ROI by channel: telephone wins

Which channel is best? Should we invest more heavily in telemarketing or direct mail, or something else? Marketers must wrestle with questions like this every day, as they try to come up with a mix that’s best for their situation. These are important questions as the stakes and the money are big.

This is a very helpful chart as it stack ranks the channels by an ROI index. The good folks over at the Direct Marketing Association have made his kind of comparison possible by factoring both revenue and cost.

The telephone channel scored the highest ROI index rating (18.2). E-mail came in second at 16.0. See the chart to review the ten other channels rated.

Even though I’m biased toward the telephone because I’m mostly a phone guy, I’m still somewhat surprised by the results. It should be noted that this information does not apply directly to technology sales and marketing, my beat. It’s broader in scope and I’d assume focuses on lower price points. Still it is a data point, and as such, it’s helpful.
This data point deals with revenue generation, not lead generation.

On the lead generation side, I ran across this interesting post at Brian Carroll’s blog:

B2B marketers voted B2B telemarketing as the #1 safest tactic they would be most likely to invest in if their CEO gave them an extra $50,000 for lead generation. (MarketingSherpa survey of 729 marketers)

It would seem that the telephone channel is alive and well on the lead generation side also.

Of course, it’s best to use a multi-channel sequenced touch point approach, but that’s another story.

Beware the coming recession (ECRI can ease the pain)

The media “talking heads” are beginning to use the r-word. There is some speculation that we may be heading into a recession, beginning in 2007.

Those of us, like me, who got flattened by the tech bust of 2001 are keen on keeping an eye on the economy. Nothing can dry up and blow away a pipeline, job or company like a good recession.

I’m here to share a wonderful find with you. I stumbled across the ECRI (Economic Cycle Research Institute) a few months ago on a blog.

The short story is that these guys are the undisputed primary source when it comes to calling recessions and or recoveries. These are the guys that other economists turn to when it comes to recessions. From the ECRI website:

As The Economist magazine recently noted “ECRI is perhaps the only organization to give advance warning of each of the past three recessions; just as impressive, it has never issued a false alarm.”

The ECRI has accurately called every recession and recovery in modern times. They are super-smart and have their own funding.

They publish a very concise weekly report with commentary and charts. If you buy their book you get access to the weekly reports for three months.

Even though most people consider economic cycles to be “dry as dirt” from an interest standpoint, I highly recommend their book. The book gives you an important understanding of how and why we have economic or business cycles. We tend to forget how painful they can be for so many of us.

We also forget that they are inevitable; like death, plaque and taxes. Best to be aware of them, to understand the basics and do what you can to prepare.

Nothing beats being able to see into the future of the business cycle like you will if you become an ECRI subscriber. My ECRI subscription is some of the best money I spend. It saves me the time and trouble of getting bad information from the mainstream media on this very important topic. This belongs front and center on your dashboard.

Now is the time to check your value proposition. Only the strongest value propositions have a chance of surviving a real recession.

Dr. Evil speaks

As a long-time user and huge fan of Jigsaw I was excited to read this article. I was surprised to find out that Jim is such a wise CEO, far above average.

Guy Kawasaki interviews Dr. Evil, aka Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw.com.

His comments about how all employees will be the ultimate beneficiaries of Jigsaw, are interesting. Not just sales people and or business owners. His observation is that having so much employee information available will mean recruiters can find and place more people more often. This tilts the balance of power from employers to employees. Interesting and plausible.

I was also impressed by his comments about how Jigsaw will reduce the number of “innocents” who have their time wasted by us sales people who are trying to find the “right” person.

“Many critics don’t understand how the process of selling actually works. Sales people spend a huge amount of their time just looking for the right people to contact. Surveys of our 100K+ members show that the average time spent doing this is 33%! Sales people must call and crawl all over a target organization and waste the time of many ‘innocent bystanders’ who are not the right people. This process sucks for everyone involved.” (Jim Fowler as interviewed by Guy Kawasaki)

The interview also reveals the history of the nickname.

A good read.

Bay Area Telebusiness Alliance

This is a really good group. Once per quarter they, now we, get together to share information about topics of concern to technology company inside sales people and organizations.

