John W HayesLong before I joined iContact as an employee, I was a client of the company. I selected iContact over a number of other services trialled because they were the only company to pick up the phone and thank me for trying the product out. They didn’t try to sell me anything but made sure I knew there was great support available from a real person should I ever need it.
This one quick call not only sold me the service, it made me want to work with the organization – largely because of the great people it employed.
Supercharging Your Email Marketing Efforts with People Power
Many small businesses look to online technologies like email marketing to drive efficiencies. They believe in the concept of “one-to-many” marketing (the practice of hitting multiple people with a targeted campaign in the hope of driving sales while reducing the time every salesperson must spend with tire-kickers and time wasters). It’s a practice I wholeheartedly endorse – but not always at the expense of real human engagement.
Sometimes great email marketing needs a little human touch to turn browsers into buyers.
So how do you find the right balance between automating your marketing activities and the old, time consuming, labor intensive way of doing things?
Cold Calling Is Dead, Long Live Warm Calling
I find the one-to-many sales approach works best when you factor in a little people power.
Great content, timely email campaigns, and engaging social media posts are a great way of communicating with and identifying potential buyers. Sometimes, particularly in a competitive market or when you are selling complex or perhaps more costly items or services, you’ll need to pick up the phone to close the deal. If your email marketing campaigns have hit the mark this should ensure any sales calls are “warm” (as opposed to “cold”) and therefore stand a greater chance of success.
Hint: You can use the free analytic tools provided with your iContact account to identify your most engaged clients. The people who have opened and engaged with your campaigns multiple times are the people who are most likely to welcome your sales calls.
Remember: Not all sales leads are created equal. Picking up the phone and calling every name presented to you as a lead is a very inefficient and, quite frankly, soul-destroying task. This is where the one-to-many sales approach comes into its own. Smart email marketing will not only help you get your message out there, it will help you identify the hottest prospects and make you a better a salesperson.
How are you using email marketing to make your sales operation more efficient? Share your comments below:
This post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.
(196)
