Lead Generation Through Writing eBooks

One of the ways in which lead generation is done over the Internet is by giving away free gifts, such as eBooks. On the Internet, leads usually mean email addresses of people who are interested in your business and the promotion is done through email marketing. The approach is quite simple. Marketers write an eBook that is relevant to their business and then promote it over the Internet. In order to get the word out, they will advertise the eBook on their website and/or blog. The marketers may also place classified advertisements on other business’ websites about their goods and services, paying them affiliate income.

As an inbound marketing tool, an eBook’s main purpose is to increase site traffic and act as a source of lead and audience generation. eBooks should be basic and interesting enough that non-experts understand and learn from them.

Internet visitors are generally very interested when they see free offers being advertised and eBooks are especially appealing because they always represent real value to the consumers. The Internet visitors will certainly try to click on the link and download the free eBook. This is where the process of lead generation is introduced.

When the Internet visitor clicks on the link, it will not take them directly to the page of the eBook download. They will arrive first at a webpage that will ask for their email address. That page will tell the visitor that if they provide their contact information (including email ids), a great deal of additional (and valuable) information will be available to them. Of course, the Internet visitors won’t mind providing their contact information because the reward will be to receive free things. This type of page is known as a landing page, lead capture page, or squeeze page.

Quality landing pages use success stories that the prospect would relate to when making a buying decision. As a general rule, Internet Marketers try to keep the content on their landing pages to a minimum. The goal of the page is to obtain the visitor’s email address; additional information could distract the user or cause them to "Click-Away" to a different website. Navigation and hyperlinks are almost always absent from typical landing pages. The absence of links is used to focus visitors’ attention on one choice: register for the email list or leave the site. Savvy internet marketers have discovered that convincing a visitor to sign up for an email list provides an opportunity to present that visitor with multiple sales messages over time, develop a relationship, and even cross-sell other related products.

After the visitor puts in his or her email address on the landing page, he or she will be redirected to the page from where the download can occur for the free eBook. At this point, the marketer has the email addresses of the Internet users who have taken advantage of the free eBook. In other words, the marketer now has a list of email opt-in leads, which can be used for additional promotions, such as email marketing.

Here are some tips for writing effective eBooks for lead generation:

• Know your objectives. What is your goal in writing your eBook? Clearly you want to generate leads and increase your database, but you should also have an audience takeaway goal. What impression are you trying to convey for your company, brand, or product and what response do you want from your audience? Are you looking to position yourself as the expert in your industry? Are you offering tips on a niche topic in hopes that your prospects will contact you to learn even more? Are you looking for a more interesting way of sharing your story or trying to establish your profile in the business community? Or maybe you’re looking to create awareness for your brand/product in a way that is helpful to your audience rather than promotional. Knowing your objective will help you set the tone for your eBook.
• KISS. Keep it short and simple. No one wants to read your 300-page eBook, and keep this in mind as you decide on a topic. Identify specific topics that will limit the scope of your writing. Fifteen to thirty pages should be more than enough for most eBooks. Remember, you aren’t writing a sales manual or company promotional material; instead, you are writing to capture and engage readers. With that in mind, don’t write in over-complicated language when things can be explained simply.
• Name your eBook. Done in tandem with identifying your goals and settling on a topic, choosing a title will give your eBook some structure. You won’t be inclined to digress too much from the concept of your eBook if you’ve already figured out a compelling title. And don’t be afraid of subtitles, especially if this is a business eBook. Subtitles increase your SEO rankings and more accurately describe what the reader is interested in.
• Write quality content. Yes, eBooks are downloaded for free (or in exchange for your reader’s email address), but people are coming to your site for a reason. Give them good-quality writing and show them that you are the expert that they think you are.
• Hire an editor. Although an eBook may not seem like an official document, you want to be sure that it is edited thoroughly. A professional editor can check for consistency of tone, grammatical errors, and anything else that might make your reader dwell more on the writing than the content.
• Design. eBook design is just as important as eBook copy. Sometimes it is even more important. A text-heavy, badly designed eBook will turn off your online readers, who have gotten used to stimulating, interactive online content. If you want to engage them, hire a professional designer to establish the look of your eBook. Use graphics and images in addition to the text, and don’t try to pack too much text onto any given page.
• Add an appropriate copyright license message to your finished eBook to let your audience know that they can share your copyrighted material. You can use a tool such as Creative Commons to accomplish this.
• Promote your eBook. You should promote your eBook anywhere and everywhere that you can. Tweet about it, post it on Facebook, share it with your LinkedIn groups, blog about it, and send it out to your established network.

