You can enhance your conversions significantly, for sure.

You lack a call-to-action

Any marketing message should end with giving the prospect an idea of what to do next. In this case, a call-to-action, whether through voice or through email, is essential to making a conversion happen.

As much as they want to learn more about your offers, your prospects need a subtle kick to get them to buy in. It sounds easy enough, but it involves a great deal of warming them up by providing them the things they need to make an informed decision. Once your prospects are warmed up, it’s time for you to use a CTA and reel them in.

You can experiment with different kinds of CTAs and identify the ones to incorporate into your email campaign. Effective telemarketing, meanwhile, should involve creating a good script that could end a prospect up in a sales appointment later on.

Marketing and Transactional Emails: How to Leverage Both [VIDEO]

April 24, 2018/in Email Marketing /by Katrina Chua

The inbox is a crowded place.

An office employee gets 121 emails each day.
Half of incoming mails are spam.
Only 38% of emails in the inbox are useful.

How do you make your emails rise above the noise?

First, here’s what’s inside a typical inbox:

It’s clear that to engage recipients,
you need the right mix of marketing and transactional emails.

While these two types of emails serve different uses,
combining both can boost marketing results through:

More ways to connect with prospects and customers
Deeper insight into prospect’s interest and intent
Extra opportunities for conversion

Here’s how to integrate marketing and transactional emails:

#1 Understand the difference

Marketing emails nurture leads, promote offers, and make a sale.
Transactional emails are sent to complete a process
Marketing emails include: cold emails, newsletters, event invites,, promos, etc.
Transactional emails include: welcome emails, order confirmations, account updates, etc.

#2 Know what rules apply

Marketing emails must comply with applicable laws like the CAN-SPAM Act, CASL, GDPR, etc.
Transactional emails are mostly exempt from these legal standards.
For example, marketing emails require a valid postal address, but transactional emails don’t’.

#3 Separate them properly

Gmail suggests sending emails separately by purpose for better deliverability.
Use different sending IP addresses for each type.
Avoid using the same domain for marketing and transactional emails.

#4 Let the two types complement each other

Transactional emails typically fetch better engagement rates. Use them to:

Ask recipients to sign up for your newsletter and other marketing emails
Get referrals and recommendations
Carry out surveys and gather feedback
Point recipients to relevant resources like whitepapers, guides, webinars, etc.

Now, it’s time to improve your email results.
Leverage both marketing and transactional emails into your mix.

Crafting the Perfect Personalized Email

March 6, 2018/in Email Marketing /by Katrina Chua

Great news! Your email now has lesser chances of getting thrashed right away even if you address your prospect by Mr. or Ms with his last name, unless it goes directly to other folders like SOCIAL and PROMOTIONS or worst, in the SPAM folder.

However, still, the words you use and your communication approach will determine the fate of your email- it’ll either be opened, starred and marked as important or be left unread, DELETED and thrashed. If your opened emails statistics remain at 10% and below, then it’s time to revise writing styles.

7 Stats that Says Email Marketing is the BEST Among Other Channels [INFOGRAPHIC]

40 B2B Sales Email Templates for Every Situation [Free PDF]

You’ve got to grab some insights that could help your emails get noticed by prospects.

Just like the standard letter, a business email is composed of 4 important parts: the subject line, the salutation or greetings, the body and the closing. Take a look at how you can recreate each part and come up with the best personalized email:

Subject line

Subject lines must be catchy and something that would urge readers to open your email. It must stand out among all other emails in your reader’s inbox, showing an apparent difference at the same time perk up the prospect’s curiosity. Make your subject line short but relevant.

Thrillist: “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities”

Warby Parker: “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”

Digital Marketer: “IS this the hottest career in marketing?”

Salutation or Greeting

You will need to profile your prospect first before you decide on the greeting part. There are prospects that care less about how they are being addressed but you should consider those who are quite picky. According to HubSpot, the usual “Hi” and “Hello” may still work but there are opening lines that will instantly hook buyers. Email Opening lines that:

Use questions:”Did you know (interesting fact)”

Trigger events: “Congratulations on ..”

Boost their ego: “Great insights at the Y summit”

Leverage commonalities: “Like you, I love..”

Add value: “I help companies like your solve..”

Body

If this is the first time you are writing to a certain prospect, it’s imperative that you introduce yourself and the company you are representing. Do not assume for the prospect to have the luxury of time to google information about you and your company (although some are likely to do so when they aren’t so busy).

Let the prospect know the reason why you wrote, share an overview of your product or service and a 3-bullet point benefit.
Attach CTAs (call-to-action) like links to your company website, HTML query or chat and contact information like phone number and email.
Make it short, limiting to 100 words.

Closing

Thank the prospect and let him know that you’d be pleased to hear some questions from him by replying to the email or calling your direct line.

Put your full name, your designation, company name and don’t forget to include your best to reach number and email.

Boost open rates and increase revenue may be the basic reasons why you should personalize emails but top that with gaining your prospect’s trust that you are not a robot but a human professional who has the answers to his questions that will benefit his business.

