Category: Marketing

The Monday morning huddle at Delridge & Co. was gloomier than usual. It was getting progressively difficult for the sales executives to reach out to the clients. They were wasting significant time cold calling with a low conversion rate. The sales management trainee, who was entrusted with the responsibility of formulating a new list of leads, noticed that the contact details of potential customers were scattered and outdated. She decided to create a new consolidated database of prospective clients. However, most of the contact details that she received from the team were not valid anymore. She was also unable to find accurate information of new target clients whom she thought could be converted into customers. As she reported the issue to the management, three challenges came to the limelight: absence of accurate information, ambiguous targeting leading to low conversion ratio, and lack of innovative ways to pursue new clients. In essence, the company did not have an efficient sales pipeline.

These are some of the common challenges faced by the business development teams of several B2B companies. If you relate to any of these challenges, this article’s for you. In this article, we will deep dive into various aspects of B2B lead generation including the best lead generation platforms that could be a game-changer for you.

What is a Lead?

In a business scenario, a lead is any individual or entity who has shown some indication of interest in the services provided by you. It can be an inquiry call, a query text on your website, comments on social media, or any platform where you advertise. Other than explicitly being interested in your company, they could be someone looking for direction where your services and products are positioned. Assuming you get a comment on the Google My business page asking about the service prices, go ahead and pursue the lead. They are probably evaluating options available to them. This does not mean that you can sit passively and expect good leads to come to you. As competition hits peak, you will have to proactively approach customers and identify challenges for them before they can. The process of identifying these potential customers is called lead generation. You take your customer through a journey once they knock on your door. Customers may leave at different points in this journey, and some might stay with you until the end. A lead is any customer taking the journey from being interested in your business to becoming your paying customer.

What are the different types of B2B Leads?

As discussed above, leads come from multiple sources, and these leads are of different types; not all leads are at the same level in the sales funnel. In order to effectively respond to a lead, you need to classify these leads according to their level of interest. That’ll help you prioritize and understand which lead needs immediate attention.

Warm leads

Warm leads include people or companies who have explicitly shown interest in your products/services with a possibility of converting them to being paid customers. The interest could be indicated through:

– social media networks
– filling up query forms
– subscribing to your newsletter, etc.

These leads want more information and are highly likely to convert to customers. They require timely nurturing before they translate into sales.

Cold leads

They outrightly reject your calls/emails/other marketing outreach initiatives. They do not have an interest in your products or respond to your efforts. As you nurture them over a long period, only a few of them may transform into warm leads.

Information Qualified Leads (IQL)

They are ready to provide initial contact details and are looking for more information on what you have to offer. They might not be completely aware of your solutions and are looking for information more than anything. Once the IQL provides their contact, your marketing automation platform will lead them to the page to download the offer. Further,

the lead will receive extra information. These cold leads have a very low priority when it comes to follow-ups. The sales and marketing team can then offer the lead the opportunity to understand more about the company and how the company can help them solve their problem. Many IQLs will not move on to the next stage once they get their required information.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

This type of lead is a prospect who has interacted with the marketing team’s efforts. MQL is a contact who fills out a landing page form for an offer. The marketer can continue marketing to this lead, providing more information and awareness about the company, or could guide the MQL to the decision stage by offering demos, free consultations, or coupons.

Sales Ready Leads (SRL)

An SRL is a lead qualified by the marketing team for proactive conversion as the lead has specific pre-decided criteria. Both marketing and sales teams agree on these criteria. There needs to be a high synergy between the sales and marketing teams. Different companies have different standards for qualifying a lead as SRL. It can be formed according to the flow of the leads you have. Some of the commonly used criteria are:

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

SQL is when an individual has moved from MQL and is ready to take your service or buy your product.

Member Service Request Leads (MSR)

An MSR lead is a consumer-generated lead when a new member signs up for your service. They can be valuable, as they allow you to engage with them straight away. The company would allow its consumers to interact with their agents in their area. Although these leads will have less information than other leads you may receive, they are an excellent opportunity to begin working with a new client in your area.

Lead Generation: A Deep Dive

Now that we have understood what leads are and the different types of leads, let us take a closer look at the process of lead generation. Lead generation involves collecting potential customer information such as name, email, company name, and job title, and utilizing that information to target them with customized sales pitches or ad campaigns. Earlier, lead generation was random and non-strategized, and the number of conversions depended on unpredictable factors, resulting in low conversion rates despite significant efforts and resources. The current lead generation model aims to reduce the gap between resource spending and practical conversions.

Understanding Lead Generation in this day and age

Lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers and creating opportunities for future sales. Initially, many companies relied on cold calling to generate leads, but this approach had a lower conversion rate and relied heavily on sales representatives. As marketing and sales philosophies evolved, companies recognized the importance of lead generation, leading to a more structured approach where marketing and sales departments work together. Marketing plays a vital role in the process, tailoring methods to prospects’ needs or identifying areas of challenge for customers. These activities are largely carried out through digital channels, employing a mix of inbound and outbound marketing methods.

Two reasons contributed to a complete revamp of the lead generation process:

1. Accessibility of information
2. Scope of the internet

Previously, sales representatives reached out to potential buyers to educate them about products and services. Today, customers have access to abundant information and proactively search for solutions. They use various online and offline channels to research and educate themselves about challenges and potential solutions before engaging directly with company representatives. Customers are no longer interested in traditional sales pitches; they seek companies with a strong internet presence and engage in inbound marketing methods utilizing SEO and content marketing techniques. The internet explosion has made it easier for companies to research and understand prospective leads. Lead generation also involves nurturing relationships with existing customers, and marketing automation tools have simplified the lead generation process.

Why does your business need Lead Generation?