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Email Append: is it a Hot Online Marketing Strategy or Too Hot to Handle?

To maximize these advantages, nonprofit organizations are becoming more and more a tactic to allow them to drive the growth of its email archiving: email add. Email appending is quick, relatively inexpensive and it works. Some nonprofit organizations report incredible return on investment (ROD, as well as donations of $ 15 for every $ 1 spent on email append. Despite this success and increasing popularity, e-mail add also its detractors. Challenge reviews the ethical question of practice and we believe it violates the implicit trust between a nonprofit and its supporters. Some even consider as an invasion of privacy of donors, should be considered spam limit. The process add an e-mail name and mailing address is not new, but as mentioned, has gained in popularity and legitimacy in recent years. fans all that when done correctly, the process more than meets all requirements of the CAN-SPAM and is fully compatible with professional organizations like the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). The procedure is simple. A copy of the database data of the organization (or part) is sent to an appropriate provider and email add processing. When an exact match is found, the email address is added to the file. When an individual can not match 't be, most vendors offer the ability to deliver results at the home, and -mail to say John Smith attached to e-file husband of Mary Smith. "Welcome e-mail is then sent to donors attached, also commonly known as e-mail" permission. "It has the advantages of receiving mail home help email, and gives the person an opportunity to be removed from the list if you want no part of the database of email. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] All of the exclusion clauses are removed , and all mail not delivered (outputs). The file that contains the documents are returned with the original post is current, accurate, addresses of opt-in e-mail. The DMA has issued guidelines on adding email addresses files on consumers, largely based on CANSPAM settlement. Support practice as well as several key requirements are met: * There is an established relationship with the donor, whether online or offline * The data used in the process of adding from sources that provided notice and choice regarding the acceptance of receiving email offers third party and the consumer has not opted out. For example, many databases annex are filled with records of consumers who completed guarantees Product or online surveys. During this process are provided with a choice - the rent of the parties. * e-mail addresses will never be manufactured, to guess or harvest. * Although not necessary, a message Welcome is highly recommended. That is true of all email communications, the donor must accompany the opportunity to be removed from the email archive nonprofit, in both the initial welcome message and subsequent submissions. DISAGREE some critics are not affected by the approval of AMD. So they could accept the addition of email followed by the "letter of the law, violates the spirit of practice, ie the" spirit of law "to the it was created. detractors argue that a person completing a questionnaire online or on the Internet has taken measures on other, and always a kind of consent to receive offers from third parties really do not understand the consequences of that consent. Indeed, there some validity to this argument. During the performance of its online survey to receive a lot of coupons, Ms. Jones Heartland, United States probably did not realize that "agreement to receive offers from third parties, had a day to receive an email from the organization that has donated $ 10 direct mail. The time periods to increase by consent, the giving and receiving emails, the worst crime, critics claim. At some point, say, e-mail this contact with the donor is no different from spam, not a designation of more spam. Append supporters violently disagree. To them, consent is an element of consent. For the most part they are right. Almost all email communications of the third part is based on the exact type of consent Electronic messaging bases, are constructed. They come to the logical conclusion that if you're not a fan of adding e-mail, can not be a fan of any other third party or by post e-mail the location, co-registration, etc. In fact, support preach holders, adding that the email is legitimate mail is sent to a known donor of the organization, not a cold prospect. Some critics would admit that point, but ask, "Well, you follow the proper procedure and joined the CAN-SPAM rules when it comes to individual games e-mail. But you do not have relations with others in the household. There is you must add email addresses in the home. "fans tend to agree but also disagree. Common sense must prevail, stress, and suggest the need for" home help to consider just a few questions to determine the legitimacy of the game logic of the house. These topics include: * When someone contributes to your organization, how many times the name on the check or credit card, but merely the channel through which the donation was made? * Is the gift as much a gift from the family as a special gift: * Your question is one that raises many different views among household members? * This is your call to a specific demographic or lifestyle? Depending on the Answers to these questions, it is easy to decide if the donor is purely related to the individual donor or really only brings one to the family. When in doubt, add the proponents suggest starting with the parties of a single individual and subsequently home test matches. No matter which side of the barrier is a suite - append supporters or add comments - in general all agree that adding e-mail almost always offers a very favorable ROI, often outstanding . E-mail add relatively little cost. However, as is the case with most forms of online lead generation and acquisition costs can vary greatly from provider to provider and customer to customer. the cost of a constant is how to determine the payment, allowing the nonprofit to compare prices and make an informed decision. Nearly all reputable suppliers only charge for their accuracy, given, has opted in emails. This is e-mail at their deployment have been delivered to the recipient's inbox. All jumps and email undeliverable are removed and not subject to payment. Also, donors who opt out after receiving the welcome message also deletes thus not subject to compensation. The price per e-mail attached is normally determined by the size of the original input file. This is where we find very big differences of less than 10 cents for every game in a quantity of 1 million or more more than 20 cents per game at a starting price of less than 100,000. usually calculated on each individual project, although it is often possible to negotiate a favorable price based on a project, the annual volume. Of course, the e-mail obtained are the providers of existing funds. However, consider buying more online and direct the efforts of generations will cost the nonprofit at least $ 1 per lead and for many, often $ 2 to $ 3 per person. That's as much as 15 times Donors cost attached. It is not uncommon for nonprofit to establish 5 to $ 10 in contributions for every $ 1 spent on processing the email add. more questions If you've weighed the pros and cons and decided to make an addition of a project, here are key questions that potential providers: * What is your type of opener? * What is the bounce rate? * What is the price per pound, not included in the e-mail: * Are there any additional cost, including costs of settlement? * Can you help create a welcome message? * Who are your regular customers to add? nonprofit nonprofit that found success online have one thing in common: the group has developed an e-mail files and donors is a priority to grow steadily and consistently. If everybody is not sold the practice of many e-mail add plays a key role in building this all-important foundation.

