Social Media Lead Generation

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching and attracting potential customers for your business. However, it is not enough to just post about your products or services and hopes that people will buy them. You also need to interact with your audience and respond to their comments and messages in a timely and effective manner.   

Potential customers responding to a social media post to request more information about a product or service are showing interest and curiosity in what you have to offer. This is a great opportunity to engage with them and provide them with valuable and relevant information that can help them make a purchase decision. However, not all potential customers are at the same stage of the buyer's journey, and some may need more nurturing than others. Therefore, it is important to tailor your responses to their specific needs and questions, and avoid generic or sales messages that may turn them off.   

Here are some tips on how to respond to potential customers on social media:- Acknowledge their comments or message and thank them for their interest. This shows that you appreciate their attention and that you are listening to them.   

Ask open-ended questions to understand their pain points, goals, challenges, preferences, budget, timeline, etc. This helps you to qualify them as leads and to determine the best way to help them. 

Provide relevant and helpful information that answers their questions and addresses their concerns. This can include links to blog posts, case studies, testimonials, videos, webinars, ebooks, etc. that showcase your expertise and value proposition. 

• Avoid being too pushy or aggressive in your responses. Don't try to sell them your product or service right away, unless they explicitly ask for it. Instead, focus on building trust and rapport with them and educating them about your solution. 
• Invite them to take the next step in the buyer's journey. This can be signing up for a free trial, booking a demo, scheduling a consultation, downloading a lead magnet, etc. Make sure you provide a clear and compelling call to action that motivates them to take action. 
• Follow up with them until they are ready to buy. Don't let the conversation die after one interaction. Keep in touch with them via email, phone, or social media until they move further along the sales funnel.

At Leadlne we can respond directly to the enquiry and validate their interest to then pass definite leads over to your pre-sales team meaning your team is working on more likely sales opportunities. We can help you save time and resources by handling the initial engagement with potential customers on social media and qualifying them as leads for your business.  

Contact us today to find out how we can help you grow your sales with social media lead generation.

Ticket Sales

Hours of planning and preparation, amazing location, and catering done… but who's managing your ticket sales? With the summer finally here and outdoor events in full swing, this can be a busy time of year for event organisers.

Running any big event requires a serious amount of dedication and hard work, just to get it off the ground. After all that hard work and preparation the worst thing to happen is for people not to show up on the day. The key to this is not only great advertising of the event, but also ensuring that you have an understanding and dedicated set-up for organising ticket sales. You may have everything set up for website ticket sales but having the ability to offer customers the option of someone to talk to is a huge benefit.

At Leadline we manage many ticket hotlines for large events, our staff are experienced and used to dealing with all aspects of customer service and payment queries.

If you’re running an event this year then contact us to talk through your requirements.

For more information about how we can help please call us on 01666 511470, use our contact form or email info@leadline.co.uk

Last month we looked at the important issue of data protection and this month we are going to look at extending the working day and adding value to what you can offer your customers in terms of availability and responsiveness to telephone calls.

Expectations from your customers will be changing year on year as we move towards an age where everything and everyone is available 24/7. Whilst the use of smartphones has increased our ability work flexibly outside core business hours it is still very difficult to be available to take all calls all the time whilst also maintaining a good level of customer service. Having more people to answer phones is the obvious solution but in reality this can be very difficult for a small company to achieve when margins are tight and often the number of staff employed is very few. There can be a constant battle to manage the needs of a business to enable it to grow and succeed whilst also looking after your most precious resource, your existing customers.

If you aren’t able to answer a call you may find your competitor can.

Here at Leadline, we understand this only too well and work with many small businesses to enable them to take those next steps Telephwhich could be, for example, a long term relationship over several years to allow the expansion of a business or simply managing one off tactical projects designed to bring in new clients and boost revenue.

Whatever your strategic direction Leadline can offer a professional team who can step into your shoes and whom you can rely on to answer your calls from your customers with exactly the same care and respect as you would yourself .

With standard opening hours of Mon to Fri 8.00am to 9.00pm and Sat and Sun 9.00am - 8.00pm your customers can always be sure their call will be answered.

