LinkedIn is a business networking site, however, it is not used like it is meant to be.  Many people go through the sign up process and occasionally accept an invitation to join another network, but they never go beyond that.  If you really want to utilize the benefits of LinkedIn, then don’t simply fill out your profile and leave it at that.  Adding contacts can be beneficial, but it doesn’t come close to what you can get out of LinkedIn.  Leverage LinkedIn and grow your business by working a little harder.  There is proof that you can build millions of dollars in revenue annually through efforts on LinkedIn.  You can do this by cultivating successful business relationships.  Here is how:

• Touch Up Your Profile – Make sure everything on your profile is up to date before engaging with connections.  Make a good impression in your profile box.  The profile box is the most important area on your profile page because it is easily visible, efficient, and contains what people want to know about you.  This is the information people need when viewing your profile.
• Join 50 Groups – Groups is the biggest resource on LinkedIn.  If you are not using it then I suggest you start.  The gold is in the groups, and that is where people are looking for help.  Join groups that are relevant where your connections are in, and also be sure to gauge the health of the group.  You can look at group statistics to see how engaging the discussions are.  The more engaging the better.
• Search Group Digests – This is how you can prospect for business.  Allow yourself to receive daily notifications on the news feeds from your groups.  Look through discussions that are interesting to you for your business.
• Discuss – Once you have found interesting discussions through the digests, then engage in those discussions and become part of them.  Your comments are important because if someone likes what you have to say and consider it valuable then they will visit your profile and connect with you.  Also, being recognized as the top influencer on the sidebar can’t hurt your popularity.
• Connect – Make sure your connections are hand picked and you aren’t just connecting with anybody and going wild with the connect button.  Look for potential prospects or business opportunities.  Once you connect with them then there can be an opportunity to move them over to something more personal such as Skype.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing

Your email marketing campaigns don’t stay up to date over time, the databases slowly die. 25% of your list will expire over time as people switch jobs, switch email providers, or unsubscribe.  A re-engagement email campaign will not only wake up those unengaged subscribers and raise your click rates, but it will also make sure your lists are clean and you are not throwing away your active subscribers.  Most email marketers stay up to date with which subscribers to get rid of because they usually request to be taken off, however, a re-engagement campaign’s method can focus on re-awakening those active subscribers that may or may not be opening your emails.  It is crucial to launch re-engagement email campaigns for a couple important reasons.  One is to keep your domain reputation healthy.  Emailing the same people that don’t open or read your emails will hurt your name and the word will get out to different email providers.  The second reason is to make sure you aren’t emailing old lists, which will result in high bounce rates which can be dangerous.  Also, a more obvious reason, is to make sure that you are getting your money’s worth.  A re-engagement campaign will make sure you are not wasting any time or budget on stale contacts, and therefore not wasting your money. In order to launch an effective campaign it is important to follow some important steps.

1. Assign Ages – You need to create a way to assign each subscriber an age.  Whether it be the date they became a subscriber, or the date they last interacted, it doesn’t matter.  This just needs to be consistent as it is a way to keep them organized and a way to measure their age.
2. Decide on Cutoff – After establishing an age for your subscribers you then must determine what the cutoff point is for engaged and unengaged subscribers.  Trust your own judgement here, it shouldn’t be hard to tell when a subscriber is unengaged.  Usually this happens between 3 and 6 months.
3. Segment – If you choose to be specific about your segmentation then it will make it a whole lot easier when trying to determine who your stale contacts are.  Creating groups that are segmented for 3 months is better than 6 months, and keeping each list 5000 or fewer will benefit you because the volume of bounces matter when your bounce rate is determined.
4. Design your Emails – Design the emails that you are going to send to each segment that is intended to re-awake them.  In order to establish re-engagement with your subscribers you must send something that is highly valuable.  Remember, this is crucial because it is a last chance effort before you cut loose on your subscribers.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing

Are there laws for cold calling?  Cold calling and lead generation have always been the front line for obtaining new business and prospects, but why are there failures in cold calling and why has it been stereotyped by many as a waste of time?  People don’t realize that there is much more behind cold calling then just calling.  Cold calling is an art that requires execution and has laws behind it.  There is often a fear of cold calling for businesses mostly because people are scared of failure, but more directly related to the lack of preparation.  If you are prepared then you have no need for a fear of failing while cold calling.  It comes down to how badly you want more business, and if you have to think about that then you shouldn’t be in business.  If you want it like you should, then you will go after it because cold calling is an effective sales tactic if done properly.  In order to successfully execute your cold calling you need to know the laws.  Here are the laws of cold calling:

