My Little Voice

Archive for the ‘Sales Tip’ Category

I read this article and just wanted to share it with others. Email marketing, in particular the creation of email templates and marketing pieces,is a science, its not guess work any more, there is a wealth of information on the web, including our own FAQ section for OpenCRM users, the following information is a sound foundation when considering the image aspect of your email marketing.

Happy reading……

The Big Image Myth
Why your email newsletter shouldn’t have too many images, even if they look great on your screen!

In This Article…

If you are just starting to send marketing email and need advice on how to design an email template, or if you are currently sending email but aren’t satisfied with the click-through or deliverability results, this article explains why using large, graphic images in an email template will actually make your email less successful and detract from its overall performance.

Why Should I Second Guess Using Images?

Without a doubt, the number one error we see in companies who want to begin an email marketing program is the desire to design an email that looks exactly like a webpage or, worse yet, like a print postal mailer.

Everyone understands why email designers like images.  An email, just like any other piece of marketing material, looks better when it’s got appealing images in it. If it displays properly to the end-user, it probably converts better as well. The problem, as you’re about to see, is that most end-users won’t see your graphics. As an added bonus, including graphics can get you sent to the spam folder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here at OpenCRM we migrate dozens of customers from competitive products, it’s one of the things that we do really well, sometimes the migration is due to cost, often it’s because our customer wants a more flexible technical solution or a stronger relationship with their provider, that’s us.

Whatever the reasons we have become very good at managing these moves, some sites are small and just require some data manipulation skills and then they are ready to go, others need a full system analysis to achieve their goals.

This article, published independently, gives in my opinion some solid ‘no nonsense’ advice for people wanting to move systems provider, worth taking note of the comments if you are looking to change.

Sales pitch : needless to say at OpenCRM we tick the boxes, I will summarise the advice in a separate post so that any interested company, looking to move to OpenCRM, can see how we stack up. Read the rest of this entry »

One of our company New Years resolutions (yes we really do have them), is to send out a customer satisfaction survey. This is a first for us (in a structured way).

We are keen to see how well we do in the mid ground of our customer base, which accounts for a good number of our customers. We will always be acutely aware of the small number of projects that are hard work to keep on track, as well as the ones where we excel, in both cases customers are very vocal and (because of the project management escalation and communication around these projects), the implementions are very visible, so we want to use this survey to gauge our success levels for all of our users.

This is one way to measure our customers satisfaction, however, the second area we are keen to explore, which is a direct spin off from the results we will receive, is to develop further our referal program. This will reinforce the levels of customer satisfaction we are achieving !

So, two ways to monitor what our customers think, firstly ask them, then ask them to refer us, that will uncover who is willing to be associated with our business, an interesting project for us which I am happy to post the results for everyone to see.

I guess as a sidepanel to this excercise, we will pick up a host of issues to address and more items for the OpenCRM wishlist, both of which will no doubt raise areas for future discussion here.

I thought this article and more particularly the comments were interesting.

If your in the Software Biz this will be something that has crossed your desk, for sure.

http://bit.ly/8aVhRO

Just to paraphrase a little …… Developers and Bosses comments….

Music always helps me ‘tune out’ the distracting noise! This noise is always a distraction and cant in anyway be seen as helpful and team building! I am a developer and I have an opinion, well yes, of course!

I am a boss and therefore I do not know anything about what  developers might want! I am a boss and don’t care if my decisions effect the team and their productivity! I am a boss and therefore …… !

You are a developer and therefore by definition you know everything that there is to know about everything (really?) “what is this thing called bug!”

On a serious note :

In my experience music is very useful if used correctly, as a genuine balance to the distraction of a modern open planned environment.

One of the best comments was the quote about the boss who looks at the developer and sees him in true ‘chill out mode’, hands behind his head, feet on desk, and asks why he is paying the developer for what he is doing at that moment and the manager comments that this is exactly ‘what’ you are paying for, all the rest can be got for $4 an hour off shore… this is the bit that counts… Unfortunately most bosses would just focus on the “$4 an hour” bit of the comment….

Just a quick update on some testing of our hard ‘opt in’ and soft ‘opt in’ eCampaign.

Just to qualify what I mean by these terms;

Hard – the person has been asked specifically if they would like to receive details by email, and have elected to do so by ‘ticking’ a box. This list is also cleaned on a regular basis, with the person being asked either, “do you want to remain on the list”, or at worst “here are your subscription details, do this thing if you want to be removed”. So in principle a high level of “buy in”.

Soft – these are the ones where the “box is already ticked” and they need to untick it, or the data comes from ‘other advertised’ sources, with contact details soliciting contact.

Now, I guess my initial instinct was that the Hard opt in details would get a higher delivery rate, as these are actively checked, and that was the case. But there has been a percentage of these addresses that were undeliverable, which is odd if the address was checked within the last 8 weeks (as the case with the list we purchased), and some of the Out of Office Replies indicate that the address has been retired for some time – I got one, from a small business, that said they were closed as the owner had literally retired, so no emails would be read on this address, Hmmm so could that really have been checked in the last 8 weeks, perhaps, but seems odd!

Of course there will be address details that have just “gone away”, are incorrect (human error), or just got sick of receiving emails and turned the address off, but if what you are paying for is clean data, and this is being ‘sold’ to you as a service to maintain the cleanness of the data (8 weeks check period), then I might have expect less problem records.

The other big thing for me was the ‘click through’ rate.

We track, through OpenCRM the click throughs from the email, and the specific links that get clicked. We track this right down to the specific contact that was sent this email. Incidentially, we track each click through, so if you click on three different links, we receive the activity report of each click, from where (campaign, mail piece and link in mail piece), when and context in terms of the campaign, and because we run a live statistics component on our site, we can see who enters the site (in real time, not just Google analytics), which pages you view, in which order, and can invite you to a Live Chat to help answer any immediate questions. Now this is all a bit Big Brother, but a great marketing tool.