Compared to how lead generation was done in the past, it has become more structured and effective, making it a top priority for marketers. It is beneficial for companies of all sizes and durations. Here’s why you need to have a lead generation process:

journey from consumer to customer and creates a more structured process where customers themselves provide contact details on the landing page.

To generate leads, you can utilize various strategies. Here are two main categories of lead generation methods:

1. Outbound Lead Generation

Outbound lead generation involves reaching out to potential clients who may not be aware of your products or services. It typically involves salespeople initiating communication with potential leads. Some specialized strategies used for outbound lead generation include:

2. Online Lead Generation

Online lead generation is a popular method that utilizes digital channels to attract and convert potential customers. Here are some approaches to online lead generation:

By implementing a combination of outbound and online lead generation strategies, you can effectively attract, engage, and convert potential customers into leads for your business.

Lead generation is a crucial aspect of business growth, and there are several strategies and techniques you can utilize to generate leads effectively. Here are some key methods and tips for maximizing your lead generation efforts:

1. Outbound lead generation: This involves reaching out to potential clients who may not be aware of your products or services. Strategies like cold calling, outbound email marketing, and social selling can be used to create interest and build a sales pipeline.
2. Online lead generation: Leverage digital channels to generate leads. Content marketing, email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, LinkedIn lead programs, and engaging with paid third-party services are effective methods. Focus on creating valuable content, leveraging email marketing’s high conversion rate, running targeted campaigns, and utilizing LinkedIn’s professional network.
3. Events: Participate in industry-specific events, trade shows, and webinars to connect with potential customers. Webinars, in particular, have proven to be an effective format for generating high-quality leads.
4. Branding & Advertising: Build a strong brand and utilize advertising and promotions to attract inbound leads. Incorporate causes or values that resonate with your target audience to enhance your brand’s appeal.
5. Direct mail: While digital marketing is prevalent, physical mailers or white papers can still be effective, especially for audiences who prefer traditional forms of communication.
6. Referrals: Encourage your existing customers to refer your products or services to others. Implement referral marketing programs with incentives to motivate customers to promote your brand.

To make the most out of your lead generation efforts, consider the following:

The importance of lead generation lies in its ability to:

1. Expand your customer base: Continuously target new personas and demographic categories to expand your market reach and identify emerging trends.
2. Grow your following: Content marketing and lead generation efforts help increase your following, spread awareness, and position yourself as a thought leader, fostering a loyal community around your brand.
3. Increase revenue: A structured lead generation program enriches your sales pipeline, providing more business opportunities and access to new consumer categories, ultimately leading to increased revenue.
4. Enable collaborative opportunities: Lead generation can facilitate partnerships and collaborations with complementary businesses, allowing you to leverage each other’s audiences and reputation.
5. Improve lead quality: By focusing on lead generation efforts, you take a targeted approach to content and marketing, attracting qualified leads and nurturing a broader audience interested in your offerings.
6. Build awareness and visibility: Lead generation techniques and tools help create buzz and generate an interested audience, whether you’re an established business or a startup seeking visibility in the market.

By implementing effective lead generation strategies and leveraging the right tools and techniques, you can generate quality leads, expand your customer base, increase revenue, and build a strong brand presence.

A lead generation funnel is a marketing concept that represents the journey a potential customer takes from being aware of a product or service to becoming a paying customer. It is called a funnel because the number of leads decreases as they move through the various stages, ultimately resulting in a smaller number of customers.

The lead generation funnel consists of three main stages, often referred to as TOFU (top-of-the-funnel), MOFU (middle-of-the-funnel), and BOFU (bottom-of-the-funnel).

1. Top of the Funnel (TOFU): This is the initial stage where the focus is on creating awareness and attracting potential leads. Marketing activities such as content generation, advertising, and promotions are used to introduce the business or product to a wide audience and generate interest.
2. Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): In this stage, leads have shown interest and engaged with the business. The focus is on nurturing the leads by providing more information, addressing their doubts and reservations, and showcasing the value and benefits of the product or service. Free trials, demos, and educational content can be used to further engage leads.
3. Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): At this stage, leads have progressed further and are close to making a purchasing decision. The focus is on converting them into paying customers. Strategies such as offering trial extensions, consultations, pricing discussions, or incentives can be employed to encourage the final purchase.

Throughout the funnel, it’s essential to provide the right information at the right time, address customer concerns, and maintain a smooth transition from one stage to another. By effectively guiding leads through the funnel, businesses can increase the likelihood of conversion and maximize their sales revenue.

It’s important to note that the specific steps and activities within each stage of the funnel can vary depending on the business and its sales model. The key is to understand the customer journey, identify potential touchpoints, and tailor the marketing and sales efforts accordingly.

Regarding the cost implications of lead generation, there are various expenses to consider:

1. Media & Advertisement: This includes the cost of running campaigns and promotions to reach potential customers. It also encompasses the mechanisms used to capture contact information, such as landing pages or lead generation forms. Advertising on platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn may also incur costs.
2. List purchase: Companies may choose to buy or engage third-party vendors to obtain or generate potential customer lists. The cost of purchasing or creating these lists needs to be taken into account. However, it’s important to evaluate the credibility and conversion potential of these lists to ensure a worthwhile investment.
3. Agency and labor: Some companies may outsource certain lead generation activities, such as cold calling or search engine optimization, to agencies or specialized firms. The cost of engaging these external resources should be considered.
4. Campaign Costs: Creating and executing campaigns, such as email campaigns or visual commercials, involves expenses. These costs can include content creation by agencies or freelancers.
5. Incentives: Offering incentives to prospects, such as white papers or gift vouchers, to obtain their contact information can be an additional cost to factor in.