When Testing Doesn't Work by - David Baker

There are probably thousands of articles on the Web about how to test marketing campaigns effectively. You have a hypothesis, you have test variables, you have test segments, and you have some view of statistical probabilities associated with the outcome. That's a perfect world. Let's first assume you actually have the time to build a proper test and the resources to create the many versions -- and you can actually deliver on the test program and keep the program sterile. What do you do when the tests don't tell you what you want to hear?

A consumer marketer I know with a really large database decided to test the cadence of their email programs. They developed several test cells: a high frequency cell, a low frequency cell, a control group that was exposed to the same cadence they've run for a year, and then a hold-out group. Seemed like a pretty straightforward test. The group with the highest revenue would lead to some conclusions on how often they should send promotional email. Well, what they found was that the hold-out group actually performed better in terms of revenue than any of the other test cells. At first glance, you'd think, our email program stinks and all this work we put in is wasted energy. We can generate these sales without email.

This test somewhat backfired on the CRM team; now they had to now justify what they do day in and day out. But they realized that the frequency of communications wasn't an indicator of their program's success. The problem was at the root of their program: early lifestage messaging. They had a very progressive offer strategy for new customers and people who signed up for their product/service, and they were effectively numbing their audience to their email promotions. It wasn't that they had declining revenue for their retention audience, but email was not as effective at driving conversion under their own terms, and increasing offers didn't increase sales at the same rate as the increased offer value.

