Top Tips for Successful Lead Generation – Appointment Setting (Pt 1) Posted on December 12, 2012 by Neil Struthers in Appointment Setting, Business, Cold Calling, Financial Services, Lead Generation, Marketing, Telemarketing 2013 is going to be an exciting year for the Financial Services industry. Speculation is rife about the impact RDR will have and I for one am interested to see who has called it right. One thing that is certain is that Advisers will still need to think about lead generation and new business. How they go about this is again a hotbed for debate “cold calling is dead”, “online is the way to go”, “referral has and always will be the daddy”. Where do I stand? Firmly on the fence of course! In my opinion, all the above should be embraced in order to give you the best chance of writing new business. You should also make sure you do things properly. I’ve put together my Top 5 Tips for running a successful telephone based lead generation campaign: 1) Grab Their Attention! – What makes your business different? Why should this prospect stop what they are doing to listen to you? We all know that come the end of the year every one left standing will be RDR compliant and the playing field, in theory, will be levelled. So what is it that sets you and your proposition apart? Offering a free pension audit or “superior service” may sound great but in reality how many Advisers charge for a first meeting and how do you illustrate superior service quality over the phone?? Create a genuine hook that sets you apart in the eyes of prospective clients. 2) Get Found Easily – The buying process has changed, there’s no escaping from the fact. Google and the internets have seen to that! What does this mean for your lead generation campaign? Well it’s a positive! The chances are that once you are off the phone, the first thing a prospect will do is Google your business. It makes sense then that you have a website that does you justice. It is also useful to have an arsenal of emails, campaign landing pages that you can direct prospects to that back up what you are discussing on the phone. Similarly, they may look on the likes of LinkedIn to gather more information, embrace these areas and you increase the chances of success. 3) Confirm The Confirmation is Confirmed – One of the biggest pains and frustrations of telemarketing and lead generation are cancelled meetings, or even worse, a no show. You travel to the meeting, arrive on time, fully prepared and they weren’t expecting you. It is going to happen, cancellations are part and parcel of the process and are impossible to avoid. All you can do is limit the likelihood of them occurring. Confirming the appointment as soon as you are off the phone is the number one way of doing this. Send the prospect a calendar invite, reiterating what was discussed and the reason for the meeting. When they accept it – Boom it’s in their diary straight away and the chances of a double booking are reduced. If they don’t accept it then it gives you a genuine reason to get back in touch. 4) Let Sleeping Dogs Lie – OK, so the meeting is in the diary and confirmed – result! The obvious temptation now is to supply the prospect with information about your company because they are now engaged, right? Wrong! You have already identified that selling face to face is your strong suit, bombarding the prospect with generic literature or emails runs the risk of them deciding they don’t want to meet you. By all means, if you discussed a particular topic and an interesting article appears in the press, forward it on, BUT be careful! The prospect might have just been given an urgent deadline and your meeting might suddenly take a plunge down their agenda. 5) Calculate Your ROI – Running a lead generation campaign, whether internally or through an outsourced partner, requires significant investment. This can be in the form of time or money, most likely both! I often find it crazy that someone would not have adequate tracking in place to get a live picture of what is happening with the leads, even at the most basic level. There are numerous systems (some are even free!) that can be used to track campaigns, monitor your sales funnel and calculate your likely ROI. We use Salesforce internally, however like I said, there are dozens to choose from. None of which are particularly expensive. A good CRM is a must. Cold calling, telemarketing, lead generation, appointment setting, whatever you like to call it, is an art. Yes it can be expensive, yes it can be challenging and yes the goalposts have moved however if done well, it is still a powerful means of generating new business. What are your experiences of using telemarketing for lead generation? Good, bad, indifferent?
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:51:30 +0000