It’s crucial for businesses to measure their return on investment (ROI) and assess the effectiveness of their lead generation efforts. Using AI-based lead generation software, like Clodura, can help streamline and optimize lead generation processes, providing actionable insights and increasing the chances of success.

Remember that the cost of lead generation should be viewed in relation to the potential revenue and growth opportunities it can generate for the business.

Top 3 B2B Buying Intent Signals to Close More Sales Deals
As sales professionals, we understand the worth of finding companies that have a genuine need for our products, services, or solutions. Finding & approaching companies with a need for your offerings is the right start for your sales prospecting journey.

Buyer intent data is a consolidated data set of various buying signals that tell us which companies or prospects are actively searching for solutions like ours.

These buying signals help you prioritize your prospects from your TAM and tailor hyper- personalized pitches for your outreach campaigns.

Let us look at the TOP 3 BUYING SIGNALS that every sales professional must be tracking and using to win more deals.

1. Hiring Areas:
   Hiring Areas is one of the top sales triggers to identify companies that are building or scaling their workforce in a particular function or around a skill set. Hiring area signals tell us that a company is investing towards building its capabilities in these areas. So, in this case most likely companies would be also investing in new tools, technologies, infrastructure enabling the teams to perform.

Example: Your company has a platform that is used for Data Visualization, or your company provides data engineering services. And you have a list of prospect companies that are building teams in Data Engineering & Data Science. Since these prospects are investing in build their capabilities around Data so it makes real sense to put your data solutions in front of such prospects.

2. Funding:
Funding rounds could be a key indicator to find if a company suits your TAM. Any recent funding round is always coupled with a string of growth & investment plans. As sales professionals, we should find out the future roadmap for these funded companies and position our solutions in alignment with the prospect’s growth plans.

Example: A new round of funding announcement is made by a SaaS product company on your radar. So this is bound to be followed by new initiatives, investments & opportunities in various fronts of a company. Hence it always makes sense to re-connect with the key contacts in the company to discuss the initiatives they are planning post their funding round. And understand how these initiatives turn into opportunities for your company.

3. Key Employment Changes:
Employment changes could be common in your prospect list of decision-makers & influencers. Every new person on board brings in fresh ideas, plans, budgets & opportunities. Hence, it becomes imperative to get introduced to the new person in charge before your competitors do.

Example: On average 25% of your sales prospecting lists keep changing annually because of job changes. Hence it is important to connect with the new prospects and build new relationships because every new appointment is a new door ready to be knocked and opened for new sales opportunities.

Right buying signals at the right time can help you find the best leads and shorten the sales cycle tremendously. Clodura tracks your TAM and helps you discover over 25 buying signals that are served to you on a real-time basis.

Imagine a scenario where Companies A and B have identified similar audiences to target while selling their product or service.

Both the companies leverage the firmographic (company size, product/service, industry, revenue, location, etc.) and demographic (titles of the contact, contact information, social media handles, etc.) data to attract their audiences. However, Company ABC also has access to the audience’s technographic data.

Through the technographic data sources, Company A knows about the tools the prospects use, the purpose served by these tools, the duration of usage, and a lot more. Now, it becomes obvious that Company A has the upper hand and is in a better position to convert these prospects.

Considering that both companies started on neutral, common grounds, Company A emerges a clear winner!

But what is this technographic data? Is it just another fad buzzword going around in the B2B community? Or is it the next big thing that will help your business stand out?

Let’s take a look.

An Overview of Technographics Data

In the present era, technology is the fuel for businesses. As an acknowledgment of this data-driven trend, technographics attempt at segmenting technology, at a granular level, on various parameters.

In simple words, Technology + Demographics = Technographics!

Much like how demographics define people and their habits, technographics define the technology used by the target audience and any related activities. With technographic data, companies can gain an understanding of the company’s technology stack and their intention to purchase any technological solutions in the future.

Technographics not only keeps track of the various technologies employed by businesses, but it also maintains a record of the total number of products or services that they own, what percentage is used on a daily basis, and how recent is the adoption of the said technology.

Thus, B2B companies can exploit technographic data to qualify prospects.

Who can use Technographic Data?

Typically, any IT or tech-based company that offers products, services, or solutions can gain from technographic data.

Various B2B and B2C companies make use of demographics and firmographics to gain insight into their clients. However, these two are vastly different from each other and may not even have common points, which could lead to several gaps in understanding the target audience. Technographics is that arm that completes the triangle and intersects demographics with firmographics.

Thus, technographics is highly relevant for the following units of your organization:

1. Sales and Marketing Teams

Technographic data sources the information pertaining to who uses the product or services offered by your competitors. The marketing team can then target these clients across various channels. At the same time, the sales team can set up alerts for when a company adds or drops your competitor’s products. They can also set up notifications for incidents when the company switches technologies or exhibits intention to make purchases through triggers like mergers, initiating funding rounds, moving to a new office, etc.

We Sky-Rocketed our Email Campaign Reply Rates Using Technographics. Watch the video below to learn more.

Sales can use this data to personalize their pitches and tailor it in accordance with the technology used by the target company. The sales and marketing teams can make technographic data an integral part of data exchange through CRM so that the handoff is smooth and efficient.

Leveraging data engineering services can enhance the processing of this data, helping teams to gain deeper insights and improve targeting strategies.

2. Business Intelligence Team

From a business intelligence perspective, technographic data is a goldmine. Business intelligence teams can make use of technographics for risk mitigation activities while also enhancing decision-making skills.

Technographics data can highlight the ebbs and flow of various clients, their profiles, and their purchasing patterns. The research and development departments of the BI team can leverage this information to identify new products and solutions that will be highly in demand, including innovative HRMS solutions.