What do you do in a circumstance like this? Would the senior team actually believe this new hypothesis and be able to deal with the subsequent costs of ripping apart the company's s early-stage promotional strategies? Could they migrate away from "crack marketing," where you're so addicted to doing the same things that you are afraid to make wholesale changes?

The challenge with a scenario like this is, the CRM team didn't think about all the possible outcomes and dynamics that might influence the results -- and they weren't ready to react to the results.

Another story involves a company that decided to test the effects of direct mail and email through different scenarios: email only, direct mail only, and a combination of the two. Seems like a fruitful exercise. If you can prove that email has a better influence as a standalone channel, you have a winner from a cost savings perspective. If you show the combination of email and direct mail have an influence on increased revenue value, you can potentially leverage this to be very timely in your launch and communications. But what if every scenario pays off? What happens if revenue is down all around? What happens if you find that a large portion of your loyal customers are no longer buying through the email channel, but your paid search numbers have increased dramatically?

Testing is a funny exercise. It's hard to contemplate all the potential outcomes, and it takes a lot of energy to put together good tests. Is the trade-off to do it poorly and risk outcomes that you can't justify? That is almost worse than not testing at all.

I won't belabor the point. The only time tests don't work is when you aren't prepared to react, haven't thought about all the potential outcomes, or take no action at all on the results.

Reverse Email Adress By - MyFreeEmailSearch.com

Find Someone's Email Address

Reaching out to someone you have not spoken with in a long time might be easier if you use email. There are many reasons why people lose touch. The reasons why people drift often dictate how they reconnect in the future if they reconnect at all. Those that have simply slipped away because life got busy may not mind picking up the phone to call someone with whom they have not spoken in a while. However, when you have lost touch due to argument or other circumstances, it might be hard to call. When that happens, email may be a better choice, at least at first.

If you know someone's email address, you can just shoot of a message and wait to see if they respond. This can be hard because an email address may not be something that someone uses any longer. You won't know if they are ignoring you, or if you sent something to the wrong person. Someone who does not know you may not bother to reply to tell you that you have the wrong person.

Take an old email address to what would be called a reverse email address lookup. There you can enter the email address to see if you can find a name to go with it. That can better tell you if you have the right one or the right person. You can also see if you can search by name through a forward search. You put in the name to see if a matching email address comes up so that you can reach someone that way.

Once you have the right email, the only thing you can do is email them to see if they respond. If you left on good terms, they may respond as soon as they get something from you. Just remember some do not check email each day so it may take them a bit to get your message. If you left on bad terms, they may not wish to respond. It is better to know that through email than by calling and having them hang up on you.

If you have to know if someone has gotten your email address, try to use an email service that has a return receipt. This is something that works just like registered mail through the post office. When they open the email, you will get an email confirming that it was opened. You may not be able to do this with your email, but if you can, it helps to know if you felt it was important that your message was received.

Reverse Email Address Lookup

The Difference Between Reverse Email Lookup and a Regular Email Search

Email address information can be found in quite a few different ways. Emails came about and quickly took the place of some paper and even phone communications as more and more people got email service. You can reach people quickly and effectively though an email service. In fact, if you want to talk to someone on the other side of the world, you can know your email is going to get to them within a matter of seconds. When you need any type of information on addresses, you should know where to look.

You have to know someone's email address if you want to send them an e-mail. This is when you want to know more about a forward email search. Though there are going to be times when you exchange e-mail addresses with someone in person, you may want to reach someone that you have met but did not ask for an address. There are a few simple ways that you can go about a forward email search lookup.

One way to do a forward e-mail search is to ask those that you know if they know the email address for the person in question. If you gave met someone that your friends know, they may have the address to give you. It can be that simple. People are more likely to give you an e-mail address rather than a cell phone number. You can also see if you can find a email directory online. There you can enter someone's name to see if an e-mail address pops up. It's very simple.

However, what do you do when you have an email from someone, but you have never seen the e-mail address before? That is when you have to turn things around to do a reverse email directory search or lookup. This is when you would take an email address to various online sources to see if you can get a name to go with it.

