There are only a few seats left for our webinar this Tuesday. If you’re interested, you can register here. More information follows below.

Reserve your Seat Now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/187827022

Join us for a webinar that will help increase your sales.Brandon DelGrosso, Doba’s Vice President of Marketing, will talk about the challenges that online subscription companies face in signing up new customers and the strategies they used to increase their sales by 25% in four months.

During his presentation Brandon will discuss:

• Identifying relevant online and offline marketing channels and segmenting those channels into A, B, and C groups based on target customer demographics.
• Converting traffic to leads/sales through the sign-up process, website design and content, offers, and retargeting strategies.
• Clearing up any misconceptions about your product and explaining your value proposition and how to fix communication challenges.

Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM MDT

You won’t want to miss this exciting opportunity to learn from the VP of Marketing from the company that was ranked 23 on the Inc. 500 fastest growing private companies. Register now.

Space is limited. Reserve your Seat Now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/187827022

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

Not to beat the importance on following up on leads  to a pulp, but I did come across a interesting research study that shows just how important these are.

Something you can do to dramatically increase the odds of qualifying a prospect is to get back to them as soon as possible. The longer it takes to respond, the harder it becomes to qualify them. In fact, the chances of qualifying a web-generated lead over the phone decrease by over 6x in the first hour! Even in that first hour, there’s a 21x better chance of qualifying a lead within five minutes of its arrival than 30 minutes later. You also increase the odds of contacting the prospect by 100x if you call back in five minutes instead of waiting a half hour.

The source of this information is the research paper “How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold” by InsideSales.com. It contains results for a survey by Kellogg School of Management at northwestern University, a study by Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT, and a study by InsideSales.com and FranklinCovey on the topic of lead response management.

You have to register to access the document but the information is well worth it. You can do that here.

They say you only get one chance to make a good first impression. It’s an axiom I believe that applies not only to our personal lives but our businesses too.

In my previous post, I wrote about the importance of following up with your leads in a timely manner and how that can lead to a good first impression of a company and their product or service.

So what impression is left if companies don’t follow up quickly with leads or are unable to keep sales promises they make on their website?

Last week one of my assignments was to explore options for hosting an upcoming webinar. I did a Google search and clicked on some of the paid links as well as the natural search engine links looking for a solution. After a couple hours of research, I narrowed the list to four possible alternatives and filled out the contact forms on their websites.

One of the forms I filled out stated that the company would follow-up on every lead within 30 minutes during business hours. Since there were still three hours left in their business day, I filled out the form, noted the time, and waited for a call.

Twenty minutes later the phone rang. It was a sales representative following up with my contact form. However, it wasn’t the organization that promised to follow up in 30-minutes. I talked with the sales representative for about 15 minutes before hanging up. Thirty-five minutes after filling out the form, there was no call from the company with the promised response time.

By the end of the business day, I had received calls from three of the four companies I had requested information from. The one I didn’t receive a call from? That’s right, the company that said they would contact me in 30 minutes.

Personally, I would have been fine with a call back within 24 hours. But the fact that they promised a call in 30 minutes and fell through on their promise made me wonder if their product would do all the wonderful things that were touted on the company website.

A sales representative from the company finally called the next morning. I half-heartedly listened to the sales pitch about their product, but I just couldn’t get excited about it. After I hung up, I crossed the company and their product off the list of solutions we were considering.

In business, as well as our personal lives, commitments and follow through on those promises are important. If you’re going to make a big, bold promise on your website, you should be able to keep it. If not, prospects will flee to a competitor.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the power of the word “free” and how it successfully lured me into entering a drawing for a free month of personal training at the local gym. I thought I’d follow up on what happened and show the importance of a timely follow-up by your sales staff.

The day after the drawing, a friendly personal trainer gave me a call and said that though I didn’t win the free month of personal training, he was willing to offer me a complimentary training session just for entering. I knew that the session would probably be followed by a sales pitch but decided to try it anyway.

The next day I showed up at the gym and after a talk about some of my fitness requirements, I went through an hour-long session with the personal trainer. It was a very good workout. The trainer worked my back and biceps hard and proved how valuable a personal trainer can be when it comes to achieving some of the fitness goals I’m currently working toward.

