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Do you want to increase your conversion rates by 355%? Of course you do.

What’s the secret? Well, according to a study by Jupiter Research, companies that segment their databases increase their conversion rates on average by 355%.

It makes sense.

Since your prospects and clients don’t all have the same problems and needs, you can’t expect a broad message to appeal to your entire database. To create a robust, successful marketing campaign you need to provide content and messaging that’s relevant. You need to segment your list so you can, for example, send targeted emails and structure tailored telemarketing programs.

Getting Over the Initial Hurdle

You’d think all business managers would be clamoring to slice and dice their list into micro-segments for marketing campaigns. But they’re not doing this! The same Jupiter Research study found that only 11% of companies are using a segmentation strategy. Why are 89% of businesses missing the boat? 

Preparation Precedes Performance

The saying “today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement” certainly applies to the creation and maintenance of marketing lists.

After all, if you rush into a marketing campaign without cleaning up your list and collecting critical data first, you end up wasting time chasing duplicate leads, trying to reach contacts that are no longer in the company or looking for incomplete information in the midst of a campaign.

It’s like putting your revenues through the paper shredder.

To achieve a successful marketing campaign, you need to purge duplicate leads and ensure your list has complete, accurate data so you can reach your targets easily and with the right message.

The 4 Steps to Success

Take these four steps and get all the information you need at your fingertips for successful marketing campaigns.

Email marketing isn’t dead, but to make it work you need a sound email marketing strategy.

Email marketing is actually alive and kicking harder than ever. The Q1 Email Trends and Benchmarking Report by Epsilon reports that open rates in Q1 2014 climbed 5.7% over the previous year.

That’s good news, but how do you increase your response rates? Like everything else in marketing today, it requires processes and advanced systems that enable you to deliver relevant and timely content to prospects and customers. Also, rather than thinking of email marketing in a vacuum you have to blend it with other marketing tactics, such as telemarketing, for optimal results.

One of the most rewarding aspects of email marketing is that, unlike its more glamorous cousin, social media, it’s measurable. This means you can analyze results and work for continuous improvement. 

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer,” said writer and management consultant Peter F. Drucker. And today, thanks to technology, we have more tools than ever to help us with lead generation, conversion and customer retention.

One of these tools is Salesforce, the highly popular customer relationship management application. There are many ways you can use Salesforce to automate routine aspects of your business, enable collaboration, and make associates more productive. By doing so, you empower employees to focus on areas that make the best use of their skills, such as reaching out to prospects and customers with a human touch at just the right moment.

Here are just a few ways to use Salesforce to free up your associates to do what they do best. 

A powerful strategy for growth in business-to-business telemarketing is to leverage channel partners to sell your goods and services. It works best when channel partners have connections with the companies you want to sell to; the marketing resources and know-how to reach them; or the ability to add value to your offering. For example, companies such as Oracle, IBM and SAP have created successful channel partner programs with geographically dispersed industry leaders that have solutions’ expertise to reach clients across the globe. Their secrets to success include using business-to-business telemarketing for channel partner profiling, recruiting, support and more.  Discover 7 best practices for success.  

As corporate decision-makers seek refuge behind gatekeepers from relentless telemarketers, it has become more challenging for well-intentioned business people to reach these people. Gatekeepers ask you to send an email instead of calling; they question your motives; tell you they don’t take sales calls; and present many more obstacles. So how can you reach more decision-makers efficiently? Here are some tips from our telemarketing services team.

1.       Get the Gatekeeper on Your Side

The gatekeeper is important to you because they can open the door to the person you want to reach. They can put your call through or, if the decision-maker isn’t available, perhaps look at their calendar and tell you the best time to call. 

So make them feel important. Don’t regard them as simply a barrier to be pushed aside. Treat them as a human being. For example, use their name, and ask how their day is going.  

Sales lead qualification in the B2B world is like dating—you learn more about each other over time, deepening your relationship and, when all goes well, you progress seamlessly from introduction to marriage or first-time lead to closed sale.

To be successful, you need to know when to commit more resources to the relationship and when to pull back and provide more space.

The Introduction

If Sally is introduced to Mark at a party, she might be happy to engage in a little small talk, but a marriage proposal would send her running.  Or vice versa.  Too much too soon can kill a relationship….in both business and love.

Business-to-business lead generation is like growing crops. You can't expect a plentiful harvest if you plant seeds and then neglect them. On the contrary, newly planted seeds need nurturing—water, nutrients, and weeding—to provide fruit.

Today's companies are adept planters. Many focus on lead generation, but most are not doing enough when it comes to nurturing planted seeds (a.k.a. leads) so they grow into abundant resources. Too often, warm leads fizzle away, resulting in lost sales opportunities.