Posted on June 1st, 2008 — in Sales Info
When talking about business sales leads, it is important to understand the buyer, and to create a customer through this understanding. Buyer behavior studies can play a pivotal part in this regard. A lot of time and effort have been spent on this relatively new discipline. And every buyer-study has unfolded some new dimension of this discipline. The subject has been approached and analyzed from different angles and under different premises. Different inferences have been formulated. But the subject, too complex to beat, still remains a theorem without a proof.
What motivates the buyer? What induces him to buy? Why does he buy a specific brand from a particular shop? Why does he shift his preferences from one shop to another or from one brand to another? How does he react to a new product introduced to the market, or a piece of information addressed to him? What are the stages he travels through before he makes the decision to buy?
These are some of the questions that are of perennial interest to business firms regarding the sale of their products. It is around these questions that the product and promotion strategies of the business firm ultimately revolve. In all of their strategies and plans, firms make assumptions as to how the buyers would behave and respond to marketing programs. Knowledge of the buyer and his buying motives and habits is thus a fundamental necessity for getting business sales leads.
It needs to be emphasized at the very outset that there is no unified, well-defined, tested and universally established theory of buyer behavior. What we have, today, are certain ideas on buyer behavior. Some of these ideas have taken their cue from economics, others from psychology and yet others have drawn cues from several of the social sciences simultaneously.
Business Leads provides detailed information on Business Lead Lists, Business Leads, Business Sales Leads, Free Business Leads and more. Business Leads is affiliated with Sales Lead Management.
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Posted on May 31st, 2008 — in Sales Info
Have you ever sat through a movie and got to the point when you counted the minutes till its ending? Unfortunately, you can’t speed it up or leave it for another show (although, some people do try switching movies). When long Web copy leaves your eyes glazing in that same way, what do you do?
As you read a long, scrolling sales pitch do you read it and make the buy? Read it and lose interest? Click away? Skim it and do nothing?
Welcome to salesmanship in print.
Why long copy works
Web-Source’s Shelley Lowery says, “It is a proven fact that long sales copy out-sells short sales copy. However, some visitors do prefer a short sales letter. You can provide your visitors with both. For those who prefer a short sales letter, provide opportunities to click through to your order page prior to ending your sales letter.”
Article after article on long sales copy state studies have indicated they work and there are proven results. Yet, no statistics can be found, although several companies have tested various campaigns and have reported that long sales copy comes out ahead. Nick Usborne of Excess Voice has posted results of an informal survey where he asks, “Do long, scrolling pitches really work?”
- 19 percent - I don’t believe that people fall for long, scrolling sales pitches
- 75 percent - I’d never want to write that stuff myself, but I know it sells
- 6 percent - I’ve written those long sales pitches, and made some big bucks
In researching this topic, these are some of the reasons why long copy works:
- You can never provide too many details on the value the product provides (the more you tell, the more you sell)
- They appeal to the reader by using “feelings”
- They tell the whole story
- They clearly state the benefits
How to make it work
Michael Fortin’s article on the eight-step formula for writing long copy is frequently referenced by business people. He sums successful long copy in three steps:
- Market
- Objectives
- Results
Like Web sites, writers create long copy with the audience in mind. If you’re turned off by such copy, then you aren’t the target market. Well-written copy fails when it doesn’t get in front of the right market no matter how emotional it is. It also won’t work if it puts readers to sleep.
Successful long copy has an objective in mind: to sell. It urges the reader to do something immediately, and drives results based on the target market and the objective. To develop the most compelling copy, Copywriters write multiple letters and test them with the market to see how well each does and to verify the copy isn’t hypey, unbelievable or a scam. The key is to let the audience drive the approach.
Writers of long copy don’t write anything and everything that comes to mind. Even Fortin says, “Make your case, tell your story and provide as much information as is needed to make the sale … and not one word more.” Even long copy can be too long.
If you want to get long copy in front of an email newsletter audience, it’s best to send it in a separate special mailing or include a paragraph in the newsletter with a link to the copy’s Web page.