5 Email Opening Tips to Conquer Shorter Attention Spans [VIDEO]

February 27, 2018/in Email Marketing /by Katrina Chua

Attention spans are getting shorter.
One study claims it’s shorter than a goldfish’s.

But this doesn’t mean people now have fishlike intelligence.
We simply got smarter at spending our attention.

That’s the key to getting your emails opened and read.
You have to show they’re worth people’s attention
… and you only have 8 seconds to do this.

Follow these proven tips to make each crucial second count.

#1 Figure out the best sending schedule

Send times affect email engagement rates.

Research shows mid-morning on weekdays work best.

Tweak your send times based on your own campaign and audience.

#2 Spend extra effort crafting your subject line

47% of recipients open emails based on subject lines alone.

Good subject lines use recipients’ curiosity and self-interest.

Come up with 2 to 3 subject line ideas and test each one.

#3 Avoid starting with “Hi, my name is…”

Opening lines affect whether your emails get read.

Your email won’t be worth reading if it starts off by talking about you.

Hook your prospects by making the opening about them.

#4 Show that you really did your homework

Personalized emails fetch 29% more opens and 41% higher CTRs than generic emails.

But deeper personalization improves conversion by up to 360%.

Open by mentioning a recent trigger event or a shared background.

#5 Pay attention to layout and formatting

Recipients spend only 5 seconds scanning an email.

In one glance, your prospect should know what the message is about.

Break the body into smaller chunks and make key items stand out.

But as attention spans continue to dwindle,
this is the best way to email prospects:

Seek respect, not attention.
It lasts longer.
–Z. Abdelnour

How to Make Sure Your Cold Emails Make it to the Inbox [VIDEO]

February 16, 2018/in Email Marketing /by Katrina Chua

1 in 5 commercial emails sent never reaches the inbox.

6% end up in the spam folder
14% are blocked by ISPs entirely.

For cold emails, inbox placement becomes even more challenging.

That’s because…

You don’t have a relationship with your recipient yet.
You’re sending unsolicited messages.

But this doesn’t mean cold emails are spam.

That’s why they belong to the inbox, not the junk folder.

Follow these steps to make sure things stay that way…

A Visual Guide to Email Marketing Analytics [INFOGRAPHIC]

40 B2B Sales Email Templates for Every Situation [Free PDF]

Step 1: Scrub your list thoroughly

Your cold outreach’s success depends on the quality of your list.

Use list cleaning tools and services to remove bad addresses
Run a double opt-in campaign, especially when using a third-party list

Step 2: Check your copy for spam triggers

Your email’s content and design can set off spam alerts in dozens of ways.

Limit your use of known spam words
Maintain a 60-40 text-to-image ratio
Link exclusively to reputable domains

Step 3: Segment and personalize your campaign

In the eyes of ISPs, there’s a fine line between non-personalized bulk emails and spam.

Add some prospect-specific snippets to your email templates
Segment your list and customize the message for each group

Step 4: Let ISPs know you’re someone they can trust

Sender authentication tools and services can help you improve deliverability.

Setup SPF, DKIM, and DMARC anti-spoofing
Sign up for sender and email certification audits

Step 5: Watch how you use your sending IP

Once your sending IP and domain get blacklisted, your emails no longer reach recipients.

Send emails in small batches each day and gradually increase the volume
Use a dedicated IP for your sending server
Keep hard bounces below 5% and spam reports below 0.1%

Remember, cold emails are not spam unless you make them that way.

5 Things Every Prospecting Email Must Have Before Hitting ‘Send’

November 15, 2016/in Online Marketing /by Katrina Chua

There are 5 things you must do before you jump out of bed in the morning and sip your morning tea: express gratitude, set your intentions for the day, take a few long deep breaths, smile and flex your muscles and forgive yourself from yesterday’s mistakes.

Must dos and must haves are prerequisites to achieving or accomplishing things. In business prospecting, email communication is one tactical task that requires a certain process and must include substantial data to support the content of the message.

Hey,hold on….don’t press the SEND button yet instead double check if you have these 5 important things every prospecting email must include:

#1: Personalized Greeting and Charismatic Opening

“Hi” and “Hello” are sweet words to the ears but may not be catchy enough to use as a greeting in a business email as using their first names like:

“Hello Brian” which sounds more personalized and professional.

Keep the prospect glued to reading your message with a charismatic opening line that tells something about them, their product or their recent achievement like:

“I saw your latest product on your website…” or “Congratulations for the success of your…”, rather than first taking the stage to introduce yourself which would most probably shun the prospect away from reading your email. See more tips here..

#2: Your Reason and the Prospect’s Reason

What other reasons would you have for sending your prospect an email but to make a sale. However, it may sound so straightforward to say:

“I am Fred, a salesman and I’d like to see if you’d be interested to ……” .

Make your message discreetly sound like you have the solution to their problem:

“We provide a full package HR solution from Consultation to Reporting which would be streamline all tasks from different departments”.