The BI team can also exploit technographics to add value to the existing data sets like demographics, firmographics, B2B contact lists, and more to create a holistic picture of the client, competitors, and even opportunities to tap into the market potential.

3. Customer Success Team

Customer Success Teams can utilize technographic data to identify minor risks ahead of time. They can achieve this goal by monitoring the activities of the target client and issuing alerts when it appears that the client is testing out the competitor’s technology.

Additionally, they can keep a hawk’s eye on the various purchasing signs and triggers to identify the clients to whom you can upsell. Integrating technographic data with predictive analysis and intention data can be a perfect recipe for locating the clients that offer lifetime value.

Advantages of Technographics

One may wonder, “What kind of insights can a company’s tech stack offer?”

As it turns out, it speaks volumes about the target company. Technographic data can shed light on what technology the company is willing to spend on, the level of expertise that it requires, and other information directly or indirectly related to technology.

If you still want to be convinced, here’s what it means to your business:

1. Hyper-Targeted Prospecting

When you know your client, you know what makes them tick.

One of the biggest advantages of technographic data is that it allows your business to create a highly specific ideal client profile. As a result, you can glean absolute knowledge on the best buyers and hyper-target them.

Technographics add value to your buyer’s persona, thereby making it more granular for targeting and searching for prospects that suit the ideal client profile. If your company practices Account-Based Marketing, technographics is bound to benefit you significantly.

2. High-Quality Sales Conversations

Sales is all about extracting the best results despite the many limitations. Hence, it is vital for the sales teams to deliver maximum value per interaction. This expectation becomes even more realizable with technographic data.

Sales representatives can make modifications to deliver hard-hitting pitches that will be more effective than the generic scripts. Furthermore, technographic data also offers deep insights on how to have informed and high-quality conversations with the clients.

3. Improved Sales Productivity

Technographics cut down on the time and resources spent on profiling and researching ideal clients. The data offers a granular look at the total addressable market (TAM). As a result, sales reps can now expend their energies working on highly qualified prospects that check all the boxes. As a result, they will register better closing rates and more sales.

4. Exploring New Markets

As discussed above, through an assessment of the current technological landscape, the R&D teams can identify various avenues of growth and expansion for the business. Upon identifying the new market opportunities, businesses can work towards developing new and innovative products or services to cater to these requirements.

5. Industrial Competitive Advantage

The illustration shared at the beginning of the post is rather self-explanatory in highlighting how technographic data can offer you a competitive edge in the industry. Technographics allow companies to target their competitor’s customers and to identify any major changes that can motivate any purchase.

6. Better Customer Retention

Merely gaining customers is not the only goal. It is equally important to retain these customers and offer them an unparalleled experience.

Technographic data can help customer success and sales teams identify the at-risk accounts and work with them to propose solutions that guarantee enhanced customer satisfaction. As a result, clients will continue business with your organization.

Furthermore, it can highlight the features offered by your competitors that are attracting clients, and you can introduce the same tools and services to retain these customers or increase your market share.

How to Find Technographics Data?

Upon reading the benefits offered by technographics, you may be all set to drive your organizational growth. However, the big issue stands – where can you find this technographic data?

Naturally, companies’ technology stack details will not be available on any public records or database. Thus, companies will have to create and curate technographic data.

There are mainly three modes of collecting technographic data, which are as follows:

1. Customer Surveys

Data collection through cold calling and email surveys are one of the oldest tricks for gathering client information. Unfortunately, it is also extremely outdated and inefficient in terms of scalability. Further, the customers may not be reluctant to share the information that is relevant.

Considering that some clients find surveys annoying, such a strategy may, in fact, backfire and spoil your brand image. Alternatively, these attempts at collecting customer information may also go unanswered or blatantly ignored.

2. Data Scraping

Data scraping involves the extraction of codes from a website to identify key information. These source codes can help determine the kind of technology used by the company. However, only specific kinds of software leave behind a trail that can be traced to extract useful information. Furthermore, websites may undergo modifications and updates, which the source code may not reflect.

Thus, data scraping can offer only limited tech stack insights, which could also be unreliable.

3. Through Technographic Data Providers

Purchasing your data from technographic data providers is the easiest way to have updated and useful technographic data. Historically, the practice of purchasing database was often looked down upon due to its questionable reliability. However, third-party technographic data providers are now making use of cutting-edge technology to quantify and validate technographics at the required rate. The technological advancement has thereby enhanced the accuracy of this high-volume data.

Buying your technographic data from third-party providers frees up your in-house resources to capitalize on the data while someone else puts in the elbow grease.

A word to the wise: It is highly advisable to purchase from reliable technographic data providers like Clodura to achieve Hyper-Targeted Sales Prospecting, High-Quality Sales Conversations & Higher Sales Productivity.

Below is an example of Finding Hyper-Focused Technographics Information by running a customized query.

If you provide services for Salesforce, Marketo or Oracle Eloqua – Here is how to Find Software Product Companies in California which use either of these platforms.

How to Make the Best Use of Technographics in B2B Environment?

Technographic data sources can be utilized in the following ways:

• Account-based marketing: Identification of opportunities; Personalizing communication; and Prioritizing accounts
• Upselling: Offering additional services
• Market Analysis: Filling market gaps; Developing new products; and Acquiring new customers
• Customer Segmentation
• Customer Journey Customization

Let us understand how to implement technographics in the aforementioned facets through elaborate use cases.

1. Account-Based Marketing

Gaining insights into the client’s technology stack allows your company to identify opportunities, personalize communication, and prioritize accounts while managing accounts.

