Direct Marketing Q&A

Introductory email is fine. But I need to understand more about your product or services/  source of email ( i.e. have you generated via website lead form or secondary research)

Thanks Phil. I've always wondered what the advice is. Surely not every great campaign idea came from a request made by the company! Some unsolicited ideas must have made their way through at times!

I have used several services including Elastic Email, Mailchimp, SendInBlue, Mailshake, and Hubspot.
If you want to generate much interest there are several key points to remember before choosing sending automated emails.
 

• Get personal, use their first name when contacting
• Choose an interesting subject line
• Write the message as short as possible
• Follow-up to them 

The key is to not think of them as disparate practices. The words 'online', 'digital' or 'traditional' are redundant if you're focused on the meaning of the operative part of the practice - marketing.

Focus on finding who your best customers are, why they buy and why they should buy from you. Once you have a clear idea of the answers to these questions, you'll be well placed to start looking for where they spend their time and how you can influence their behaviour.

Hi Rachael,The EA/PA you're targeting probably gets hundreds of sales calls/emails and as a result probably already has a rejection wall built. I've got to say, it's damn hard work trying to sell/market to anybody unless you are helping them with a problem they currently have.If you genuinely think you can help them, the following idea will definitely warm up your potential client:Send them something in the post that doesn't look like a piece of 'junk mail'.-Mail is great because it isn't obtrusive. -It's that initial soft approach that's needed in the beginning stages of your sales cycle. -I've used clear envelopes, blank (un-printed/no branding) envelopes, kraft boxes and black shiny bubble bags. This way, you can at least give your mail a chance of being opened. Now what you put inside is important. Don't make your EA/PA think she's been tricked to open your mail!-Become the solution for your potential client, don't try and sell. -Nice giveaway that your EA/PA will use-Offer / call to actionAs an example: I have a 'launch-pad' with launching business tips on each page as a giveaway to any start-up that enquires. It's an A6 sized quality pad that has my branding on the cover and on each page. If you'd like any more info on this, feel free to contact me.I hope this helps you :)

Well said Steve, that's some great advice.

Assuming that Jacky hasn't set a time and date for a follow up call, I think that 1 - 2 weeks is a good rule of thumb.

Remember that many states have school holidays at the moment, and even if the prospect is not the parent of school aged children, others in the business may be, and resources may be stretched just now.

Don't be disheartened. I delivered training to an organisation earlier this year that was a whole year in the making. From our initial introduction (referral) and meeting to actually delivering the training took about 10 - 11 months. Every month or 2 I would follow up with a "hi how's it going" or I saw this article and thought you'd be interested" or "here's a copy of my latest free resource you might find useful". This about ho you can be helpful and friendly to your prospective client, serve their needs.

Let us know how you go.

By offline do you mean in retail or physical stores? If you do, the answer is probably yes although I feel that online User Experience is catching up. I would label offline UX as IUE (Immersive User Experience) because you can control and adapt to a customers many senses to create a good environment for catalyzing the sale. Online I would a new acronym is probably more descriptive than UX and that would be CUX (Customer User Experience) I see this as a blending of customer service and user experience.

More companies are starting to higher people to guide and improve their User Experience for customers, however, many establish companies are adopting it at a slower pace than startups and small businesses. This is puzzling because many established companies need a lot more help because they have a much larger backlog of things that need improved and resolved.

One reason I believe UX is not being adopted more quickly at companies is they don't truly understand the value that these professionals add. Many can do front-end development work as well as design and usability work. Also, UX practitioners can help make improvements based on customer feedback and professional best practices to reduce or eliminate issues before they are ever developed or delivered to production. It is between 10 to 100 times more costly (when you consider all the effort and hours) to fix things after they have been released. So, by working with UX designers you can save money up front by not having more issues to resolve later.

I have experienced first hand many times that once a developer, business analyst or project manager see the results firsthand they are much more willing to work with UX professional in the future.

Making a sale directly from a cold call is impossible, or if it happens, a complete fluke. it's like throwing a fishing line into the ocean and expecting a whale on the hook when you reel it in. No business owner in their right mind will commit to a substantial outlay for professional services of any kind based on a phone conversation with someone they've never met, or know nothing about.

However telemarketing, done well, is not a complete waste of time. In fact it can reap good results, if done with specific ends in mind. (Disclosure: we provide clients with ideas and scripts for small-scale telemarketing campaigns.)

For example, a recent self-managed campaign for an IT services provider resulted in a ratio of 4 x qualified leads per 20 calls, with a close rate of one-in-four. Each of those closed deals was worth over $5,000 to the client.

So, it depends on what you're trying to achieve with the resources available. The crucial elements are, in order of importance: the list; the offer; the script(s); the CRM; the Plan B. Unless you have all these ducks in a row, any cold-calling campaign is, in my view, destined for failure.

Happy to advise, if help is required.