Why Drip Marketing Is A
Critical Marketing Strategy By Glenn Fallavollita, President of Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 554
Time To Read: 2.2 Minutes
Since no one can predict the exact moment in time when someone will be ready to buy what you sell, you need to maintain CONSISTENT contact with EVERYONE in your marketing databases. And because of this, drip marketing is a great short- AND long-term strategy as it will go a long way to building trust, credibility, and brand recognition in the marketplace.
Why Is Drip Marketing Critical To Your Sales Strategy?
50% of all salespeople stop calling a prospect after their first unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward - a number that skyrockets to about 98% after a salesperson's third unsuccessful attempt.
It takes anywhere from 15+ personal touches before someone makes a buying/referral decision.
80% of what you tell a prospective buyer or client in a face-to-face meeting is forgotten within 24- to 48 hours; over the phone, it takes less than 60-minutes for someone to forget 80% of what they were told.
People make buying decisions when they are ready; not when you or your salespeople want them to.
Types Of Drip Marketing Tactics/Campaigns.
Lumpy Mail Marketing Campaigns
e-Mail Marketing Campaigns (e.g., sales intro letter, product or service spotlights, newsletters, press releases, sales promotions, etc.).
Direct mail campaigns (e.g. postcards, letters, and lumpy mail campaigns).
Sample Drip Marketing Calendar (For A Database Of Prospects):
Day 1: e-Mail a press release on an upgraded feature, new hire, security upgrade, or service/product promotion.
Day 3: e-Mail an educational newsletter.
Day 4: A follow-up call is made to gauge interest/set appointments (use my 2/4 call strategy).
Day 10: e-Mail an introductory letter.
Day 10: Mail postcard with a special offer.
Day 17: e-Mail newsletter.
Day 28: e-Mail a product or service spotlight campaign.
Day 42: e-Mail a newsletter.
Day 49: e-Mail a product or service spotlight campaign.
Day 56: e-Mail e-newsletter.
Day 63: A follow-up call is made to gauge interest/set appointments.
The Pros Of A Drip Marketing System:
A continuous cycle of well-written marketing messages will go a long way in building trust, credibility, and brand recognition in the marketplace.
It is a great way to position yourself/your business as a thought leader in the industry.
"Situations" change all the time; from your competition falling short with their customer service efforts, product or service performance or taking their business for granted to price increases.
New decision-makers enter into the buying cycle.
The Cons Of A Drip Marketing System:
It requires a disciplined person to engage in a long-term drip marketing strategy.
Your content needs to be written by a skilled copywriter (so your messages resonate with a reader).
It requires a salesperson (or you) to formally follow-up a campaign with an "oh by the way" call.
Your marketing databases need to be constantly updated to maximize open rates and reduce postage costs when a direct mail campaign is released; however, the ROI is substantial should these steps be taken correctly.
Now The Good News.
A significant percentage of your competitors, even your largest ones, do not have a drip marketing system installed at their business; a mistake that represents a huge sales and marketing opportunity for YOU and YOUR business. Best of all, you don't need to spend a fortune to install one for your business.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Drip Marketing: 6 Elements To Your Success (Print And Share At Your Next Sales Meeting) By Glenn Fallavollita, President - SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 267
Read Time: 64 Seconds
The success of your drip marketing efforts will hinge on six very specific elements:
Content: You need to provide relevant content to your target audience, or they will not welcome your drip marketing messages.
Frequency: Too many drips or too few drips play a role in the success of your drip marketing efforts.
Recency: Recency refers to the time span between each drip. Too short of a period between drips will cause your target audience to opt-out of your e-mail marketing campaigns or throw your direct mail campaigns into the trash. Too long of a period between drips will result in people forgetting about you and your business.
The Blending of Tactical Marketing Campaigns: The best-in-class drip marketing strategies use a combination of e-mail campaigns, direct mail campaigns, SMS marketing, blogs, social media, face-to-face meetings, follow-up phone calls, and other marketing campaigns and tools - all of which are designed to maintain continuous contact with someone.
The Use of Evidence-Based Tools In A Selling Situation: Prospects want to make the best decision possible when buying what you are selling; therefore, education-based tools can oftentimes augment the decision-making process faster as people believe what is in print form. Car dealerships use this technique when selling a car, i.e., window sticker, sell agreements, service department repairs, etc.