Identification of Opportunities

With the help of technographic data, you can identify the clients to whom you can sell your product or service as the perfect solution. Passing on this lead to your marketing team can help them nurture the lead until they are ready to make the purchase. Sales teams can leverage technographic data to push for a close.

Several triggers can indicate that your prospect is ready to buy. Some of the commonest triggers include:

• Mergers and acquisitions
• Product launches or features
• Fresh funding rounds
• Change in leadership or top executives
• Online company reviews

In response to these indicators, your company can publish press releases and announcements with content that is closely related to the prospect. Utilize technographics to develop an angle on how the intervention of your product or service can bring about a positive change, engage with the target account, and drive your point home through constant outreach.

Personalizing Communication

Effective communication forms the foundation of every successful business-client relationship. Customizing outreach to present the solution in line with the client’s pain points is the best way to pitch your product. However, in order to do so, the sales team must have a record of the technologies that they are currently using. Technographics offers the requisite insights to make your business communication more personalized and more effective.

Prioritizing Accounts

When selling a product or service, it is all about timing. A successful sale is possible after the marketing team has nurtured the lead, and the sales team has capitalized on the purchase triggers.

Once the prospect is ready to make the purchase, the sales rep must prioritize them above every other account. In this situation, technographic data sheds light on the accounts that are ready to buy versus the accounts that still need to be convinced to make the purchase.

Incorporating technographics with data enrichment establishes an automated process that prioritizes accounts to reach out to the right ones at the right time.

2. Upselling

Technographic data is not only useful for identifying new clients but also helps upsell to existing clients.

Given that you have an understanding of the client’s requirements, their budget, and their goals, you can upsell additional services or products to these customers. The fact that the client is already availing the services offered by you indicates their trust in your products or services. However, it is essential to make relevant recommendations as the client is more likely to make the purchase if the suggested products are in accordance with their requirements. In this regard, technographic data can play a vital role in understanding the client’s current tech stack and the appropriate add-on service or product that may complement it.

3. Market Analysis

Given the highly dynamic nature of technology, it is crucial to stay up to date on the market trends surrounding your offerings. Technographics can help you fill market gaps, develop new products, and acquire new products.

Let’s take a look at how you can achieve the same:

Filling market gaps

Technographic database contains information pertaining to the entire range of companies operating in your sector. Thus, you can have a bird’s eye view of all the companies working in the said industry and their respective pain points. Using this knowledge, you are in a position to identify market gaps and take steps towards filling them.

Developing new products

After the identification of market gaps, it is time to plug them. To do so, you can conduct R&D to innovate and bridge this gap. Developing new products will not only diversify your business but also give you an edge above your competitors. Moreover, your skill in employing innovation to overcome market gaps will also fortify your standing as a brand in the industry.

Acquiring new customers

Using technographics, you can monitor your competitor’s strategy and take notes on what they do right. You can also compare what features or specifications of their offerings trump over yours, making clients opt for their product or service instead. After exploring every positive aspect of your competitor’s business, you can re-engineer and create your own new and improved version for your business.

After incorporating the modifications, you can initiate outreach campaigns to attract these clients and convince them about how your product outperforms their current solution. In due time, these clients will choose your solution, thereby increasing your market share.

4. Customer Segmentation

When you use technographics to identify the technology used by a potential client, you unlock a wealth of information regarding their business processes as well. For instance, you gain an understanding of the problems that they face, their brand preference, budget, their commitment towards overcoming the issue, and other demographic or firmographic.

As a result, it becomes easier for your organization to profile these prospects and segment them on these aspects. Furthermore, it offers you a peek into how tech-savvy these companies are so that you could offer proportionate scalability. While most of these deductions are based on assumptions, they do a fairly good job of segmenting and profiling the customer.

5. Customer Journey Customization

With the help of technographics, you can manipulate and optimize the entire customer journey. Depending on your understanding of the customer, you can make changes to the inbound marketing funnel and nurture leads in a manner that is more suited for them. As a result, you will register greater success in converting these clients into patrons.

Unlike your competitors, who may run aggressive marketing campaigns, technographic data allows you to market your product in a more subtle yet informative manner. When you exchange meaningful and relevant information with the client, they are more likely to choose your services.

Based on the technographic data, your customer journey could be any of the following:

• Complementary: Offer this customer journey if your solution enriches, optimizes, and integrates seamlessly with other technologies that the company is currently using.
• Educational: This customer journey is more suited for prospects that currently do not use any solution. Thus, you may want to start by educating them regarding the advantages of your product and then lead them through the sales funnel.
• Competitive: Competitive customer journey is fitting for clients that make use of your competitors’ products or services. For this journey, you will have to present your product as a better alternative and convince them to switch over.

Clodura: The One-Stop Technographic Data Provider

Are you ready to get started?

Clodura is here to turbocharge your lead generation and sales conversion efforts!

With Clodura, you can access all the firmographic, demographic, and technographic data in a single location.

Clodura takes this valuable data one step forward by integrating it with artificial intelligence. Backed by the powerful AI, all the processes like record matching and cleaning are carried out automatically to present to you a single source of truth.

Here are a few cutting-edge features offered by Clodura that you should look out for:

• Technographic segmentation of over 15,000 technologies.
• Default technology categories like CRM, ERP, CMS, Marketing Automation Platform, etc. readily available.
• Get directly in touch with the decision-makers.
• Vital technographic data allows you to customize sales pitches and run hyper-targeted campaigns.
• Stay a step ahead of your competitors by understanding their products, services, and strategies.

Having all the critical data at your fingertips allows users to build a list based on their technology stacks. You can further refine and filter the database using a plethora of customizable data points.

With Clodura, you will find it easier to segment your prospects and target them at the most opportune moment!

Ka-ching!