1. Be Prepared – If you want your conversation to be considered a good use of time for your potential prospect then you must be prepared before you pick up the phone and dial.  Prospects will be interested and consider what you are saying if you show that you have researched and know a little about them.  It is natural for humans to be more receptive, engaging, interested, pleasant, and so on when the other person shows an interest in them.  Prospects receive plenty of calls from people that aren’t prepared and have no idea who they are actually calling other than the name on the generated list.  Take the extra time to research who you are calling, it will pay off.
2. Prospects are Busy – You need to be persistent. Calling a prospect twice isn’t enough.  It takes at least three times to reach a prospect, and maybe more depending on if the prospect is in a senior level position or not.  Most senior level executives don’t actually plan on taking a sales call from a prospect and therefore it takes more than a couple calls or an email to reach them and get down to business.  In order to exceed the competition you need to be persistent and call more than 3 times in order to reach your prospects, unless you want to see your competitors snag the business.
3. Have More Discussions – It is on you as the caller to have more than one discussion.  After the executive takes the call and you have a discussion, he still won’t be the one to call back and follow up in the sales cycle.  A senior level executive has more things to do throughout his day and will rarely take the time to call back for a follow up discussion.  Getting a prospect truly engaged in the content usually takes more than one phone call.
4. Change How You Engage – Many people at the other end of a cold call already have programmed what they are going to say to shut you down.  You need to change the way you initially engage.  Ask them a specific question that pertains to their needs.  Don’t just say, “I saw you visited our site and I would like to set up a call.” Ask them about a product they were looking at and if they have it now.  Do not think like a stereotypical cold caller or you will sound like one.  Sound genuine and caring when you ask your prospect.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing

Lead nurturing is the process of building a meaningful relationship with prospects that are not ready to buy and moving them through your sales funnel by engaging, communicating, and “keeping in touch” with them regardless of time.  While nurturing leads, you always want to maintain that permission to continue to educate them until they are ready to buy.  Lead nurturing is a complex topic and there are many practices that help with your lead nurturing campaigns, making them successful and driving prospects through the sales cycle, to the point of sale.  50% of leads are qualified and not ready to buy after the first conversation, while only 25% are ready to go to directly to sales (according to Gleanster Research).  50% is a large portion of prospects, and with a successful lead nurturing campaign you will optimize potential and drive revenue.  Here are some lead nurturing practices that can be implemented into your lead nurturing campaigns.

1. Teach – Remember that you are the expert in your industry, so you should be able to easily educate prospects on a product or service.  However, you must first make sure you have something of value to teach, as well as creating new content and information in each email, continually educating prospects with new material.  This will keep them happy and result will continual engagement.
2. Focus – Each email you send to a lead should be concentrated on one topic area, this topic area should specifically be directed to the type of response the lead provided.  You want your leads to continue to open your emails, and not delete them.  In your lead nurturing campaigns, keep your emails focused and relevant.
3. Short and Sweet – Do not overload your emails with large fonts, graphics, or colors.  That will cause a red flag for the ones reading it, if it makes it past the spam block.  Prospects do not want to see how creative you can get with all that unnecessary “junk.”  This isn’t art class.
4. 4-1-1 Rule – If you are looking for a way to create a flow for your progression of emails to prospects then you can try the 4-1-1 rule.  This rule suggests to send out 4 educational and entertaining emails in a progression, and then mix in one “soft-promotion”, which can include asking them to attend an event or offer a free trial.  After the “soft promotion” use a “hard promotion” such as asking them to subscribe to a newsletter or apply for an account.  The 4-1-1 rule is a suggestion if you are lost on how to progress your emails.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing

Email marketing is becoming an important aspect of businesses today, and along with this comes a very important and necessary task: Spam proofing.  It is already hard enough to grab the attention and retain interest of potential prospects, but making sure your marketing material is actually received by the intended audience is an important aspect of compiling an effective marketing email.  Email receivers are well prepared and protected against spam and fraudulent emails as they should be, but this just means that you need to be extra careful that you aren’t labeled as a spammer and to make sure that your marketing emails enter the inboxes and not the spam folder.  I have listed some ways to make sure you are effectively carrying out your email marketing campaigns, making sure they are reaching the intended audience:

1. Create Clean Subject Lines – This is what the reader first sees and has the most impact on whether they even open the email or not.  The subject line needs to be professional, and avoiding words that are catchy and “pitchy” are important because they are easily recognized by spam filters.  Avoid using all capital letters as well as words like “free” or “buy.”
2. Clean Content – Keeping the content clean is just as important as keeping the subject line clean.  The tone and style should be in a professional manner, and avoid using too many images, it is very easy for spam filters to when there are too many images.  Also, plain text is the best option.  Be sure to include your company information at the bottom so that the reader can visit your site.
3. Make it Visually Appealing – This doesn’t mean add crazy pictures with outrageous font, but this means keep it professional and make sure the content flows, keep it short and sweet, and make sure the call-to-action is easily recognizable.  Just ask yourself, “It is exactly what I had in mind?”
4. Give a Choice – It is important to always give your readers a choice whether to opt out of your emails.  Be respectful, you don’t want to deal with angry consumers and possible lawsuits.

Author: Michael Whartnaby, Prospectr Marketing