"If only we had found Leadline earlier. We tried 3 call centres before Leadline and none of them were in the same league when it came to just about everything - customer service, transparency, accuracy. Leadline work to our objectives and regularly exceed our expectations, in our opinion they are the best outsourced call centre in the UK."

Spring Clean your data

Early Spring and traditionally a time for spring cleaning and new beginnings and it’s no different in the business sector. Clean data is one of the most valuable resources a company can have and a skilled call centre can help you maintain your customer data. Bad data gives your customers the wrong impression, incorrect emails, addresses and misspellings of names all contribute to wrongly communicating that a company may be unprofessional and slapdash in its dealings.

A good call centre can hugely impact how your company is perceived and lets your customers know how you value your interactions with them.

We were approached by a company that was looking to re-establish itself within a market sector they had not been involved with for some time. The aim of the outbound call campaign was to contact previous suppliers and engage with them in their new partner programme. We made 5000 outbound calls and were able to triple the number of official partners creating a new revenue stream. Working closely with the company we trained our team of staff to understand the complexities of the products and services and therefore be as effective as possible when making the calls.

As well as gaining valuable leads as a part of the process we were also able to clean the data as a direct result of the phone calls. Using Excel, we analysed the calls to determine how successful the calls were in each industry sub-sector thereby enabling the company to determine where to focus its future marketing efforts.

These findings were passed to the company on a daily basis for their internal staff to follow up on. Needless to say, the company were delighted with the success of the campaign and the level of detailed analysis we could provide and we have continued to work closely with them.

Good data gives you the opportunity to effectively market to your customer database building trust and ensuring customers have faith in how you manage their personal details.

Misjudging Risks & Making Bad Decisions.

If we all had bottomless pits of money and resources, we would all have amazing marketing, abundant human resources, technology coming out of our eyeballs, and a product that everyone wanted.

The fact is after several years of tough time, having streamlined staffing levels, cut back on outgoings and relying on reputation of work or product, we don’t have bottomless pits anymore.

Making bad decisions on things which will not improve your business are easily done.

The hype surrounding social media at the moment would have you believe that blogging, twittering and facebooking your business will lead you to more sales. Indeed, following the hype and to a certain extent, recognising its impact is the very reason we are doing it.

By outsourcing call handling for an effective result and maximizing return on investment you can concentrate on the growing social media outlet and reduce the costs both in terms of finances and time and let you get on with becoming the product or service on everyone’s lips.

Don’t make a bad decision in 2023 or waste budgets on a marketing decision that you then can’t service.

Call us today on 01666 511470

The Importance of Good Quality Data

Did you know that on average -

• Two and half percent of all first class mail is returned.
• Twenty percent of emails in your database could be wrong.
• Five percent of phone numbers in your records are no longer applicable.

The Root Causes of this problem

There are a number of factors driving higher costs. The most important of these are poor quality addresses and the challenges of accurate data capture; and of course, database decay resulting from people moving.  
The factors compound other problems such as handling, re-mailing and extended cycle time.

Poor Quality of Data

Alas, it’s human nature to make mistakes. When customers or staff are tasked with providing their address information on physical or web-based forms, it is inevitable that some mistakes will be made and incorrect data entered.  
At a recent event I was involved in at the NEC in Birmingham, I was provided with the data of people that had attended the show, to provide follow-up emails to the visitors to thank them for their attendance. The data was of course imputed by the visitors themselves, either on the day as they made their entrance, or in advance with the advance sign-up facility. 23% of the information provided was incorrect.  
Taking into account the fact that this data was extremely fresh and had little to no decay over time, we are already experiencing nearly a quarter of the data pool being incorrect.  
Companies on the whole have also adopted a questionable practice of sending emails and or conventional mail correspondence to a first-time customer and or contact, regardless of whether or not the address is known to be wrong. This practice will result in bounced emails or return mail and undoubtedly leads not only to an increase in revenue but also loss of sales.