After our session, the trainer gave me a very good sales pitch: persuasive but not pushy. In the end, I didn’t sign up for personal training sessions – not because I didn’t see the value in their service but right now personal training sessions don’t fit into my budget. However, I did leave with a positive impression of the trainer and the fitness company he worked for. In the future, if the need for a personal trainer arises, that personal trainer and the company he works for will be the one I call first.

So what happens with the leads that end up in your sales queue? Are they followed up with soon after it arrives in the queue or do it takes days or weeks before someone contacts them? Even if they don’t become a customer, are they left with a positive impression of your company?

Usually when someone requests information about your product or service, they’re hoping to hear back quickly. They’re looking for a solution and have a decision to make and have most likely contacted several competitors. The sooner a sales representative can make initial contact with a prospect, the better it is for both parties. The prospect knows that they’re dealing with a responsive organization and your sales person can qualify them and decide whether they should become part of the sales pipeline.

And just because someone isn’t qualified or decides not to become a customer, they should still be left with a positive impression of your organization. You never know when their needs or situation will change and the product or service you offer might be just what they’re looking for.

How do prospects feel if leads aren’t followed up with in a timely manner?

In my next post I’ll share my experience with one company and how their failure to deliver on their promise to follow up on every leads in 30 minutes or less, left me not even wanting to talk to the sales person.

ManageSmarter.com has posted a Sapha case study on how one of our lead conversion tools, a HookTour, was utilized by droppshipper Doba to achieve a 21% lead generation rate. You can read the case study here.

You can watch Doba’s HookTour here.

Even authors are using rich media as way to promote their upcoming books.

Best-selling author Michael Connelly has just posted a video on his website that depicts several scenes in his upcoming book The Brass Verdict.

You can watch the video below and decide for yourself how effective it is. However, if authors and publishing companies are turning to rich media to promote their books, there’s no doubt that companies see the value rich media brings to promoting their products.

Earlier this week, Google announced a new service it’s beta testing called Google Ad Planner. According to Google its Ad Planner service will help media professionals to “search for websites relevant to your target audience, access unique users, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries.”

Essentially, it’s going to give advertisers access to data so they can locate their target audience better. Right not the service is by invitation only but it is free. That could open the door smaller advertising agencies who can’t afford the pricey subscriptions to this data through other services.

Not everyone is happy about it. According to an emarketer article, “some experts wonder if Google’s Ad Planner service may be a conflict of interest. Will advertisers trust data from a source that sells them online advertising.”

Of course the only way to decide if Google Ad Planner works and that is to give it a try. Internet metrics don’t lie. If the service truly does help advertisers find their target audience, they’ll see an increase in sales, leads, or both from information supplied and Ad Planner will become another Google hit. If not, it will probably go the way of Google Video. (Anyone remember that service?)

I’m a regular at a local gym. Six days a week I’m either pumping iron or getting a good cardio workout.

I think I’ve used about all the services the gym has to offer except one — a personal trainer. Since I’ve been working out regularly for eight years, I figure I know what I’m doing when it comes to running or strength training. Still, whenever I see a personal trainer helping someone, I wonder if there’s something he or she could teach me or help me improve my workout routines or perhaps even take my running or strength training to the next level.

The personal trainers at the local gym are dependent on leads to sign up new clients and are always trying to entice people to learn more about their services. The most common way they do this is to change the message on a white board every Monday that people see as they pass by their desk on the way to the locker rooms. Recent messages have included “Get rock hard abs in 4 weeks,” “Learn how to burn an extra 500-1000 calories a day,” and “Burn fat, build muscle, and look great.” None of these have made me think twice about talking to them about their services.

However, the new message last week was enough for me to stop and talk to someone. The message? “Win a free month with a personal trainer. Sign up at the desk by June 30.”

It wasn’t the lure of rock hard abs or promise of looking great I responded to but the word FREE. I took the bait and filled out a card with my name and phone number and placed it in the fishbowl they were using for the drawing. The chance to win some free training sessions must have resonated with others at the gym because just a few days into the promotion there were already about 150 leads in the fishbowl. While I filled out the form, I talked to one of the trainers about some fitness goals and I wanted to accomplish and he told me how he could help me accomplish those goals.

There’s a reason the word “free” is still one of the most powerful words in advertising. It works.
If you’re having a hard time generating leads for your business, consider what you could give away to your audience to incentivize them to sign up or learn more about your product or services. The right giveaway targeted at the right audience could mean a dramatic increase in leads and future sales.