Some of the best places to do reverse email lookup would be to find some directories that offer forward search to see if you can do a reverse search there. You could see if you get anything if you enter the e-mail address into a search engine, or see what comes up when you look at sites that were built to help you find people. They probably have a good reverse email lookup right there that you can try.

Read More on - http://www.myfreeemailsearch.com

Email Appends: A Powerful Tool for Email Marketing

Are you interested in expanding your business' potential by entering the exciting world of email marketing? Email marketing allows your business to reach both current and potential customers via email, which is certainly more effective than old-fashioned "snail mail" marketing tactics.

The Benefits of Email Marketing vs. Snail Mail Marketing

Traditional business owners may wonder why it is necessary to obtain email lists through email appends. Email marketing - despite what you may have heard about "spam" - is always preferential to "snail mail" marketing.

Email marketing is cheaper, since you don't have to pay for printed and mailed materials. Thankfully, you don't have to worry about expensive marketing materials being immediately thrown into the garbage can without being read. In addition, email marketing is far more eco-friendly.

The Legalities of Email Appends

If you haven't yet established a long list of customer email addresses, you can still enter the email marketing game. Through a system called email appends, you can hire a third party company to perform an email search for your customers by using their current mailing address and personal information. These email lists are extremely useful in reaching your customers directly.

If you already have your customers' personal information, it is legal to utilize email appends to develop your email lists. By relying on email appends, a business can immediately begin the process of email marketing, instead of wasting precious marketing time manually compiling a new email list.

Advantages to Email Appends

Using email appends has a wealth of advantages over just sending paper materials to the individuals on your list of customers. While it may seem like a waste of money to obtain email lists for customers whose physical mailing addresses you already possess, you will end up saving much more money than you would having your next round of direct mailers printed.

Disadvantages to Email Appends

Some people may consider these email marketing tactics to be spam, even if they did at one point provide your company with their address and personal information. However, even if a customer immediately deletes an email from your company, it is still preferential to that same customer immediately throwing away a piece of traditional mail; none of your advertising money has really been wasted in the aforementioned scenario.

Obtaining Email Lists without Email Appends

There are other ways to obtain customer email addresses besides utilizing email appends. For example, you can include an email autoresponder on your website, which allows customers to fill out a virtual form. The potential customer then receives an email from your company immediately afterwards.

The world of email marketing offers a wealth of methods for reaching your customers through electronic mail. It is time that your business stops wasting money on paper mailers and finally enters the digital age.

Read More on - http://www.myfreeemailsearch.com

Are Email Appends An Achilles Heel For Deliverability And Strategy? - by Ryan Deutsch

I joined a friend for a pick-up basketball game, played (poorly) for 30 minutes, made a move on the baseline and ripped my Achilles tendon in half! Four days later, I was in surgery, and I am now in a cast for the next ten weeks....arghhhhh! What does this have to do with email marketing? Not a thing -- other than giving me some extra time to read up on all the latest email articles and putting me in the mood for a good fight -- I mean, debate!

On Tuesday, I came across a blog post denouncing the use of opt-out email appends. For those of you not familiar with the practice, it is essentially a quick way for marketers with large postal files to add emails addresses to their database. For example, Acme Company sends their postal file to a database company, said database company matches Acme's postal records to the records in their database, and when a "match" is found with an email address they add that record (with the new email address) to an "append" file. The database company then does a quick "welcome" email to the entire append file with an opt-out only link and then ships the resulting file back to Acme company. The issue with this process is that Acme Company now has a file that is NOT opt-in and could cause serious delivery problems for their business.

While opt-out email append is not without risk, if managed correctly it can be an excellent way for marketers to grow their email lists. In these tough economic times, companies are looking for ways to accelerate the use of the email channel, essentially reallocating marketing budget from less "accountable" channels to email. As experts in the space, I think it is our job to help them do so responsibly.