Natural Database Decay

Personnel changes within businesses vary, not only by company but also by sector. However, the average across the UK can be between 12-17% per annum. If you are trying to engage with a person within a business, a sixth of your contacts could have changed position or company in a 12 month period. Take into account this doesn’t even include the number of businesses which have ceased trading or been involved in a merger.  
It is widely recognised that over two-thirds of these changes will not inform their client base.

A Case Study Worth Considering…

I could have used a case study of a business that lost millions of pounds due to bad data, but I thought I would use an example that everyone could get to grips with.  
A business sends out its brochure to its client base twice a year. Its brochure is glossy and full of all their products and no doubt brings them in great orders. However, the brochure isn’t cheap. It costs the business nearly £5 each by the time it’s been produced and posted out.  
It sends its brochure out to 8000 people that it has met or engaged within the last 12 months. In-depth database analysis showed that 20% of the data was incorrect in the first place from when it was imputed. 15% of the people they were trying to contact no longer worked with the businesses they were trying to engage with. 10% of the businesses had closed or gone into receivership in the last 12 months.  
In short… close to 40% of the people at the various businesses they wanted to send brochures to were never going to see the brochure. Extrapolate this out further and you’ll see that the business was about to spend £16,000 they could and should have spent elsewhere.

It can seem very doom and gloom, but it needn’t be that way. The reality is that the figures above are completely natural and affect all businesses, and your competition as much as you.  
The difference between what you do to manage it and what your competitors aren’t doing, is what will define your business and how successful you are?  
A data cleanse and validation scheme will take your database and bring it as up to date. It has the opportunity to review addresses, update employee records, verify email address to ensure that your marketing activity is getting to the people that you need it to.

4 Simple Steps

• When you source data, ensure that it is as accurate as possible.
• Whenever you interact with a client or customer, always take a minute to double-check their records on your database.
• Endeavour to have your client pool or database cleansed every 6-12 months.
• If you have an employee leave or change within the business, let your customers know.

Who is handling your telephone ticket hotline ?

• Hours of planning and preparation?
• Got the location to dwarf all other locations?
• Sorted your key speaker, or celebrity guest?
• Organized catering for the masses?
• Stewards and car park attendants ready ?

Running any big event requires a serious amount of dedication and hard work, just to get it off the ground. After all that preparation the worst thing to happen is for people to not show up on the day, and the key to this is not only great advertising of the event, but also ensuring that you have an understanding and dedicated set up for organising ticket sales.

Now days most ticket sales can be effectively handled with payment processing over the Internet - tickets can be printed and dispatched to your customers within minutes of their order.

The problem comes when something is a little bit out of the ordinary.

What if

• There is a change in the ticket order - maybe a change of address ?
• A special requirement needs to be considered - like wheelchair access or dietary needs ?
• A customer decides to upgrade their ticket for a better seat or view ?

At Leadline we’ve handled many ticket hotlines for large events, we have experience of all these questions and changes - we can speak to your customer, understand and advise as well as modifying your systems online to reflect their needs.

Additionally we can make upselling calls after an order is placed prior to your event and customer satifiscation surveys after an event to get you important feedback.

If you have an event to run this year, why not let us handle your telephone Ticket hotline and ensure that your event is the one that everyone is talking about this year.

Call us today on 01666 511470.

By Simon West

Sales teams need new leads. A lead is a new opportunity to engage in a sales discussion with a new or existing contact.

Sales is an engine that takes leads (raw commodity) and turns them into orders for the business to fulfil. Depending on the business, sales may need 3, 5, 10, 20 or 100 leads to “make” an order.

But who in the business is responsible for providing the sales team with these new leads?

In a traditional company model, the marketing department is running campaigns that will raise awareness of company / product / service and cause potential customers to get in touch. A percentage of these inbound enquiries will turn into leads which then feed sales. If sales need more leads, marketing undertake more activities.

But what if marketing does not exist, or is not producing the leads that sales require? Another model is required…

What are the options?

• Sales can generate their own leads. This requires (often expensive) sales resource to “hit the phones” in the hope of uncovering leads from yellow pages, old customers, competitors, industry publications, etc, etc…
• Pay a telemarketing firm to call on your behalf
• Use social media to generate leads (good luck )

And that’s about it…

But here is a different approach. Decide who your whole market is (eg Facilities Managers in companies of more than 100 staff, Sales Directors in Southern England, etc.) and acquire their contact details. If you already know how to build a list of clean, opted in contacts, we suggest you start here now. But if you don’t, talk to us and we’ll show you.

