B2B Leads – Don’t Let New Methods Make You Idle!

Posted on April 26, 2012 by

With internet marketing, even B2B insurance companies can benefit from increased online exposure. Corporate packages are a strictly required staple for any company, big or small. A demand for the service is already a given. Putting up a webpage can come both to your convenience and to the convenience of your prospects who use the internet as a fast means to locate solutions. You can also invest in a bit of email marketing and seemingly replace old direct-response methods like telemarketing.

However, if you think that things will be completely smooth sailing from here on, think again. You’d be surprised at how many obstacles have risen along with the birth of the online frontier. This may sound pessimistic but no matter how new an approach seems to be, it’s not without its own flaws and its own obstacles. On the other hand, that’s doesn’t mean you should discard new methods either. You just have to make sure they don’t make you idle and closed off from different ideas.

Still, what are these supposed obstacles faced by those marketing online? Ironically, these obstacles have strong parallels with that of the previous ones (email marketing in particular). Whereas professional telemarketers used to deal with gatekeepers and voice mail, email marketers find similar situations risking the blockage of spam filters. There’s also the threat of unfeeling programs tracking their activities and labeling them as such. And even if you do manage to engage a prospect, what’s stopping their messages from getting swamped out of the dozen other inquiries you’ll be getting? It’s not surprising to find that people find SMS still slower than a live conversation (be it over the phone or face-to-face).

Exposure on the internet also exposes you to hackers just as much prospects. If they hit your website, your lead generation might suffer from the lack of activity (however brief). You should be prepared to have a back up plan that doesn’t rely on the internet too much.

There’s never room for idleness when it comes to getting B2B leads. Do take note that your prospects aren’t just regular people who need insurance for themselves. It’s for every person of their entire department. Planning for even a small business organization takes time. They need to be contacted, qualified, and then set with an appointment. If your appointment setter is exclusively internet-based, you’ll run into the problems cited above because there’s no other way to inform your prospect (or yourself for that matter).

Cost shouldn’t even be an issue. The issue is not allowing new methods be an excuse to lose vigilance. You don’t even have to invest in two separate methods for it. There are telemarketing companies out there who also know how to use email marketing to their advantage (and vice-versa). If you want to get the whole package without breaking the company piggy bank or just want to focus on you main tasks, then just outsource them. Goodness knows you might not regret that you did (especially if you don’t have a lot of experience knowing how to combine the two methods effectively). Again, don’t let new methods be a cause of idleness!

Appointment Setting Demands A Strong Filter For Leads

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

Outsourced accounting isn’t an entirely new B2B industry. However, with the rise of the internet, it has enabled such companies to gain more exposure in eyes of their target market. This includes you but it also includes your competitors. Have you ever then wondered how they managed to set appointments with so many business prospects more than you despite the fact that you use the same online strategies?

This is even under the assumption that you’re both doing the same thing. Both of you are in a neck in neck race for top search engine rankings. You each have a reputable LinkedIn reputation with over hundreds of connections. You even take time to compile email contact information into a list so as to send them your newsletter.

What are you missing then? Here are some things to consider:

Response – Rerhaps when you’re so focused on talking to the prospect, you don’t pay much attention to how they respond to you. One of the most basic mistakes in when generating B2B leads is that you talk too much about yourself and don’t really pay attention to what the prospect is saying. Remember, lead generation is about gathering information first before making sales.
Quality – Are the leads you’re generating really of top quality? Even if you somehow managed to generate a lot of online leads, how qualified are they? How much time do you devote into determining their needs?
Consideration – Are you considerate about their preferences? Maybe the biggest mistake you’re making is that you’re limiting yourself to only one method of lead generation.

All these three have one thing in common: the qualification process. It doesn’t matter what method you use, if you don’t know how to handle lead qualification well and set up a good filter, then you either won’t generate a lot of leads or the ones that you do always end up dead and dry.

Back then, companies used to generate and qualify sales leads via telemarketing. However, the rise of anti-telemarketing laws in countries like Canada and Australia seems to have intimidated a lot of them into using online methods thinking it would keep them safe. Frankly, such fears are baseless because even today’s telemarketing services are aware of what such laws actually mean. The old ways still work and in fact, these laws are more likely to boost the telemarketing filter than hamper it because it roots out private citizens (the last thing a B2B telemarketer would want to call.)

Going back to the three possible causes above, they can be avoided if you use all means to carefully and thoroughly qualify your leads. This means you need to find out more about your target, meaning less talking about yourself. It means you must be ready to get additional information (like how they would like their accounts handled, when and how they would like their reports etc). Communication with you should be open to all channels (be it online or the phone).