I attended my first of their meetings today. It was time well spent. I got a lot of good information that I will be able use and met new people.

The best parts of the meeting were the vendor presentations. We saw Jigsaw and Nomea - both were eye openers!

See the invitation listed below for more details.

Find out more here.
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Please Join us for our 2006 Q3 Bay Area Telebusiness Alliance Meeting

The goal of the Telebusiness Alliance group is to share industry best practices and provide support and mentoring. The Telebusiness Alliance is a group of Telebusiness (Inside Sales) professionals who meet regularly under nondisclosure to discuss mutual business issues. Members benefit by networking with industry peers and sharing expertise in areas that relate to professional business-to-business sales, support, marketing, compensation and other topics germane to the unique needs of the inside sales function. As a result of attending Telebusiness Alliance meetings, members gain access to information that will lead to increased productivity, increased revenues and decreased cost of sales for their companies.

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What?

Motivation and Recognition

o Based on the feedback that we received in our last meeting, we are dedicating our August 8th session around motivation and recognition for all Inside Sales teams. This discussion will be driven from the attached survey that the board members have compiled to share best practices on what each of us are doing today with motivation and recognition. We will review your feedback in small break out sessions keeping with a few key goals in mind:

ü What’s working for similar inside sales groups

ü Brainstorm different ways to motivate and recognize

ü Benchmarks that we can refer to and build towards

Two Guest Speakers

o What tools are available to increase lead generation productivity? Today we are honored to have two guests share how their companies add value in making the qualification process an efficient and successful one!

ü Garth Moulton, Co-founder & Director of Business Development of Jigsaw, http://www.jigsaw.com/

o Jigsaw is a Global Business Contact Marketplace, where members get business contact information. Members get two contacts back for every good business contact they add to Jigsaw. Contacts have complete information including business email address and phone number. The contact information allows sales professionals to contact prospects DIRECTLY, and bypass gatekeepers.

ü Andrei Stoica, Partner of Nomea, www.Nomea.net

o Nomea software connects a client’s sales representative with virtual one or many assistants who place outbound calls on their behalf. When the assistant reaches a decision maker, they say nothing, and simply transfer the call to the client’s sales representative who then begins the pitch. The transfer is seamless and the prospect is left with the impression that the salesperson placed the call.

Where?

Juniper Networks has volunteered to host our next meeting (Thank you Jeff!) and it will be held at the following location:

Juniper Networks

1194 North Mathilda Ave

Sunnyvale, CA 94089

When?

Tuesday August 8, 2006 8:30am to 12:00pm

What to bring?

Your completed Motivation and Recognition feedback form for the break-out sessions

Join our next meeting!

Please RSVP to this email address (mjshutte@riverbed.com) and feel free to forward this invite to other Inside Sales Management that you know.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Fran Kathriner, Mary Jane Shutte, Randi Laforge Board Members, Telebusiness Alliance

How to “own” the Fortune 500

If you sell a technology product into the Fortune 500 you are in luck today. You are in luck because I’m going to tell you about ITS Profiles. ITS Profiles is a company that has twenty full time researchers who find out everything you need to know to get your foot well into the door of any Fortune 500 IT department.

We’re talking complete organization charts, 100% direct dial phone numbers and extensions and 100% direct email addresses. For example, a large bank in Ohio that has been profiled by ITS includes 188 IT contacts and is 28 pages long.

The power of the organization chart is big. You can instantly zero in on the key people and departments you are targeting. For example, you could target the Information Security department and launch a coordinated direct mail, email and telephone campaign. You have the power to “touch” all relevant people (not including the business unit) quickly and in a powerful way.

The ITS Profilers update every record a whopping six times per year. The only data I have ever come across that is as accurate is Jigsaw and they don’t offer organization charts.

Dead chicken parts, fried in grease at 200 degrees

This article is some of Kristin Zhivago’s best work. She says that to be successful you must make a promise to your target market. That promise should relate to what she calls the, “visual moment of satisfaction.”

This is when the customer gets what was promised and is satisfied.

Her formula is to make a promise that describes the visual moment of satisfaction, based on what customers tell you. And therein lies the rub. You can’t describe the moment, only your customers can, no matter how smart you think you are.