This should give you tens of thousands of contacts who fit your customer profile but who have probably never heard about you. But this contact list is too big to telephone everyone economically…

So send a series of emails to this contact list, sharing knowledge, market insights and resources with them. The aim is to build your credibility in their eyes over a period of months. Then they will get in touch with you and buy – right? Wrong! These contacts, if they are interested, will click through on the links you include in the email but won’t get in touch with you.

So then you call up the ones that have clicked on links as they are leads? No! What these contacts have done is to make an “Expression of Interest”. They may be nosey but with no need, bored, vaguely interested or interested right now. All these contacts require a qualifying call to discuss the issue raised in the email they clicked on. This is not a sales call – view it as a customer service call.

Then (finally!) contacts that in this call express interest and qualify (they have a need, a budget and authority) are the leads that get fed to the sales team and get turned into orders.

The remainder of the contacts are recycled by next months email and can be re-qualified time and again until they are ready to be fed to the sales team.

Now that is a repeatable process to feed the sales team with leads!

If this sounds like something you need call us on 01666 511470 or email info@leadline.co.uk and we’ll show you what’s involved, what the costs are and what you can expect from us.

Keeping Your Data Safe

We have previously dealt with the importance of clean data and this month we are going to take a look at the importance of data protection and the use of data by call centres.

With so many high profile scandals regarding the misuse of private data being seen within the media last year your customers will be understandably concerned about where and how their data might be used and stored so it is vital you deal with call centres who are experienced and professional in their dealings with data.

Before appointing a call centre you should research thoroughly and check that they are registered with regards to Data Protection. Leadline are registered with the ICO (the Information Commissioner’s Office) who are the Regulators of the Data Protection Act and are there to protect how personal data is used in the public domain.

A good quality call centre will take this issue very seriously and will have strict procedures in place to ensure they are compliant with the rules around the use of personal data.

For example, an incoming call to a call centre is answered and whilst going through the process of ordering tickets for an event the customer asks that the call centre check the address they have on record. A simple request but under data protection that information simply could not be given out as we cannot verify the callers identity.

In an increasingly digital world and with the rise in identity theft the topic of data protection is something which customers are becoming more and more aware of and therefore entrusting data to a call centre with a solid reputation that has clear data protection processes should be high on the list of priorities when researching who to appoint.

Top 5 Telemarketing Tips

Goal

If you’re looking at telemarketing without a clear goal, then the whole activity is in danger of being diluted before you even start. What do you hope to achieve from the exercise? Having a clear indication of what your goals are will give you the ability to create a benchmark to measure the project against.

Data

Without this, then there is no telemarketing! A database built up over the course of your business is the best place to start, but if you do not have this then there are data suppliers in the market – but be sure to pin your profile of prospective customers down, or you will be wasting time and money talking to the wrong people.

Price

The big question in today’s market – should you take the cheapest price if you outsource? Not if you want your telemarketing to have the best chance of success. You should take into consideration the company’s experience and the processes that they use, as well as their ability to be flexible.

Scripting

Do you want to sound like the double glazing sales team moving their finger across the script and reading at 10 words a minute? Or do you want your calls to sound natural and flow without giving the prospect the feeling that they have been “cold called”? A good outsourcing company will work with you to produce a “script” that does the latter while still keeping your message accurate and timely.

Selection

Do you have the staff and experience to dedicate to telemarketing, or should you let a company like Leadline become a strategic partner, utilising our experience of over 14 years of making outbound calls, taking each of the above points into account at the start of the process.

Have a look at the trial that we offer here.

Over the past ten years we have developed and refined a repeatable sales process for generating business from new and existing customers using a combination of targeting, email marketing, letters, events and follow up telephone calls.

This process has been thoroughly tested and is working well for a range of businesses. As a sales method, it is suited to many businesses that need more sales and to stay close to customers. The goal of this programme is to create “perfect” enquiries for you.