We often look at things as black and white with regards to email best practices and deliverability. I understand and agree that from a delivery standpoint, email append can be a bad idea, especially if the senders simply add the append to their current list. However, I think from time to time we should try and look at things from the marketer's standpoint. If we know that they are going to go down this path, why not try to help them do it effectively?

Here are some thoughts on opt-out appends that folks should consider before deciding to throw in the towel altogether:

1. Only append active customer files. Do not append inactive or "stale" customer files. These result in poor match rates and are riskier than active customer files. Furthermore, it is critical that these customers pass the PBR (Prior Business Relationship) test. As a general rule, be sure that the customer has purchased and/or interacted with your organization in the last 12 months. If you append bad data you will, as the article I read Tuesday suggests, destroy your deliverability.

2. Build an append-specific communication strategy. You should not treat your appended email recipients the same way you treat subscribers that have been on your file for months and years. First, make sure you isolate your append mailings from your core programs. While I believe opt-out appends can deliver value to a marketer, we must accept that this file IS riskier than the house fi0

Done right, email prospects flourish By - by Jere Doyle

As brands look to engage consumers online, marketers are re-discovering the value of email marketing.

Emailing your in-house list is now the number one or two top online marketing tactic to drive sales. And it makes sense. Who better to target and engage than the very consumers who have asked for more information about your brand? Growing lists of quality customer names is more important than ever, and becoming a crucial part of every brand’s marketing mix, presenting opportunities for online performance marketing companies.

Within the last few years, brands have turned to online performance marketing companies to grow their inhouse email lists to help them engage consumers in a meaningful way. Sometimes referred to as “Co-Registration,” the leading and more reputable performance marketers are now employing the next generation of consumer engagement and opt-in. I call this “Non-organic Consumer Acquisition”, and it presents a real viable option to successfully add a large quantity of quality names to your in-house lists, thus delivering high ROI.
Co‐Registration fared well in the ExactTarget study, especially compared to other commonly used non‐organic customer acquisition tactics such as list rental and email appends. 78% of email marketers who have used coregistration in the past will continue to do so in the year ahead (see figure 1a), compared to 63% for list rental and 67% for email appends.

Five practices that will lead to much higher quality registrations are:

1. Single Brand Registration: Make sure that consumers register for brands email list one advertiser at a time. In fact, this is why I don’t like the name Co-Registration. The best consumer acquisition programs drive users to exclusive landing pages, and ask the consumer to input their information for each specific list they are subscribing to. Live by the rule that consumers opt-in one advertiser at a time.

2. Give Value, Not Coercion: Make sure that consumers are not falsely coerced to join your email list in any way. Present real value and allow the consumers to decide if they want to opt-in to your list.

3. Never, Ever Share Data: Be certain that there is a clear policy never to share data with any other company - and make that policy clear to your consumers.

4. The Right People on the Right List: Make sure your partner is using the most sophisticated targeting methods so that the right consumers are driven to sign up for your email list. At Prospectiv, we’ve seen a lot of success using PrismPro™, our proprietary technology that ensures consumers only see offers that are relevant to them.

5. Track and Evaluate: Be sure you track where all of the consumers who are subscribing to your list are originating from, and evaluate the performance of the source on a timely basis.

Unfortunately, not all Co-Registration campaigns are run the same way. Co‐Registration has gotten a somewhat poor reputation within the industry because of some questionable and even aggressive practices by certain performance marketing companies. “Using ‘one advertiser at a time’ method help ensure that customers acquired through co-registration are qualified and likely to return a high ROI,” shared Stewart.

Sticking to the practices above will maximize the quality of registrations and safeguard your email marketing investments.

How to Double Your Income By Warming Up Those Cold Calls By - By Silvia Quintanilla

Salespeople are under a lot of pressure to win new business. This fact hit home last week when I spoke to a salesperson who uses our research.

She's expected to perform 5 demos every week. In fact, someone from HQ calls her every Monday to find out specifically what she has lined up that week. And just 2 weeks before, her company laid off a slew of under performing salespeople. I have to admit, just speaking to her made me a bit nervous, and I don’t even work there!