Do yourself a favor and read the article.

Data decay is killing your lead generation response rates

It always starts innocently enough. The company is just getting off the ground. Perhaps a long gone VP of Sales uploaded his entire contact list into the CRM to get things going. A sales person is hired and she then uploads her contacts to the CRM. A marketing person buys a list and uploads it to the CRM. The company completes a webinar and then uploads the names to the CRM. And so it goes…

So what’s the problem?

At first there is no problem. The company is able to launch direct marketing campaigns (mail, email & phone) that produce healthy response rates (assuming a strong value proposition and a well chosen target market segment).

Six months or a year in, things begin to go sour. The company now has perhaps 15,000 names in the CRM. The problem is response rates have dropped off dramatically.

At first this makes no sense to anyone because nothing else has changed. The dynamics of the market space look no different to the company, or anyone else for that matter.

The problem is not external, it’s internal. The problem is data decay. Due to a host of demographic, psychographic and macro economic factors, list names obsolete – quickly.

Target market list names are like fruit. They spoil with time. The day you buy a brand spanking new target market list of names, it’s 20% obsolete. Phone numbers, addresses, email addressed, job titles and interest windows change all the time.

Six months out your list has spoiled to the tune of up to 50% depending on segment. Don’t waste your time or your company’s money marketing to a list that’s a year old.

The only solution to this costly and mostly invisible problem is data cleaning. Someone, yes a real human, must call, email and physical mail every name on a regular basis. Anything that does not validate and or can’t be updated is tossed.

The cost and time associated with cleaning is substantial. That’s one of the reasons it’s not done. Although, the single biggest reason it’s not done is because people don’t realize the cost of a dirty database.

One solution is to make database cleaning part of the Inside Sales mission. The synergy is strong. Inside Sales sort of does the work anyway, assuming a lead incubation or nurturing program is in place. For example, mail a postcard, broadcast an email and call everyone in your database once every other month.

If you decide that you don’t want to be in the data maintenance business you may be able to buy maintained current names. The easiest and cheapest is jigsaw.com.

Jigsaw is brilliant because they have figured out how to provide maintained current names at a very affordable cost.

If you’re focusing on Fortune 500 companies and can afford the $17,000 annually, you can step up to the top of the line, ITS Profiles. ITS is a service and all they do is update and maintain the most comprehensive database of all Fortune 500 companies, I have ever seen. The detail and accuracy will blow you away. They have a group of 20 analysts that review and validate every record, a whopping six times per year.

The ITS Profiles data is so good it will make sales guys drool and marketing guys will have record response rates and campaign ROIs.

You can either do it yourself or you can pay someone else to do it, but you are going to have to find a way to get and keep your data clean, or you’ll pay a very steep price in response rate, campaign ROIs and lost time.

How to eliminate CRM data entry grunt work

EVA stands for Electronic Virtual Assistant…and it’s really cool.

You talk into it and it does most of the administrivia. All for a very affordable price. If you are an executive, or a field sales person, you need this service – unless you already have a personal secretary.

I’m not easily impressed when it comes to productivity boosting technology, but this is special. Having worked as a field sales person for years, I know well how much unproductive grunt work is involved. Call reports, trip reports, expense reports, follow-up items, next steps, pipeline reports, updating your boss, etc. etc. etc.

As a sales person you don’t really get paid for any of this administrivia stuff. Yet, you are required to do it. It’s what you get paid your base salary for.

Whatever your base salary is, it’s not enough to justify the time you have to spend doing this administrivia. It’s costing you and your company a fortune in lost potential productivity. Don’t do it, switch to EVA.

So what does this have to do with CRM? Everything. CRM is a big fat flop because there is nothing in it for the sales person. They get to do a bunch of administrivia that does not help them close sales now. Worst, no one else in the company is using the information either.

The other problem with CRM is that most field sales people don’t like to type and don’t have the time to, as they are on the road. So, no
return-on-effort for the sales person. Also, they have nowhere to do the administrivia, ever try writing a sales report on a laptop while in the boarding line?

This EVA thing looks really cool. Go to their website and watch the video. You’ll be glad you did.

P.S. – Don’t let the amateurish looking website throw you.

www.evaforhire.com