Proactive Follow-up Calls: A marketing campaign’s results will increase ten-fold if a payroll salesperson picks up the telephone and starts calling their list of payroll prospects and referral partners - also known as making an Oh, By The Way, Call. Should a salesperson consistently make these types of calls, they will start to see sales magic happen.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
5 Ideas To Help Generate More Sales Leads (Print And Share At Your Next Sales Meeting) By Glenn Fallavollita, President - SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 249
Read Time: 60 Seconds
Many sales leaders, owners, and salespeople are hoping for a robust year of sales. Unfortunately, hope isn't a great sales strategy.
5 Money-Making Ideas To Help You Generate More Sales Leads And Referrals.
Phone Blitz Sessions - Schedule mandatory phone blitz sessions for your salespeople. Here's why: Salespeople loathe the idea of making outbound calls and will delay this activity.
Ask, And You Shall Receive - Ask your clients and referral partners for a referral (if you don't ask, the answer is "no") - now re-read bullet #1.
e-Mail Database - Build a massive e-mail database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Drip Marketing Campaigns - Create a series of e-mail drip marketing sales letters, press releases, newsletters, service spotlights, etc., that promote the things that make your business unique in the marketplace.
Drop-Off Campaigns - Since in-person sales meetings are few-and-far-between, you can still do a cookie/donut/pizza "drop-off" package at a referral partner's and key prospect's office. Don't forget to buy a roll of labels with your logo and tagline "Thank You For Your Support" printed on it.
Your Competition Is Aggressively Going After New Business.
That's right; your competitors are looking to replace their lost clients (and so should you). As I said before, if hope is your sales and marketing strategy, you need to contact me to help you put our proven drip marketing system installed at your business.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Working from home is the new norm for many salespeople. And to be successful in this environment, it requires a lot of discipline on your end. To help you (or someone you know) stay focused, I have listed a few essential tips below.
#1: Manage Your Distractions - Home office distractions can and will impede your productivity. That said, I recommend finding a quiet place in your home to help stay focused. If your children are young, try and hire a local babysitter to keep them from interrupting you.
#2: Talk With Your Manager - There is a good possibility that your manager is also working from home; therefore, maintain communication via phone, e-mail, or text. Additionally, communicate the status of your projects with new clients or sales opportunities you are working on.
#3: Build Your e-Mail Database Of Prospects, Referral Partners, Etc. - You need to work on increasing the size and quality of your e-mail marketing database. Whenever I speak at a conference, I start my workshop off with this line: Show me your prospect and referral partner databases, and I will show you your sales future.
#4: Upgrade Your Office Technology - It is in your best interest to work on a PC (vs. laptop) as you can have two to three monitors running at the same time. And if your PC is as old as dirt, spend the $500 - $600 on a new, and faster machine.
#5: Track Your Proposals – Your sales pipeline is your life! In order to keep track of your proposals, create an Excel sheet that tracks proposals by month.
#6: Be Prepared When Making Cold Calls - In most first-time phone calls, a prospect will give two to three minutes. Because of this, you need to have an engaging opening line. Please note this: Many people are not looking to hire a new payroll service or HCM business; therefore, you need to take a more educational spin on selling.
#7: Google Your Competition - Go online to see what your primary competitors are doing to attract new business. Share what you found with your sales/marketing leader and then come up with a better offer.
#8: Don’t Get Discouraged - Working from home is tough for most people as rejection is amplified when working alone. Because of this, call your co-workers to see what they are doing. Also, don’t forget to stay connected with your manager.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Do you want to see an immediate increase in your sales? If you do, one of the best things you can do is to start tracking your sales activities (see below):
How Many Proposals Sent And Closed – I recommend creating a Proposal Tracking Report via Excel. As archaic as this may sound to you CRM gurus, you don’t know what you don’t know. Remember, salespeople want things simple.
How Many Outbound Calls Made – The number of outgoing calls you make each day/week is directly related to your sales performance.
How Many Zoom Meetings/Appointments/Meetings Set – This report keeps track of the number of First Time Appointments (FTA) you have made each week with either a new prospect and/or a center-of-influence AKA referral partner.
How Many People Are In Your e-Mail Database - I also recommend tracking the size of the following databases:
Prospects
How many are in your database?
How many have an e-mail address associated with their name?
Referral Partners
How many have an e-mail address associated with their name?
How many are in your database?
Past Customers/Active Customers
How many have an e-mail address associated with their name?
How many are in your database?
Now Read This!