Final Thoughts

Technographic data equips your company’s sales and marketing teams with highly qualified leads and also prepares them for possible objections that they may have to handle during the sales process. It puts your business in a position where you can clearly identify the best-selling opportunities and figure out whether your company’s offerings are compatible or competitive for the target client. Further, it gives a boost to your ABM strategies, increases conversion rates, and shortens the sales cycle.

Most importantly, technographic data prepares your business for the future where data will be the cornerstone of all processes and applications. Thus, it becomes critical to adapt to these digital transformations by leveraging technographics rather than falling behind and perishing.

In a nutshell, technographics is the Pole Star that will guide your company’s growth and expansion not only in the present but also in the future!

Here’s some food for thought. When it comes to the sales process (or the prodigal ‘sales cycle‘), who do you think is at the steering wheel? Ask any experienced salesperson, and the answer would be the same – the decision-maker.

With that being said, the speed and accuracy with which salespeople are able to reach decision-makers can single-handedly drive the revenue of entire organizations.

Let’s understand this with an example. Consider a scenario where an organization deploys 20 salespeople, with each making about 50 calls per day for 280 working days a year. An increase of a mere one phone call in the connect rate of a salesperson would generate 5600 more sales conversations per year (assuming a 10% connect rate).

Read that again. Get it?

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do direct dials numbers quantitatively boost the conversations with prospective customers, but they also bring unprecedented finesse in terms of closure quality. For instance, a sales executive who uses direct dial is 147% more likely to reach prospects at the VP level. Moreover, it takes only five minutes to connect with prospects by using direct dials, as compared to 22 minutes when using switchboard numbers.

So let’s get to the chase and understand what direct dials are all about, why you should be paying attention to them, and how you can leverage them in your day-to-day sales activities.

Understanding Direct Dials (the ‘What‘)

At the process level, ‘Direct Dialing‘ is a concept that speeds up the process of prospecting customers by enabling outreach to verified desk extensions and cellphone numbers without any facilitation. This enables salespeople to directly contact leads without wasting time on gatekeepers or switchboards. The idea is to acquire or create a verified database of contact numbers, known as ‘Direct Dials,‘ that enable salespeople to connect with decision-makers directly. In this way, they help to optimize the sales cycle for speed and accuracy, helping sales reps to become more productive and close more leads.

Benefits of Using Direct Dials (the ‘Why‘)

On the face value, both math and logic seem to hold up when it comes to direct dials. But are there any real, long-lasting implications of deploying the concept in your current sales scenario? As it turns out, the impact is profound and long-lasting:

1. Higher Probability of Profitability

Direct-dial phone numbers have an immediate impact on the time that it takes to locating and contacting leads. To make things even sweeter, sales reps end up shelling out lesser resources to chase the leads and convert them. All this and more leads to an obvious reduction in the lead acquisition costs. Since sales targets can be met faster through direct dial numbers, the extra time can be invested in expanding the sales funnel by reaching out to more prospects.

What does this lead to? Better and long-lasting positive effect on profits.

2. Boost in Productivity of Sales Reps

Armed with the ability to reach decision-makers faster, connections can be made more easily, and sales reps can instead focus on nurturing the leads. While increasing productivity, this brings an obvious shift in the mindset of sales reps as they go from spending time to connect with leads to building rapport with the customers.

Research suggests that only 33% of the time of sales reps is actively spent in selling activities, with the remaining part of the day being spent in tasks such as management of email lists, data entry, research, and call scheduling. This automatically brings us a logical conclusion that spending time on connecting to cold leads is strictly unwelcome.

3. Reduction in Call Reluctance

Imagine going through the ordeal of making phone calls to random people that you have never talked to before, only to be turned by a human firewall of another person that promises to get your message across but never does. Welcome to Sales 101.

‘Sales‘ is often not about the most hardworking rep. Instead, it boils down to the motivation to prospect and self-promote (subtly). A lack of this motivation is what is known as the ‘Sales Call Reluctance,‘ where an emotional hesitation creeps in when sales reps start self-questioning. And this is often the case when reps lack the necessary data that they need to reach their target accounts. Direct dials give salespeople their required dose of self-confidence and belief to keep the wheels turning.

4. Enablement in Targeting Higher-level Decision-makers

Decision-makers are the lifeblood of all sales activities. Entire sales processes revolve around the accuracy and intensity of engaging with them. While being armed with accurate direct dial data, sales reps are under a righteous impression that they will be able to easily target and reach high-level decision-makers, without having to waste time on alternative strategies. Hence, sales reps are more likely to target the right decision-makers and ensure that the quality of their pitch is not undermined in any way. They are more motivated to aim higher and work harder, boosting results for the entire organization.

The immediate result? Every sales cycle begins with the decision-maker.

5. Easier Sales Enablement and Training

Training and development is an important and never-ending facet of sales. This holds importance, especially for new sales reps who have recently joined the organization and have to go through a comprehensive learning curve. Without the provision of direct dial numbers, sales managers would have to include entire workflows on how to manage situations where sales reps are unable to reach decision-makers. This not only adds another layer of management but also increases crucial metrics such as employee monitoring and onboarding time.

All this can be easily avoided with the decision to leverage direct calling.

Implementing Direct Dials to Boost Sales (the ‘How‘)

If you thought prospecting was hard, consider this statistic – it takes eight phone calls on an average to reach a prospect. So if your sales cycle seems incoherently long, maybe its time to focus on reducing it. And using direct dials phone numbers is the obvious way forward here.

