In today’s complex world of B2B marketing, social media, ad words and analytics, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of marketing and forget the BASICS. 
I’m sure you have your hands full every week: keeping up with social media trends, measuring response rates, testing and tweaking new marketing campaigns, tracking Google analytics, identifying new markets, honing your message, and meeting your sales team’s constant requests for MORE quality leads!
But — are you SURE you have the BASICS covered? If you fail to keep several marketing basics in mind…success may elude you.
Let’s review the top 10 marketing tips to lay the foundation for success when marketing to the world of corporate training and HR!
- Keep the message simple – LESS is MORE. (Some marketing folks tend to forget this rule.) Be sure to grab your prospect’s attention quickly and then use a simple, powerful message to clearly explain the BENEFITS of your product or service. (Note: Don’t confuse product features with client benefits!)
- Offer value at every touch – Bring value to every prospect outreach. Make every communication an instructional experience. Provide insights, helpful tips, or industry trends. Offering value will build trust, a critical element necessary to develop leads and close sales.
- Provide a clear call-to-action – Clearly and simply describe what you want your prospect to do… Do you want them to email you, call you, visit your website, attend a webinar?
- Identify your customers – Analyze your current customers to build a customer profile. Develop targeted prospecting lists based on those attributes, and be sure to update your prospecting lists regularly. (MTG can help! See actual client example below regarding how to keep up with list change rates and updates…)
- Repeat your message, again and again – This is KEY. Marketing is all about repetition. Use an integrated marketing approach with a combination of phone calls, emails and direct mail pieces to achieve the best results. Reach out multiple times in various ways to improve response rates.
- Test marketing campaigns with a small mailing – Be sure to test any large marketing campaign with a small batch of leads first. Mail out a few hundred pieces before mailing thousands, to determine if the marketing piece, the offer, and the call-to-action are likely to be effective.
- Deliver a strong subject line in your email – This is one of the most critical elements when doing an email marketing campaign. A mediocre or weak subject line will likely yield poor results, so take the time to develop an effective subject line that will prompt your prospects to OPEN your emails! HERE is a TIP to get people to OPEN your emails: Start your subject line with a number, which the brain responds to positively as “useful” information…causing the recipient to open the email. Examples: 5 Keys to Increasing Website Traffic; Top 10 Tips to Shorten Your Sales Cycle; Learn the 5 Best Ways to X; etc…
- Provide a link to unsubscribe – CAN SPAM laws require that you provide a simple and easy way for prospects to unsubscribe from email campaigns. Once someone has unsubscribed, be sure to remove them from your list!
- Test, analyze, tweak and test again – Marketing is all about trial and error. So test, analyze results, and test again. Be sure to track variables and outcomes to see which emails are being opened and which generate the most revenue. Modify and test different graphics, colors, subject lines, offers and content. Track opens, click-throughs, unsubscribes, conversions and bounces. Use this information to continuously improve your marketing campaigns!
- Use a high quality prospecting list! – It is imperative that you use a high quality prospecting list for marketing purposes. While this may sound like a no-brainer, there are many companies still using archaic ways to find leads in an effort to “save money”. The truth is, we often speak with company leaders who have been asking their sales reps to dig up leads on their own, but they’re not getting the results they need. Or, they have purchased an “inexpensive” (i.e. cheap) list, only to learn that the information on the list is junk. This is just another huge waste of sales people’s valuable time.
What happens when you use a subpar list? Junk in = junk out. Forcing reps to make labor-intensive efforts to try to find the right people to talk to is a waste of their valuable time! Instead of increasing a rep’s “selling” time, they increase their “digging” and “sorting” time – NOT exactly productive.
The lesson? Be sure to invest in a marketing list which will give you the QUALITY prospects you need. That step should be FIRST and FOREMOST in any planned marketing campaign. (See MTG Client Case Study.)
A little more about #4 and #10 above.
- Question: How can you find a high quality prospecting list that matches your target customer profile? Answer: MTG provides the highest quality lists in the industry.
- Question: How can you keep up with constant updates and changes in your database? Answer: MTG IS ON TOP OF ALL THE CHANGES, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE!
Free* four-month list updates are included with a minimum MTG list purchase of 1000 contacts. You won’t get this with just ANY marketing list company – you ONLY get this with Mentor Tech Group. And the change rate in the corporate training and HR industries is HUGE. See the recent example below…
________________________________________________________________________________________
Client Example: ACME Company purchased MTG’s “Total Solution” database in early 2014.
In the following four month period, there was a 31.8% change in their database information – this means that a piece of contact data changed in more than 31% of their database records during that period.
Below is a copy of the actual email update we sent “ACME Company” at the four-month mark, along with their updated list:
“The initial database we sent to you had 31,497 contacts. Here’s what’s happened to your database in four months:
- 2,339 brand new contacts were added (7.4%)
- 5,485 existing contacts were modified (17.4%)
- 2,180 contacts were REMOVED (6.9%)
Eight-Month Change Rate: 31.8%
Plus, your database has GROWN! Your database now has 31,831 contacts – a NET GAIN of 334 contacts since your last update!”
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Can your team keep up with this kind of change?
Probably not – but that’s why MTG has a team of Marketing Intelligence Consultants, constantly staying on top of our database information to bring you accurate, up-to-date information you will not find anywhere else.
One IMPORTANT side note: The customer in this example purchased our Total Solution database… Notice the client received additional contacts at NO extra charge with their four-month update. Do you know of any other list company that does that?
Contact Mentor Tech Group today to learn more. You could become the marketing HERO of your company. We’re here to help you find the decision makers you seek – whenever you’re ready!
* Free list updates provided with purchase of 1000 or more contact names.
Call us today at (651) 457-8600, Ext. 3.