You need to keep track of what you are doing; if you don’t, you won’t know what is working (or not working). Remember, if you don’t change what you are doing, your sales results will NOT change either.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
According to Forrester Research, companies that nurture their database of leads make 50% more sales at a cost 33% less than non-nurtured leads. Therefore, it is imperative to set up a drip marketing system to help nurture your database of prospects, clients, past clients, referral partners, etc. with educational building content.
Salespeople Give Up Way Too Early - 50% of all salespeople stopped calling or sending information for at least 9 to 12 months or altogether to a prospective buyer after their first unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward. A number that skyrockets to 98% after their third unsuccessful attempt.
66% Of Newly Hired Salespeople* – Close to 66% of all newly hired salespeople quit or get released after 9 to 12 months of employment.
Salespeople Can’t Predict A Prospect’s Close Date - 95% of all salespeople could not predict the actual close date of a sale with any degree of accuracy when given a 4- to 8-week “prospect close date.”
First-Time Appointments Or Events - 75% of all first-time appointments or events with a prospective buyer or referral source happen after a salesperson’s 4th phone call, e-mail, or face-to-face contact.
It Takes 15 – 30 Conventional Touches - In a medium- to high-value business-to-business sale, it takes 15 to 30 conventional touches by a salesperson (phone conversations, face-to-face meetings, voicemail messages, personal e-mails, letters, and so on) before a cold prospect or referral source is defined as being “sold or closed.”
Few Businesses Train Their Salespeople - 90% of all small- to medium-sized businesses did not conduct any consistent sales training for their payroll sales staff.
Lead conversion is critical for all-sized businesses, including yours. Therefore, a sales leader needs to:
Be consistent in their lead nurturing activities, i.e., drip marketing.
Actively manage the follow-up process for their salespeople.
Bottom line: If you or your business isn’t top-of-mind when someone is ACTIVELY seeking what you are selling, the sale will go to a competitor and NOT you – which is the #1 reason you need to have an active drip marketing system running at your organization.
*At smaller, privately-held businesses.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
According to data from the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, there were 5.6 million “employer” firms in the U.S. in 2016. Here’s the breakdown:
500 or fewer workers accounted for 99.7% of those businesses.
With this many businesses in the U.S., you are probably saying to yourself, "If they only knew about my business, I would be able to grow my sales exponentially." Unfortunately, the items listed below are working against you.
Why Most Prospects Won't Remember Your Business.
50% of all salespeople stop calling a prospect, for 9 to 12 months or altogether, after their first unsuccessful attempt at moving the sales process forward.
40% of all salespeople feel that prospecting is one of the most challenging aspects of their job; therefore, most salespeople flat-out ignore this activity.
70% of all salespeople are either disengaged or completely disengaged in their job.
50% of what you tell a prospect during a presentation is forgotten in less than 60 minutes and 80% in 24 hours.
90% of all "prospecting calls" go directly to voicemail.
95% of all small businesses (and most likely yours) don't provide their sales staff with any sales training after 30-days of employment.
If you want more prospects to remember you when they want to buy what you sell, you need a drip marketing system - a system comprised of bite-sized chunks of educational information.
e-Mail Marketing Campaign Ideas:
Bundle Promo On A Product/Service
Refer Us To A Friend
Client Survey
Holiday Card
New Hire Press Release
New Product Or Service Press Release
Upgraded System/Platform Press Release
Referral Partner, Product, Or Service Spotlight
Sales Intro Letter
Educational Webinars (Monthly)
Low-Risk Offer Ideas:
Promote an add-on service via a free trial or special offer, i.e., free employee background check.
Provide free reports to download, i.e., How To Avoid Hiring The Wrong Candidate or How To Avoid An Employee Law Suit, etc.
Hot Prospect Ideas:
Send each salesperson's "top 10 list of prospects and/or referral partners" list a lumpy mail campaign.
Send someone a gift card if they referred to you a prospect that resulted in a sale.
Sponsor a "Shred Your Documents Day" with a shredding company in conjunction with a local bank or credit union.
Executive Summary: You will see an immediate increase in sales by doing three things:
Build/update your e-mail marketing database(s).
Send your database of referral partners, clients, past clients, and prospects relevant content.
Follow-up most e-mail marketing campaigns with an "oh, by the way" phone call.
Yes, it's that simple.