The implementation of direct dial numbers begins with the creation and maintenance of a reliable B2B contact database that contains relevant information heads such as:

Making such a list is the cornerstone of any direct dialing effort. Here is how you can embark on this journey and gather the building blocks of a reliable direct dial number list:

1. Profile Your Ideal Buyers

Since the decision-maker is the core stakeholder of this exercise, it is crucial to learn as much as possible about them. This begins with segregating and profiling them to ensure that resources are invested in only those leads/prospects that are more likely to convert. This is also known as the Buyer’s Persona and should include details such as:

Both the relevance of the questions and the quality of the information gathering process will dictate the success of direct dialing here.

2. Know Your Total Addressable Market

Once you have an overview of the ideal buyer, it is time to gather details of the Total Addressable Market (TAM). It is defined as the total available opportunity for a product or service in current market conditions. Simply put, it is the total amount of money that can be made in the current market and corresponds to the total demand for the product/service. It can be easily calculated by asking the following questions:

TRY IT NOW: CALCULATE YOUR TOTAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET

3. Collect Contact Data of B2B Prospects

The most important and tiring ordeal on the list, this is the defining step of your direct dialing guide. Searching the Internet for accurate details is like shooting an arrow in the dark. The only way to verify the details is to actually put them to use. And by the time that happens, it may already be too late.

Here are a few channels that can help you steer clear of such potholes:

READ IT NOW: How to Use Linkedin to Generate More Revenue

4. Maintaining Data Integrity

The last step of the process is to analyze the list to narrow down the companies even further. This not only cleanses the data but makes the list even more relevant. The idea is to map out any recent triggers or events that validate the use case of your product/service and help you to determine the primary decision-maker to pitch to. And while doing so, other aspects of the campaign can also be catered to. This includes segmentation, prioritization, and formulation of personalized marketing tactics.

And the process does not end here. You have to realize the data on the list will not be intact forever and needs constant care. Companies commonly find that about 30% of contact data decays on a yearly basis. Hence, the data needs to be regularly validated and updated after collection, preferably ever 90 days. The following steps can be followed in such a case:

How Clodura Can Intervene to Make Your Life Easier

There is no denying the fact that manual database building involves considerable time and effort. This often puts it outside the scope of both newcomers and marketing managers who do not want to compromise on campaign performance. Without experience and an accurate sense of direction, it can be a never ending tirade.

Clodura can intervene in such situations (and more) to help businesses to quickly acquire high-quality prospect data. Being an AI-powered solution, Clodura can accelerate and automate the lead generation process by enabling you to find the contact details of decision-makers. The features of the comprehensive platform include:

Hence, Clodura not only helps you to find the decision-makers and connect with them, but it also enables you to book more meetings and enable purchases.

Did one of your emails bounce back?

Don’t worry; it happens to the best of us.

Emails have been a time-honored way of corresponding with people for reasons both professional and personal. You send emails for almost every use possible. That being said, the sphere in which emails have always assumed greater significance is the professional one.

In today’s age, especially, emails are a key component of marketing your business. Email marketing campaigns are born and built to that end specifically, and not needlessly too. According to businesses, it is the most trusted form of corresponding with customers as 77% of them choose email over other channels. For marketers, this is a huge pot of untapped gold because email campaigns bring you the highest overall ROI at 4000%, which means a $40 return on investment for every dollar spent on email!

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But even in the space age, obstacles that may seem plain remain, and a significant one that people encounter is the infamous email bounce. As part of your email marketing campaign, you want to get your marketing collateral out to as many people as you can, who are a part of your mailing list. But in doing so, it’s highly probable for you to find that a substantial portion of them can’t be reached.

So, what should you do when the persistent thorn of the email bounce keeps disrupting your chances for probable business?

A good place to start would be to know what constitutes an email bounce.

What Is an Email Bounce?

An email bounce is what happens when the emails you send out don’t reach the recipient’s inbox for whatever reason. There are various reasons as to why email servers could reject emails. Also known as a non-delivery report, when a server rejects your email, it sends you a bounce in accordance with RFC 5321.

Recognizing bounced emails isn’t particularly difficult too. Most people have seen at least one bounced email in their life without knowing it. For those wondering what a bounced email message looks like, here’s an example of the same.

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This is the standard description of what a bounced email message looks like. It usually contains the issue that caused the bounce, an ID unique to your email, the time and date of the bounce, the email server’s hostnames and IPs, the SMTP error code, and an error message like “A message you sent could not be delivered…” This happens in cases when:

• The email address you sent the email to is non-existent.
• There is an unnecessary number of spaces in the email address.
• The email address itself is misspelled or has a typo.

Bounced emails are an infuriating, yet normal occurrence. Not because of the fact that it can hurt your marketing campaign, but because it can also damage your IP reputation and deliverability. However, it’s only when the number of bounces increases that you should have the proverbial sweat trickling down your forehead.

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For example, an email bounce rate of generally 2-5% is acceptable, but if the rate goes anywhere north of 5% is when you should start taking steps to identify the cause. In fact, the higher your email bounce rate, the deeper your reputation will plummet, and repeated unsolicited emails to unengaged addresses can also lead to your account being suspended by your email service provider.

A bounce is further categorized into types. By knowing the differences between them, you can learn how to avoid and also fix email bounce back issues.

The Different Types of Email Bounces

We know what an email bounce is. But to learn why it happens, we will be taking a hard look at the signs one usually ignores. The reasons why emails bounce are many and range from unresponsive servers, full inboxes, non-existent email addresses, and mails to fake addresses.

Not counting these reasons, there are several more reasons why you could receive delivery status notifications about why your email bounced. Oftentimes, the reasons are temporary (and you can reverse them) — but there are others that are permanent. So that you know the reason your email bounced back, it would bid you good to first understand the bounce categories that any of your bounced emails fall under.