Companies shouldn’t be afraid to explore all means of getting sales opportunities regardless even they’re Canada sales leads or Singapore sales leads. Your options aren’t all that limited but you will limit your chances until you make use of everything to build a strong filter for such leads.

Generate Leads, Generate Work!

Posted on April 12, 2012 by

B2B doesn’t have to be strictly limited to one company looking to do business with another. Sometimes it can be a lot smaller than it implies. It could even be just an individual professional (such as a financial planner) looking to do something major for a small business owner. The subject matters discussed are still strictly B2B in nature (e.g. planning for things like taxes, insurance, risk management).

And as such, you as an individual shouldn’t be afraid to use B2B-oriented methods and start looking for your own B2B leads. Your skills are very specialized and only a business, even just a small one, can really make good use of it. However, valuable as they are, you need to really be careful in finding out who needs them the most.

Getting information isn’t easy and certain openings may not present themselves even on the classified ads. To fully expand your horizons, you need to cover all areas of getting in touch with possible prospects.

Of course, getting such a wide coverage might be too much for a single person. The methods just by themselves will tax any individual: cold calling, personalizing email, scouring directories. You’ll also have to take care in determining if you’re talking to the person who’s in the right position to hire you. Are you also aware that they don’t like people who talk too much about themselves? This means you might even have to gather more than just contact data to impress your targets. And by the time it’s your turn to tell these people who you are, you might be better off setting up a small meeting for it.

It’s all right to feel unprepared to conduct a lead generation campaign by yourself. Why? Well it’s not like you really have to.

The thing you need to remember is that you should place your value only on the information. You’re looking for people who could use the advanced skills of a financial planner but these are likely to be rather high on the corporate ladder. All you really need is to get these people interested in you. If you have to set up financial appointments, then do it! If you really insist on being afraid, then be more afraid of what happens if you don’t try to make opportunities for yourself.

You won’t get work. You won’t get paid. You don’t really need to keep going just to guess where that road is going to take you.

With that established, you just have to find a cost-efficient way to gather the information you need. There are plenty of cost-efficient ways to get an appointment setter without necessarily turning your office or home into a makeshift call center. If you use outsourced telemarketing, then you’ll have all the information you’ll need.

The point is you need work but your work needs the approval of an entire business organization. You won’t get it unless you really do your homework and get as much information as you can. The more leads you have, the more opportunities you’ll get to finally start working.

Find An Insurance Prospect In A Growing Economic Tide

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

Countries like Singapore are hailed as shining examples how fast a country develops from a rapidly rising economy. Such economies are also naturally ripe for B2B insurance firms because the companies which arise from such growth seek to insurance as one of the first needs they need to address.

Whether it’s commercial insurance or life insurance, corporations big and small find them vital even in prosperous times because it still pays to be prepared. However, with such a high demand, competition is also bound to arise among insurance groups. The tide may be high but so are the chances of you getting caught up and lost in it.

Now one critical factor that will determine your place among your competitors is time. More specifically, it’s how you handle it both for yourself and for your targets. Applying insurance for oneself already takes up a lot of time. How much more when you’re talking about the insurance of an entire company? This makes it difficult because you need to be careful with how much you give out information and all with the pressure of doing it fast.

Perhaps a rough outline is in order so you can at least have a basic idea on what to do. First you, concern yourself with how to make initial contact. Do you make a call? Do you send an email? Another thing to keep in mind is establishing how much you already know about your target. This not only helps you give a good first impression, it gives you more information that you can use in the future when engaging the prospect.

The second step is qualification. Again, what do you do? Do you keep calling? Tell them to expect an email with more details? How about giving the option to choose one or the other? This step is probably the longest because some decision makers are simply not yet ready. They need time to decide and to consider other options.

Finally, you still haven’t given everything away so you need to discuss with your target about a proper time and place to do so. This means that appointment setting will play an important role during these last few steps. It’s not just about finalizing the lead’s interest. You also need to keep strong tabs in case there are unexpected changes. It also keeps your from wasting time, the very thing you don’t want to lose in a race against competitors.

Some people would express concern over the costs. And yes, there’s a good reason because they’re high. However, that is only so far if you decide to invest in it yourself. Hiring professionals, getting them the best equipment, and maintaining a database naturally come at a high price.

Fortunately for you, that price has already been paid by many lead generation companies who can perform lead generation campaigns for you (like telemarketing in Singapore). All you need to do is find the nearest one available and you’re all set to finding many possible B2B insurance clients in a growing economic tide.