The process in outline

We suggest following a simple process:

• Target: Identify the contacts that you want to talk to
• Know: Become known to these contacts
• Trust: Build trust with these contacts such that they think of you when they have a requirement
• Engage: Engage with contacts when they may have a requirement
• contacts will buy from you once they trust you and have engaged with you

Target

Existing customer and prospect lists provide a starting point. Supplement these with purchased lists of carefully selected contacts or build lists from other sources.

Once you have a list of contacts, validate that they still exist and obtain permission to email them by telephone.

Know

Leadline will help you to create and send a series of emails with the aim of getting you known to the identified contacts. These emails will offer advice, relevant offers, knowledge and expertise. The aim is that contacts read the emails and engage with the content.

Trust

As contacts engage with your content, they will begin to trust you. It can take from 8 to over 20 different “touches” before they trust you. These touches can include emails, telephone calls and face to face visits.

Engage

We know when contacts are engaging with your content through email replies, email click throughs and clicks on different web pages. Once a contact’s engagement passes a defined threshold, the contact is ready for a telephone conversation. These calls will further the engagement and let you understand whether the contact currently has a requirement that you can meet.

Buy

Once a contact has a requirement and trusts you, they will be willing to buy from you. Then it’s over to you to turn the opportunity into a sale.

How we help you

Leadline are Telemarketers but we don’t believe in Telesales. Leadline is a highly experienced telephone sales team that knows how to start conversations and to engage your contacts. If you need sales but hate cold calls, pressure selling and telephone scripting as much as we probably do, we should probably talk. We believe in ‘listening to our callers. And in ‘peer to peer conversations’ with people who want to talk to us.

Sales teams often lack time to make these exploratory calls and it’s our job to do them for you, starting conversations with people who are ready to talk. Conversation reports can then be passed to you for each properly qualified sales lead.

If this sounds like something you need call us on 01666 511470 or email info@leadline.co.uk and we’ll show you what’s involved, what the costs are and what you can expect from us.

Over the last few months we have talked in general terms about the concepts surrounding data cleansing and data protection and this month we are going to take an in depth look at how Leadline could manage an outbound call campaign for your business.

The process often starts with an incoming request on the back of a recommendation from other clients. Our first step is usually a phone call to establish the nature of the project and then a meeting to work out the exact scope of the data and to determine exactly what the client wants to achieve.

We will often suggest test calls to ensure that the calls are resulting in the information the client needs and that the data is being recorded in a format which can easily be imported back into the client database. This can easily be overlooked but it is a critical factor. Leadline are hugely experienced with the technical aspects of running a successful call campaign and can assist with designing spreadsheets and databases which can track changes. We operate on a basis of complete transparency and accountability so that changes to data are tracked and each and every record is updated and accounted for.

Finally, you will hear many outbound call centres refer to “call scripts”, whilst we always work within parameters given to us by our clients and take time to clearly understand the nature of your business, we work on the basis of a conversation and it’s testament to this approach that we have such a successful track record.

Data cleansing - straightforward updates checking existing records, updating contact details, data cleansing usually carried out on older databases (more than a year since data cleansing was carried out)

Data validation - update of your database based on the existing records - these databases are usually fairly up to date

Database enhancement - update of your existing database and extra details are added that you need, eg direct telephone numbers, email addresses, renewal dates etc

Database construction - if you have a list from a trade show or a list of names and addresses, the Leadline can enter the details into an Excel spreadsheet for you

Data formatting - sometimes a database is in a bit of a state and needs formatting. The database can be formatted into Excel or Access.

Summary of services with prices
A standard part of any data cleansing project is to remove duplicates, and postcode software is utilised to ensure address accuracy to Royal Mail standards

Most data cleansing work is UK based. Leadline can undertake some international data cleansing, but check with us first.

Your business depends on sales. Sales from existing customers and sales from new customers. You want to secure all possible sales from existing customers and maximise sales from new customers, all with a limited sales and marketing budget.

You can get more sales from new customers and keep close to existing contacts by following our simple ‘Nett Sales’ approach. And we can work with you or for you to help you get more sales.

