Why One Consultancy Launched a Premium Subscription for Agency New Business Leads

Pitching a self-storage company was a new one for Basic/Dept’s vp of growth, Asher Wren. Once an agency onboards a new client, it’s common for strategists to conduct market research before responding to briefs. New business leads like Wren do the same thing when preparing to pitch prospects, but often under tighter timelines and with…

Your Organization Needs an Updated Revenue Model to Align Under

While you probably won’t get your mouth washed out with soap by using a marketing and sales funnel strategy, your revenue generation machine is likely not as effective as it could be. Today’s enterprise sales are anything but linear. Using a model like a funnel, where leads progress through successive, linear stages, might be helpful…

Light Up Your Lead Intelligence With Call Data 

Warren Buffett once said, “A market downturn doesn’t bother us. It is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices.” While Mr. Buffett was referring to investing in stock, this same sentiment applies to investing in marketing. For example, as marketers emerged from Covid-19 lockdowns, those who took…

3 Keys to Successful Lead Generation in a Post-Cookie World

With Google set to phase out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser by late next year, lead generation marketers will need to find new ways of identifying and reaching their target consumers. Like so many marketers, those in the lead generation space have long relied on this outside behavioral data to identify and reach…

7 Digital Marketing Strategies to Boost Lead Generation

It’s never been easier, or more challenging, to find and engage with new customers. But for sustainable revenue growth through steady customer acquisition, generating leads isn’t enough. You need to make these leads convert. And that’s where the money lies. Before discussing the top ways to generate leads, you first need to understand that different…

What Is the ‘Informed Call’?

Today, sales teams have so much more information available to them before reaching out to leads–it is the digital era, after all. So, instead of relying on the old standby cold call, savvy sales professionals should be using the “informed call.” The informed call is backed by a data-driven approach–a much warmer way to break…

How to Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and Sales

Sales and marketing teams both serve critical functions for their organizations, and in a perfect world, they’d work together to maximize results. As CMOs and other executives push for higher revenue accountability from their teams, aligning these integral stakeholders is now more important than ever. Unfortunately, sales and marketing often feel disconnected. Despite their aims…

Converting Leads: President of MarketingAnd Offers Solutions

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A scheduled twenty minute interview with MarketingAnd President and CEO, Sammy James, ended up lasting an hour.  This is what happens you speak with an expert and a true believer of innovative tools for online marketing.  As the interview continued, I began to recognize how various online businesses could  benefit from its approach. Thank you, Mr. James, for your extra time and attention.

MarketingAnd is an eclectic mixture of product and service — part software-developer, part consultancy, part provider, and part business partner. It is capable of working within an established agency-client relationship and can also provide its own expertise to clients.

What do they do exactly?

MarketingAnd organically augments the number of business leads a company receives and then increases the conversion rate from lead to sale. The main difference between MarketingAnd and other lead/conversion companies is that MarketingAnd doesn’t broker lists or teach sales tactics. Its strength lies in converting visitors into leads, and leads into sales. Think of cultivating the low-hanging fruit.

Why go out and buy leads when you can simply convert the ones you already have?

Most of the time, consumers are researching due to their lack of knowledge towards specific products or services. For example, if I move from a condominium to a house, I’d have a lawn to care for. My limited knowledge in lawnmowers would lead me to various home improvement websites where I would be known as a prospect, or lead.  This is where MarketingAnd comes in, providing the necessary tools to engage visitors like me one-on-one.

Sammy James will be the first to tell you that he is a huge advocate of accountability. Thus, it’s no surprise that MarketingAnd’s suite of tools measure, qualify, and quantify. As the company expanded, it partnered with larger institutions (universities, health care companies, automotive dealers) that possessed their own marketing capabilities but didn’t track leads, cost-per-call, cost-per-sale, call volume, or closing ratio. MarketingAnd has the tools to address these issues.

One of these tools is called Form to Phone. In an Internet sales cycle, leads go from extremely hot (ready to buy) to ice cold in a very short time.  Form to Phone helps establish a quicker response time. Here’s how it works:

  1. As soon as a prospect fills out a form and hits the submit button, your phone rings (wherever you are) and you’re given the person’s name and the reason for his or her inquiry.
  2. You press “1″ and are instantly connected to the prospect via the number he or she provided on the form.
  3. You engage the prospect in dialogue – before your competitors even have a chance.

Form to Phone also alleviates what is known as call reluctance. Call reluctance is a phenomenon where a salesperson experiences a heightened level of anxiety or apprehension before calling prospective client.  It could be so overwhelming that it decreases the total number of sales calls made and can render the salesperson useless. Because the sales cycle depends on volume and repetition, every call not made is a potential loss. Form to Phone is effective because it calls the salesperson with a lead. All the salesperson has to do is hit “1.”

Is MarketingAnd successful? According to Mr. James, its client-retention rate is between 90%-95%, and some clients have seen sales increases in the 300% range. If this seems like an appropriate fit to your business, research MarketingAnd first-hand. If you are in the higher-education business, its sister company, Get Starts, specializes in educational system needs.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Brand Project Manager, blogger and aspiring writer. To contact Jeff, leave a comment or contact him on Twitter or LinkedIn.