P.S. The days of winging it with your "marketing" efforts are over. If you want to have a break-out year, set your goals, and then take action.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
Most sales leaders (and owners) HOPE their sales issues will disappear or turn around. Unfortunately, the only way a sales leader can improve their sales problem is this: Take action by doing something different.
9 Questions All Sales Leaders Need To Ask Themselves:
#1: How many of my salespeople are not meeting their quota? Now, ask yourself this: What are my plans to help them generate more sales?
#2: What percentage of our clients, prospects, referral partners, etc. have an e-mail address associated with their record? If it's not 100%, ask yourself why.
#3: What are our e-mail marketing and social media strategies?
#4: What is our sales follow-up strategy to ensure our sales team follows up on an e-mail marketing campaign, past proposals, etc.?
#5: How many formal/scheduled phone-blitz sessions do we have each week? Now, re-read question #1.
#6: What type of marketing collateral do we use on a sales call to help reduce price as a focal point or sales objection?
#7: How many times a month am I training the sales staff to improve their sales performance?
#8: How often do we connect with our database of customers/clients to:
Cross-sell them with other products or services?
Ask for a referral?
Survey them to determine their future needs?
Connect with them on their anniversary date/birthday?
#9: What am I using to track my sales team's proposals, proposal close ratio, and call-in leads?
Are You Happy With Your Answers?
If not, you should seek a professional like me who can help you create or fine-tune your sales and marketing strategies. By the way, don’t put marketing on your sales team’s shoulders, as research has proven salespeople are notoriously bad writers, and worse, do marketing that tarnishes a brand.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
6 Types Of Discovery Questions
Winning Salespeople Use (PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING)
By Glenn Fallavollita, President of SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.
Word Count: 274
Time To Read: 66 Seconds
One thing successful salespeople have in common is their ability to ask the right type of discovery questions during the sales process – questions that relate to someone’s problems, needs, desires, wants, likes, and dislikes.
The 6 Types Of Discovery Questions Winning Salespeople Use.
To help you get better at asking discovery questions during the sales process, I have listed below a group of questions to ask a prospective buyer:
Current Situation Questions – At the start of the call, successful salespeople ask data-gathering questions about facts and background. Hint: Keep Current Situation Questions to a minimum during your data gathering process, as these types of questions will frustrate decision-makers.
Current Problem-Related Questions – After getting the necessary background questions out of the way, it is now time to explore all the problems (issues, difficulties, and dissatisfactions) this person has with their current situation. It’s been my experience that inexperienced salespeople don’t ask enough Problem-Related Questions.
Financial Questions – After getting a handle on someone’s problems, it is now time to quantify these problems to a dollar value. Additionally, this will help quantify the seriousness of a prospect’s problem as well.
Pain Solving Questions – This is where you get a prospect to tell you the benefits they would see if you were able to solve their pain/problem(s).
Closing Questions – This is where you ask a prospect questions to finalize the selling process, e.g., moving forward with a “yes” or “no” decision.
Overcoming Objection Statement/Questions – Should a prospect be on the fence about moving forward, this is where you need to address each issue a person may have with a buying decision.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
5 Tips To Follow-Up An e-Mail Campaign
(And Generate More Sales Leads And Referrals For You
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - Drip Marketing, Inc. & SellMorePayroll.com
Word Count: 259
Time To Read: 60 Seconds
To maximize sales leads and clientreferrals from an e-mail marketing campaign, it is imperative to make a follow-up call. To help you do this effectively, check out my five-step follow-up strategy:
Create an e-mail campaign (include a low-risk offer).
Create two scripts: One for talking with a live person and one for leaving a voicemail.
Send your campaign on a Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.
After sending the campaign, wait 2.5 hours and download a list of people who opened the e-mail. Sort the list by company and then by e-mail address. After this is done, start calling everyone.
After you leave a voicemail message, send the e-mail below.
Send This e-Mail After Your Voicemail Message.
First Name: I just called and left you a message as I wanted to follow up on an e-mail we sent you today about our ____________.
If you want to learn how we can (reduce, save, mitigate, increase your ___________), I have a few ideas that will help your business – just return my call or send me off a quick e-mail on the best time(s) for us to talk.
I look forward to connecting with you!
Name
Company Name
Phone
e-Mail Address
P.S. If you want to read what some of our clients are saying about our ____________, I have attached a few client testimonials for you.
What To Do On Friday Morning (My 2/4 Call Strategy).
On Friday morning, make a second and final call to the people who didn’t call you back or respond to the e-mail above.
About The Author:
Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.