Thus, will give your prospect a reason to continue reading and crave for more substantial information in your email.

#3: Quick, Specific Call-To-Actions

Support your message with valid data so provide CTAs in your email to promptly address your prospect’s’ concerns. This way you’ll be able to track your prospects actions and take further steps to reach out to them even without them replying to your email.

Links to your company website
Chat/Query box
Downloadable Forms
Brochures

#4: Thrust on Gaining TRUST

There’s no better way to gain your prospect’s’ trust than telling them the truth and presenting facts.

Do a research and present validated facts in your message in order to boost your prospect’s confidence in what you say.
If you are not sure of the answer to their question, never assume, instead take a parking lot and get back to your prospect once you have the legit information.
Promise only what you can deliver

#5: Get close with your prospect before you close and sign off

Closing an email conversation is just as critical as the opening part. How do you end? What would you say to make the prospect warmly welcome your follow up emails? Again, this would lead back to how well you know your prospect:

Their interests
The circles they are in
Their engagements.

Take a look at the closing spiel samples below from hubspot:

“Always a pleasure chatting with a fellow Red Sox fan,”

John Doe

A pleasant extro connoting similar interests between you and the prospect is remarkable.

“Congratulations again on the [trigger event]”

Beth Smith

Leave an impression of valuing your prospect’s success. Take note of the five important things discussed above when drafting prospecting emails by personalizing your greeting followed by a charismatic opening, provide yourself and the prospect as well valid reasons to continue communicating, include CTAs, gain the prospect’s trust by stating facts and establish a little rapport with your prospect even in your closing spiel.

Take these things as your business “must dos’ and “must haves” and you’ll definitely be successful not just for a day but for life.

Email Marketing Series: How to Make your Emails Impossible to Ignore [Video]

September 6, 2016/in Email Marketing /by Rebecca Matias

Whether you admit it or not, email marketing is still one of the most reliable marketing channels in terms of lead generation. That speaks volumes, because the fact that it is permission-based should make it more of a challenge getting them opened, the same way that it is a challenge for marketing minds to craft emails that get opened or get leads to convert. The point is, email marketing works. You just have to know how to make it work for you.

I’m sure there was a time when, upon opening and reading an email, you said to yourself, “What kind of trash is this?” or “I could have made a better email myself.” or something along those lines.

Believe me, I know how you feel.

I’ve been in this industry long enough to have used all sorts of marketing channels — email marketing included — yet, there’s never a day that I don’t learn something new. Take email marketing for instance. New concepts crop up literally daily, but the fundamentals remain almost the same.

In this video series, you’ll learn not only the fundamentals, but also some valuable tips and tricks that would improve the chances of your emails getting opened – from ensuring they’re mobile-friendly to making sure they’re as personal as possible. This video series is not a panacea for your email marketing ills, but if you use them, I’m pretty sure you’ll see some positive changes.

Really, I am one with you in your quest to never having an unopened email again.

Episode 1: It’s All about Mobile
Episode 2: It Pays to Personalize your Message
Episode 3: Use a Catchy Subject Line
Episode 4: Cut the Chase

Episode 1: It’s All about Mobile

Mobile Marketing isn’t the future — it’s the present. And if you’re not exerting a significant effort in your mobile marketing, you’re already lagging behind the competition. This also applies in email marketing. In this episode, you’ll understand why it’s important to optimize your emails for mobile usage, and learn some tricks that’d come in handy along the way.

Episode 2: It Pays to Personalize your Message

Unless it’s from the state lottery department and it begins with “Congratulations!”, rare is the email that leaves an indelible mark in our busy daily lives. That’s because emails are not exactly the most personal means of communication. But it also doesn’t mean you should just be contented in sending run-of- the-mill messages that convey zero emotion or sincerity or both.

Pro tip: The more personal your emails are, the better the chances of them getting opened, and ultimately, getting a positive response. Here’s how to craft emails that would make the guys at Hallmark blush.

Episode 3: Use a Catchy Subject Line

Books have synopses, movies have trailers, even sporting events have game previews where the protagonists tell the viewers what to expect come game time. Some, like boxing and MMA, make it even more interesting by making the fighters talk trash to each other, get into each other’s nerves and exchange blows even before the bell. That’s creating hype, that’s how tickets are sold, and that’s partly how fighters earn eight digits in less than a hour.

Similarly, that’s what should be done when writing an email. If you can sell it — meaning, make it interesting enough for the reader to open it and read the contents — just by the subject line alone, you should be inducted in the marketing gods hall of fame. See your ticket below.

Episode 4: Cut the Chase

Everybody is so busy these days we all need to be direct and straightforward. Most, if not all would agree if I said getting straight to the point works for most situations — in courtship, firing an inefficient staff, and even when doctors tell their patient their prognoses. I mean, I like details but unless it’s a really nice book or a series, I prefer knowing the meat of the matter ASAP.

Same is true with emails. Save the preamble for your novel. Just cut to the chase and tell the prospect what’s it about. Here’s why.