But how?

If you want customers to buy from you, they have to feel comfortable dealing with you: they have to trust you.

It’s not too difficult to start to gain the trust of existing customers through doing good work for them. But it’s far more challenging with new customers… You need to build a relationship with a large number of prospects such that when they need to buy what you offer, they buy it from you.

Leadline has helped to develop this method to allow you to build a relationship with your target audience so that they start to trust you. When they are interested in buying from you, our method lets you know so that you can follow up with them directly. And then apply exactly the same process to existing customers.

Improving your marketing strategy for the next 12 months

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business. It helps you reach your target audience, communicate your value proposition, and generate leads and sales. However, marketing is not a one-time activity that you can set and forget. You need to constantly monitor, evaluate, and improve your marketing strategy to keep up with the changing needs and preferences of your customers.

In this blog post, we will share some tips on how to boost your marketing strategy for the next 12 months. We will also introduce you to our telemarketing service which can help you create and execute effective planned marketing campaigns.

Tip #1: Know Your Audience

The first step to improving your marketing strategy is to know who you are marketing to. You need to have a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile, their pain points, their goals, their motivations, and their behaviour. This will help you craft a marketing message that resonates with them and addresses their needs.

You can use various methods to research your audience, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, online analytics, social media listening, and customer feedback. You can also segment your audience into different groups based on their demographics, psychographics, location, or behaviour. This will help you tailor your marketing campaigns to each segment and increase your conversion rates.

Tip #2: Define Your Value Proposition

The next step to improving your marketing strategy is to define your value proposition. This is the unique benefit that you offer to your customers that sets you apart from your competitors. Your value proposition should answer the question: why should someone choose you over other alternatives?

Your value proposition should be clear, concise, and compelling. It should highlight the main problem that you solve for your customers, the solution that you provide, and the results that you deliver. You should also include some proof points or testimonials that back up your claims.

You can use various tools to create your value proposition, such as the value proposition canvas or the unique selling proposition formula. You should also test your value proposition with your audience and refine it based on their feedback.

Tip #3: Plan Your Marketing Campaigns

The third step to improving your marketing strategy is to plan your marketing campaigns. You need to have a clear goal for each campaign, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or boosting sales. You also need to have a budget and a timeline for each campaign.

You should also choose the best marketing channels and tactics for each campaign based on your audience's preferences and behaviour. For example, you can use email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, video marketing, or influencer marketing. You should also consider using a mix of online and offline channels to reach more potential customers.

One of the most effective offline channels that you can use is telemarketing. Telemarketing is the process of contacting prospects or customers by phone to promote your products or services. Telemarketing can help you:

• Build rapport and trust with your prospects or customers    
   
• Educate them about your value proposition and benefits    
   
• Overcome objections and answer questions    
   
• Persuade them to take action or book an appointment    
   
• Follow up and nurture them until they are ready to buy 
   

However, telemarketing can also be challenging and time-consuming if you don't have the right skills, tools, or resources. That's why we recommend using Leadline, a telemarketing service that can help you create and execute effective telemarketing campaigns.

Tip #4: Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Performance

The final step to improving your marketing strategy is to measure and optimize your marketing performance. You need to track and analyze the results of each campaign and compare them with your goals. You also need to identify what worked well and what didn't work well in each campaign.

You can use various metrics and tools to measure your marketing performance, such as:

• Reach: how many people saw or heard about your campaign    
   
• Engagement: how many people interacted with your campaign    
   
• Conversion: how many people took action or became leads or customers    
   
• Retention: how many people stayed loyal or repeated purchases    
   
• Revenue: how much money you made from your campaign    
   
• ROI: how much profit you made from your campaign compared to the cost 
   

You should also use A/B testing or split testing to experiment with different versions of your campaign elements, such as headlines, images, copy, offers, or calls-to-action. This will help you find out which version performs better and optimize your campaign accordingly.

Conclusion

Improving your marketing strategy for the next 12 months can help you grow your business and achieve your goals. However, it requires careful planning, execution, and evaluation. For more information on our telemarketing trial, please call us on 01666 511470