Welcome to the blog!

Getting the right data is becoming an onerous and time consuming task. Do you have any ideas where I can buy data? What data shall I buy? How do I know this data is right for me?  How do I avoid scammers and bad data?

 Genevra, Ipswich

 David says:

 A list broker not only has the answer to all of these questions but they also do all of the hard work for you. 

 A good list or data broker will have years of experience sourcing all types of marketing data for an array of different clients and different types of campaigns.  They will have built relationships with the credible data suppliers and know the good from the bad and the ugly.

Let’s cut to the chase, why should you us a list broker?  Using a list broker will save you money and gain you more customers from your direct marketing campaigns.  Here’s why:

• List brokers are impartial.  You get unbiased recommendations on the data which will work best for your individual campaign without any sales spin.
• A list broker has access to a vast array of data sets; B2B data, B2C data, email data, sms data, niche lists and foreign data.  If you need it, they will find it.
• Advice on who to target.  They have seen it all before and know what works and what doesn’t.
• A credible list broker will only recommend credible data: Quality Data = Less Wastage = More Customers for Less Money.  Brilliant. 
• Leveraging their supplier relationships, list brokers can negotiate the best rates on your behalf.

And saving the best until last….

• Their services are free.  List brokers work on commission given to them by the data suppliers, which means you get their advice, experience and service for zip!

Now you can’t say fairer than that, can you?!  For more details and benefits of using a list broker plus handy direct marketing and data tips, please visit the Databroker Blog

TangerineDream Consultancy is an approved partners with Databroker an independent list brokering providing free advice on sourcing B2B data and B2C data.  With over  10 years’ experience and DMA members Databroker are committed to upholding the DMA Direct Marketing Code of Practice and providing clients with expertise and trusted advice.

I want to modernise our telemarketing department. Is it still a matter of just calling or are there telemarketing tips for a smarter way to book meetings in 2011?

 Sharon, York.

 David says:

A well executed business to business telemarketing campaign should still be the centre piece of a marketing mix, Sharon even in 2011. It’s still the only form of marketing that does not rely on the prospects taking action to contact you. It does not matter if you deploy tried and tested marketing such as direct mail, public relations, advertising, events, email marketing, online marketing or social media. They all rely on the prospect having already identified their potential interest / need for your solution and then they make contact. They also all rely on significant budgets and long periods of time to gather critical mass, before your prospect automatically thinks about you, when they feel they need a solution.

Telemarketing is unique in that sense, it allows you to proactively contact your ideal prospects and engage in an intelligent two way conversation immediately. During the conversation you can establish their pains, their challenges, demonstrate your products benefits and reinforce your offering by using past case studies. The critical difference between telemarketing and other forms of marketing is the prospect need not have any knowledge of your company or solution 5 minutes earlier to agree to a sales meeting.

However, telemarketing needs to adapt and move away from the old image of thumbing through any old list and mechanically pitching to as many people as possible. To be successful and cost effective at telemarketing in 2011 you have to adapt and use new tools. Here are my 3 favourite telemarkting tips that we are using at TangerineDream. This means TangerineDream is 75% more effective than traditional telemarketing.

Integrating email marketing and telemarketing

Did you know that integrating email marketing and telemarketing can increase productivity between 25% – 75%? You can access real-time results of prospects opening and clicking through to websites from most email marketing solutions. Then the telemarketer can call a specific prospect while they are still reading the original email and start a conversation on subjects that are relevant to the web pages they have just been visiting.

Integrate your CRM, data acquisition and prospect profiling

It is now possible to save enormous volumes of time in identifying contact details and prospect profiling. A perfect example is the ability to add solutions such as Onesource™ or Hoovers™ to SalesForce.com through the App Store. That’s exactly what we do. These instantly download information direct into your CRM about individuals and the company that would have taken an inordinate amount of time to gather by any other means. This not only increases the time spent actually targeting prospects, but also provides better information to the telemarketer so they can adapt their conversation to the company and individual they are speaking too.

Build social media links then use them to the max

The explosion of social media has enabled us to actually see the networks we live within. Everyone is forging links between one another and with the popularity of sites such as LinkedIn.com we are now able to see who knows who, past employment and what they are currently doing. This insight allows a telemarketer to bring existing relationships into their conversation. This means you can uncover people your network knows, mutual contacts, past and present colleagues etc, which allows you to gain better access to target prospects and improve the effectiveness of your calls to arrange sales meetings. All these relationships can be levered into conversations to great effect. Amazingly, this can all be integrated into your CRM so that you can see it as one view.

Telemarketing in 2011 is completely different from the past. We are using every possible piece of information at our disposal to hold unique conversations with our prospects.