Back to the plot …….

One interesting point relating to click throughs, we received 40% more from the Soft Opt In list, than the Hard list. Which given logic, we thought was odd.

We actually received a higher number of enquiry from the Soft list, and incidentially, they spent more time online.

Part of our sales process is to make it very easy for prospective clients to see the product ((OpenCRM Demo) so the ability to see browsers who start at the OpenCRM website, go to the online demo and see what they view and how long they are online, gives us a wealth of information to help profile our approach.

So, upshot at this stage, ‘Hard’ did not give us anything more except a higher bill to procure the data, and ‘Soft’ is easier to come by so gives us a larger marketing opportunity.

We will do the next batch of 20,000 pieces and keep you updated.

Note : just a point, one thing that does need highlighting, when we relay emails we need to be aware of any potential high rate of undeliverable’s, this can have an impact on the mail cluster and any black marks against the IP addresses. So ‘Hard’ (with a lower % failure rate) does have an advantage in lower human resource costs, in short we don’t need to check as often or as deep when sending to the Hard Opt In list, as generally the data is more accurate and therefore undeliverable’s are less.

One of the things that we refer to regularly in our office is ‘Good NETiquette’ which includes email correspondence as well as on-line communication.

Just to get one of those little irritations off my chest straight away, is it just me, or do you get royally frustrated when someone who you send an email to, does not reply, at all! not even with a quick “thanks for that I will come back to you as soon as possible….”  to acknowledge receipt?

I find this very irritating and something that just smacks of rudeness…. Oh and there’s one of those Netiquette rules, ‘keep any flame wars under control – they will rage on for a lot longer on the web, as people will have the option of re reading and returning to the original posts, even after you have ‘emotionally moved on’ :0)

Another of those ‘things we should all do’ is to “adhere to the same standards that you would apply in face to face contact” – its easy for ‘a certain’ type of person to act in an ‘inappropriate’ way when on-line (or in email), so regardless of the medium used, act in a sensible and reasonable manner. I know, its sometimes easier said than done, but WE always apply the ‘reasonableness’ rule. Just wait a few minutes, re read and then ask yourself “does this sound reasonable”…. ? If it does not, then say no more, but if it does, then send and be dammed (sorry, no that last bit is just my policy :0)

One of the biggie’s for me is “respecting other peoples privacy”, I really dislike it when someone sends out an email and it has MY details on it, distributed to everyone on their Contacts List, I guess most business users would agree (given the number and frequency of SPAM these days), but occasionally we deal with domestic users and they can be the worst…

Oh and that leads me onto my last point for this post, “be forgiving of other peoples mistakes”… I guess even if someone does do a ‘silly action’ then at least allow them to change and not penalise them too much..

OK, that last one is important, but just to go back to the first point made, if someone keeps ignoring my emails, when they do reply they publish my details to everyone they know and their response is inappropriate, I guess that would give me the justification to start a flame war and turn up the heat :0)

Just thinking out loud.

So, here we are starting the new multi channel campaign today, focusing on the “Plate Spinners of the Business World” theme, trying to get people to buy into the idea that better procedures will lead to consistency and allow business Principles (that’s Directors, Owners and Senior Managers) to ‘Spin more Plates’.

I will keep you informed of the key points that are being raised in the eShot campaign, the telemarketing effort and the live seminars that we are conducting around the UK.

Ooops… better rush, I’ve a got a plate (or two) to keep spinning :0)

Graham

When things get tough in the markets that you trade in, its easy to ‘cut costs’ to such an extent that you damage your long term strategic development, in favour of short term saving.

Granted, if the ‘cash’ is just not there, either because of difficult lines of credit, longer payment days or just less revenue being generated, then I am the first to agree that we have to “cut our cloth”! But, cutting our cloth and making prudent strategic decisions can work hand in hand.

Read the rest of this entry »

I read this heading recently and was fascinated that anyone might try and promote their product or service with an unbelievable or irrelevant message, but on further analysis, I realised that some people do, and in fact, I think I can see myself in this group!

The point is that irrelevant messages include things like “24/7 support”, when actually most of our customers need access to support services between 9:00 and 17:30, Monday to Friday” – that’s not to say that ‘some’ customers wont need extended support, but if the marketing message we are giving out does not ‘talk’ to the masses, then we are off target. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a quote from Zig Zigler, and in my opinion more worthy of consideration, in times of economic concern, than any other time!

The people referred to are our, (that’s your’s and mine), prospects and clients, and the ‘ready to buy’ part does not just mean ‘when they have a need’ it also means when they have the ‘financial commitment’.

Now this is not a gloom and doom posting.

We know from experience that “Money Authority and Need” (MAN) are all required to progress any business transaction, and some of us have learnt, that WOMAN, “Want Outweighs Money Authority and Need”, can be true in many buying situations. (That’s just the world we live in guys

So how does this help?

Even when the economy gets tough, people still buy, they just buy less or at least are more prudent. So, we need to be more targeted with our features/benefits, and show how our products can help grow a prospects business and create the WANT.

With the WANT in place, our Prospects and Clients will be ‘Ready To Buy’, just as Zig Zigler forecasts.

Sales Pitch : Keeping track of prospecting and sales information is a must have goal of any business. If you would like to talk to me about how OpenCRM can do this and more (I was going to put some of those dots here, you know …….. Or an exclamation mark!) please get in touch e:grahama at add-ons.co.uk. If you would like to take a look at OpenCRM for yourself, select this link http://opencrm.co.uk.