Scrolling down the road
In the past, vertical scrolling has been a no-no, but that has changed with increasing screen resolutions, faster Internet connections and users becoming comfortable with the mouse or keyboard for scrolling. Horizontal (left and right) scrolling remains a bad thing and many recommend avoiding it.
The scrolling problem has decreased in the last few years. Jakob Nielsen, Web design usability expert, reports: “90 percent of users used to not scroll navigation pages; instead, they simply picked from the visible options. This has changed since most Web users now know that pages scroll and that important links sometimes are not visible ‘above the fold.’ Even so, the visible options still dominate and users sometimes overlook alternatives lower down the page.”
Nielsen, however, says to minimize scrolling, especially no more than three pages’ worth. Obviously, long copy works harder to entice readers to scroll below the fold for more information.
Getting and holding their attention
Businesses have experienced higher conversion rates from using long sales copy. People read all the way through it or at least enough to make the buy. That’s why we see long copy in many Web sites.
Just remember that each person has different tastes, experiences and preferences. Some moviegoers walk out before the end of the movie because they’ve lost interest, while the rest stay put for the entire show. It’s up to you to clearly write your sales pitch in a way that gets and holds the attention of those who will stay with you till the end.
Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl’s notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn’t wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.
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Posted on May 1st, 2008 — in Sales Info
Are you an expert at sales tormenting? Before you answer this question, let’s define what the objective of tormenting might be. When I think of tormenting, what comes to mind is a series of small actions that when added up, break down the opposition so they award us what we want. While this might seem cruel and unusual, we can not deny the effective nature of its application.
Is this a strategy you want to duplicate? This strategy is used on us each day. When we enter a political season we find ourselves watching candidate commercials to the point we don’t want to watch television. It happens when marketing departments have this as a prime objective for selling a product. It is one of the reasons you see the same TV ads all the time. They torment us with the same commercials over and over again. Television is also relentless to children with sugar cereals and toys during the Saturday morning hours. You might be thinking about surrendering to your own fantasy torment. Is it possible that you are thinking about that silver or red convertible this year? Perhaps you have a fantasy image you want because you have been tormented with a repeated communication.
The Trickle system of torment
What is your strategy for tormenting a tough prospect with your relentless contacts so you get what you want? Consider this, it really isn’t torture. The typical prospect doesn’t expect you to maintain a consistent level of contact anyway. They expect salespeople to call on them and then drop off and go away.
Adopting the trickle system of contacting your target prospects is a most effective sales strategy. This sales tactic is very similar to water torture because the buyers will simply give up under the pressure of your frequent and constant contacts. If it is so great, why don’t more salespeople and businesses use it? This is a good question. Particularly because so many sales leaders mention how beneficial constant communication is for building relationships. These best practices of sales strategy works best when used consistently and frequently. The buyer simply can’t resist the persuasive effect of this sales tool.
We call it the trickle system because it is applied in small amounts over a short and constant period of time. The frequency of your contacts makes a huge difference in how effective the tormenting works. What do you think is the right number of days between contacts in the early development stages of building a sales relationship? My answer is at the end of this article.
Spreading the contact methods
Using one contact method can have a negative impact on your goal. For example, how would you feel if someone who wanted to reach you only used the telephone? After a while, anyone would get annoyed with the calls. When we think about it, there are only four methods to contact a prospect and you should use each one to spread the impact of your torment. Besides showing diversity, it also doesn’t wear out one method.
Persistence and consistency are the keys to success in the quest for larger accounts. Adopting a torment strategy works and sales experts will have countless examples of where a tough buyer will reward determination through persistence.
Timing your tormenting to be effective
Just like in the early courting period during the dating process the time between contacts should be short. The candy, flowers, love notes are all used in short frequency. I believe a timing of four days between contacts is appropriate during the courting period for many prospects. The strength of this strategy is that we are competing against all kinds of other media and contacts from the competition. If you want to get noticed, you must adopt a method that gets you noticed. It was the same way in high school, remember? In today’s media abundance of communications we are challenged to cut through the clutter with more communications.
Submitted by Steve Martinez, Founder of Selling Magic, a company focused on improving sales using technology and Automated Sales Process Management (ASPM). Get more sales tips at our website http://www.sellingmagic.com.
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