But that conversation inspired this article. Hopefully, by using the tips below, we can help your sales team meet their metrics, whether it’s demo appointments, in-person meetings, or opportunities in the pipeline.

Finding a Good Prospect
When we do research for our clients, we’re always looking for a “way in.” In other words, we’re looking for a project or challenge the prospect is facing that matches our clients’ solution set.

Here are some of our favorite ways of finding that information:

Tip #1: Use the Job Postings
Using job postings to find sales opportunities is a true “gem” of an idea. It’s helped us find hundreds of sales opportunities for our clients. The key is to use a site that aggregates job openings from many places (like Career Builder, Monster, Dice, etc).

Jobposting A good one we like is Indeed.com. Once there, go to the Advanced Search function. Next, type in a few keywords that apply to your service/product.

For example, let’s say you offer business intelligence (BI) solutions. Type in that keyword or similar keywords that indicate a company is working on a BI project.

You’ll likely have to sift through a few postings, but it could prove very worthwhile. Once you find a company that's starting a project in this area, you’re chances of engaging your prospect improve significantly.

Tip #2: Regularly Review Vertical / Functional Periodicals
No matter what you sell, there’s probably a monthly eMagazine that matches it. There are online magazines dedicated to IT professionals, HR, Marketing, Finance, Legal, etc., as well as magazines devoted to verticals (e.g., Banking, Healthcare, Retail). There are even online magazines devoted to a specific geographic regions.

Each magazine is packed with stories and news events for that specific area. We recommend reviewing them regularly to find timely prospects.

For example, many of our clients focus on selling to the financial services vertical. Here are the top 3 online magazines we like best for that space:
1. Waters – www.watersonline.com
2. Bank Systems & Technology – www.banktech.com
3. Bank Technology News - www.americanbanker.com/btn.html

There’s an online magazine(s) for nearly every area. If you need help finding one that fits your solution, feel free to send an email at silvia@industrygems.com.

Tip #3: Read the Earnings Transcripts
Earnings If your salespeople are really looking for the six-figure (and potentially seven-figure) sale, have them read the company’s quarterly Earnings Transcripts (if the company is public).

Every quarter, public U.S. companies must present to shareholders and investors. Those meetings are recorded and later transcribed to written word.

At those meetings, the executive management talks about their future strategies, upcoming projects, as well as any issues or challenges they’re trying to resolve. It’s a great way to find out the more “hidden” type of information that’s not being reported in the news.

You can find a company’s earnings transcripts at Seeking Alpha:
http://seekingalpha.com/tag/transcripts

We truly hope the above tips can help your salespeople meet their metrics!



Read More on - http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/

CRM - Social media's impact on web forms and landing pages By Brian Carroll

More marketers are embracing social media and inbound marketing practices for lead generation. That's a good thing.

I’ve written about how you can leverage social media tools like blogs, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to drive interested visitors to your website or landing pages to register for educational content and other assets. It works.

But remember most people coming to your website aren't coming to your website to buy. They are coming to your site for information. People start to question the value of giving up too much info on forms before you've earned their trust.

Have you thought about your web forms? Are you asking for far too much information before you've earned their trust? I wrote about this in my post, Why Most B2B Sites Fail to Convert Sales Leads. I would add that you need to leverage a robust lead qualification process too.

Earlier this week, I came across a relevant post by Chis Koch (@Ckochster) on “how old-school data capture is poisoning marketing and what to do about it.”

In his post, Chris dares us to rethink how and if we should gather information from prospects. He writes, “As social media becomes more prevalent in marketing, we’re going to have to rethink how we gather information from prospects.” Check out his post. I agree.

You'll do better by thinking of lead generation as a process of micro-conversions that build an opportunity profile over time, such as requesting an email address, then asking for first and last name, later requesting a phone number, and so on.

I read of one company that trimmed down the registration to include an extremely simple, two-field form. Conversion rate more than tripled with this simplification. At the same time, the company expanded their email follow-up process and was able to increase the total amount of personal data collected over time.