I hope these tips put you on the right path Sharon. It’s all about treating the prospect you are calling as an individual and having unique conversations with them.

At TangerineDream we are constantly looking at how we can innovate and improve our telemarketing productivity. Click here if you would like to learn more about how we help our clients and deliver effective and long term campaigns with great return on investment.

Are there any quick tips to get more people to open and click through on the emails I send.

Emma, Dudley

David says:

There are lots of different factors that affect how many people will open and click through on an email you have sent out. Here are 5 quick simple tips.

Get permission

The best thing you can do to boost your response rates is to follow the first rule of permission email marketing: send only to people who’ve asked to receive your emails. Above anything else I’ll mention here, keep in mind that folks who have quality, permission-based lists and who know their audience typically get the best responses. Along these lines, you’ll want to encourage your readers to add your “From Address” to their address books, to help ensure safe delivery week after week and to keep your messages consistently in your readers’ inboxes.

Proof your content

If your open rates are lower than you expected, there’s a chance that a phrase or two in your email kept it from arriving safely in your recipients’ inboxes. Think about how your campaign’s content might fare against a standard spam filter, so you can pinpoint any potentially troublesome content before you send. Tip - In addition to certain phrases and formatting, spam filters may block or quarantine emails that contain large images. Plus, the longer load times may make your emails less likely to catch a reader’s eye. Aim for images no larger than 480 x 480 pixels, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.

Keep your email size reasonable

As you’re putting your newsletter together, remember that straightforward, easy-to-read content encourages your recipients to open your email – and keep on reading. In addition to being reader friendly, shorter campaigns are server-friendly, too. Lengthy blocks of text and lots of images can make it harder for receiving servers to accept your content. Try to keep your content below 40 KB.

Send when people are likely to respond

It’s important for your email to arrive when the majority of people are most likely to read it. The ideal send time for your organisation depends largely on who you’re sending to, so keep your audience in mind when scheduling or sending a campaign. While there’s not one “magic” sending hour, you may want to avoid scheduling a campaign for the close of the business day or first thing Monday morning.

Entice with your subject line

Along with the “From Address”, your subject line plays a major role in encouraging people to open your email. If you want to see whether a spicier subject line makes a difference in your open rate, try dividing your audience into two groups, sending the campaign with two separate subject lines, and comparing the results after the big send-off.

Have you ever thought about using email marketing as an integral part of you telemarketing campaign? If you haven’t, then you should. We have been doing it for nearly 5 years now and the results are staggering. It means our telemarketing is up to 75% more effective than just telemarketing alone.

It changes the random nature of telemarketing and telesales into a more targeted campaign by focusing energy on those people that have opened or “clicked” upon the email that you have sent first. These are the people that have all but put their hands in the air and shouted at you “I’m interested in this”. Then we can look at the “silent” prospects later.

All you need is an email marketing system that tracks the results. (PS. Click here. We can help you with that if you like). All you have to do is then follow up the results.

In fact at TangerineDream we are able to be following up people that have clicked on an email in real time. We can be calling them while they are still reading the article they’ve downloaded.

We also keep records of all the emails that we have ever sent, who has opened them and which links they used in our CRM. This way we start to build a picture of the prospect as a whole, who’s interested in what and when and we can refer back to these in any conversation we have in the future.

Let me know what you think and if you have tried something similar.

“I want to start email marketing and do it without “spamming” my audience, but I am not sure of the rules about sending emails.”
Daniel, Dorset.

David says:

It’s great to hear that you wish to approach email marketing in a positive way Daniel.

However it’s always difficult when first starting your email marketing strategy to collect email addresses of the people that are truly interested in your products and from which you can get a great return on investment.

Let’s do the legal stuff first; there are 2 basic rules to follow in the UK.

Rule 1

• When you send marketing emails you must not conceal your identity.
• You must also disclose a valid company address, Company No. and VAT number if you have one.

Rule 2

• You can’t send emails unless you have prior consent from the recipient to do so unless.
  • You have collected email addresses in the normal course of doing business with a past customer or prospect.
  • You only send future emails about similar services / products you offer.
  • You always provide an option to opt out when initially collected and with each email.

Now let’s do the great marketing bit.

Email marketing will never provide you a huge return on investment if you just send an endless volume of emails to anyone. This way you are not only breaking the law, you are also doing poor marketing. Think about those customers and people that you have spoken to in the past. Use social media and your website to allow people to give you their details and above all do not miss any opportunity when speaking to your prospects and networking, if it is ok for you to send them interesting emails from time to time.

It’s not quick, nor easy to build a large opt in email marketing list. However, if you build an email marketing campaign based on this you will build trust and brand loyalty with the people most likely to spend money with you.