Read more: http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/crm/#ixzz0OQgsXAUT

Looking for a little marketing wisdom? BY- Brian's Carroll focused on B2B lead Generation

Well, I’ve got, oh about a hundred suggestions for you all courtesy of MarketingSherpa’s latest Wisdom Report.

Sherpa’s free report is filled with mini-stories from our colleagues in the marketing world who have learned through trial and error. The topics of this year’s report touched on just about every aspect of marketing out there – from tradtional tactics to Web 2.0 and mobile marketing.

According to the editors at Sherpa, there were three main trends represented in this year’s edition:
1. Email - It’s clear from this book that email isn’t dead. In fact, it’s far from it. Sherpa editors noticed that marketers are looking for ways to tweak their email correspondence. Marketers are personalizing messages more than ever, segmenting their lists to create the most focused targets possible, and are testing to the hilt. You could learn a lot from the stories included in the email section.

2. Build Social Networks - Marketers are starting to see the value of building relationships using LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and blogs. There are some interesting “Case Studies” that will hit home for marketers investigating ways to integrate social media marketing into their 2009 plan.

3. Search Engine Optimization - It seems that more and more marketers are focusing on making their websites search-engine friendly. Marketers give advice on everything from making PPC more affordable to concentrating on niche keywords. One marketer shares how 2008 was the turning point that made him realize that after 25 years in the business he had to get with the program.

Read more: http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/email_marketing/#ixzz0NxrlAAlg

The Long Forgotten Unique Selling Proposition By Author: Flyn

Flyn has made a most interesting discovery. Most salespeople don’t really know what a unique selling proposition is. In fact, most companies don’t seem to know. This sounds incredible but it appears to be true.

Since the unique selling proposition is a critical aspect of selling not to mention selling on the phone, I though I would share some information on unique selling propositions that will help you sell more.

Before I begin let me recommend a book that I recommend all the time and in my book lists to salespeople. (See the recommended reading section of my free sales resources page.). The book is called “Monopolize Your Marketplace” by Richard Harshaw. In this book, as well as Jay Abraham’s “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got,” you can learn all about unique selling propositions and how to tell a powerful story that will hook prospects.

What is a Unique Selling Proposition?

Before I reveal the secrets of the unique selling proposition let me ask you to write yours down on a piece of paper. Then you can go through the exercise with me as I lay this out.

A unique selling proposition according to Hershaw should make the prospect feel, and I quote from page 21 of his book:

“I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you – regardless of price.”

As you can see a good unique selling proposition has to be pretty darn powerful. Most of the propositions you hear aren’t propositions at all but platitudes.

What’s a platitude? A platitude is something that is stated as if it were important or unique when in fact it is not. Here are some examples.

“We fix your car right the first time.”

Why is this a platitude? Because anyone getting their car fixed would expect this to be the case. No one is going to the guy who says – “We fix it right the second time.” This is a “Well I would hope so” platitude.

And that is the first test of a good unique selling proposition – Would a normal person looking for your product or service simply expect as common what you claim.

Here’s another example of “I would hope so.”

“We give you a free consultation visit.”

This is a common benefit stated in ads for lawyers – but everyone does it so it is expected anyway. It’s a platitude.

Look at your selling proposition, is it a “Well I would hope so?”

The second platitude is “Who else can say that?” If someone else can say what you said, then it’s not and unique selling proposition as it’s not unique.

If you say “Were the best in town.” you very well might be, but any other company could simply make the same claim. If your competition can say with confidence based on their belief what you are saying, it’s not a unique selling proposition.

It’s not about who can do what you do, but about who can say what you say.

A great example of all of this is found by looking in the phone book at say lawyers. In most cases you could switch the names and phone numbers between the ads (as long as you kept with in the specialties) and the claims would be true or at least legitimate. There are very few unique selling propositions in the phone book, most of the ads contain platitudes instead.

Summary

Now that you have a better understanding of what a unique selling proposition really is you can see why having one will likely generate call backs to your messages in your cold calling efforts and get the attention of those you engage on the phone.