1. Hard Bounce (bounce_hb)

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Hard bounces are what happens when one of your emails become permanently undeliverable to an address. Following one or more failed deliveries, the email is taken off of the sending queue, and the subscriber is unsubscribed. The different reasons why a hard bounce occurs include:

• Incorrect email address: Did you know that 40% of email users revise or change their email addresses once every two years, and 15% do it one or more times a year? This amount of bad data, while certainly not your fault, can always diminish your credibility as a sender. That’s why it is always better to double-check if you have got the email address of the recipient right so that you don’t suffer a hard bounce.

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• Fake email address: A lot of times, people give you fake email addresses to have you get off their back. Maybe you asked them for their address in exchange for something like a backlink or content. The trick here is to go for double opt-in so that you can avoid these bounces.
• Email blocked: This bounce occurs when the recipient’s email server is blocking an email from your server. The following messages could be returned to you.

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Hard bounces can’t be fixed. The one recourse you can take is to remove the email addresses that have hard bounced from your mailing list. If you don’t do so and they begin to stack up, you could even have your emails blacklisted!

2. Soft Bounce (bounce_sb)

A soft bounce is what happens when a server has rejected your email temporarily. They aren’t usually a major point of concern, and most email services resend emails as soon as they soft bounce. The reasons why a soft bounce happens include:

• Mailbox is full: In this case, the email server couldn’t deliver your email because the recipient’s email box was full. Until the recipient clears up some space from their inbox, your email will keep soft bouncing.

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• Server down: This happens when an unreachable server crashes, overloads, or is under maintenance, and you have to wait until the server is back up to send the email successfully.

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• Email size: If your emails are heavy with large files or huge attachments, it could bounce back.
• Autoreply: If the recipient is offline and they have set an autoreply, your email will bounce back.

3. Blacklisted Emails

Did you know that almost 350 billion emails are sent out every day? And of them, 300 billion emails, almost 85%, are considered as spam? That is a terrifyingly huge number. But why are we telling you this? It’s because spam is heavily looked down upon by ESPs or email service providers who exist to protect recipients from the 300 billion emails above. If you or your business’ mails repeatedly come within these spam emails, you could run the risk of being blacklisted.

Email and Spam Statistics (Source: Cisco Talos)

Now, a real valid question that could arrive in your mind is what makes an email blacklisted. Well, they usually happen because of:

• High bounce rates: If your bounce rates are usually high and you don’t maintain a good email list hygiene, your bounce transgressions could start piling up.
• Spam complaints: Complaints are part and parcel of the email life, but if the number of complaints reaches or exceeds a certain level, internet service providers can send your emails to spam folders or even blacklist it.
• Haranguing content: We all know those email subject lines taken from telemarketing sales pitch with “FREE” or “LIMITED OFFER” in all caps preceded by a million exclamation points. No one wants that, do we now.? If you are doing that, stop immediately.
• An increase in email volume or email list size: If your email list has new email addresses being added to it too fast too soon, it’s a signal that you have bought a list. If you send huge volumes of email from the get-go, it could indicate spam.

4. Other Types of Bounces

• DNS failure (bounce_df): In this type of bounce, the email server couldn’t deliver your message temporarily to a recipient’s address because of a DNS problem.
• Challenge/Response (bounce_cr): You receive Challenge/Response replies when the recipient has installed a specific software that accepts messages for them only from the senders they know. This filter sends an automated reply with a challenge (a question or required action) to the email sender, which, if not completed correctly, results in the message being undelivered to the recipient.
• Transient bounce (bounce_tr): Transient bounces are generated by the sender’s email server when the message was not delivered, but the server still might be trying. These are not harmful and can usually be safely ignored.
• Address Change (bounce_ac): This bounce response is received by senders when a recipient has changed their email address and has sent an automatic reply to senders to inform them of their new email address.

There are many types of bounces, and emails could always bounce back for some reason. While there isn’t much you can do about these reasons and the fact that your emails bounced, there are steps you can take to minimize your bounce rate. Here, we will take a look at some of these measures that can help you improve your delivery rate and keep your bounce rate at a minimum.

Measures to Minimize Bounce Rate

An email bounce rate is calculated as the total percentage of emails sent by you that bounced back because they were undeliverable. And unlike other email marketing metrics like click-through rate and open rate, a high bounce rate is a red flag. You want to keep your bounce rate as low as you possibly can.

So, how do you do it? You obviously wouldn’t shoot yourself in the foot if you knew any better. To minimize the bounce rate, take conscious monitoring on your part of your email campaign for your bounce rate trends. The different ways you could minimize it include:

1. Have a Clean and Straightforward Sign Up Form

Did you know that 50% of marketers say marketing strategies like web forms are their principal source of leads?

Your email marketing campaign is dependent upon the leads you generate. And, in order to send emails to prospective clients, you have to get their contacts. A great way to do this and subsequently increase the success rate of your marketing campaign is by employing the use of a simple sign-up or web form. With as many as 74% of companies using web forms for lead generation and 49.7% stating it to be their highest converting tool, it’s a no-brainer to include them to ease your lead generation woes.

Ensure to not have any more than the necessary fields for people to enter their information and email address. Have a good captcha system in place and make sure that it is not easily fooled by computers or bots. A good example is how lululemon does it.

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2. Check Your Email List for Veracity Before Sending Emails

Many a time, bounces happen because the email addresses that you sent mails to are either incorrect, contain typos, or are non-existent. If your email list hasn’t been updated in a while (in six months), then it’s highly probable that many addresses have become inert, switched off, become inactive. In fact, 51% of businesses have found that data quality is their biggest impediment in email marketing success.

A good way to check the legitimacy of your email list is to appoint the services of a sales engagement platform that provides you with up to date email information. Clodura is a pioneer in engineering sales engagement with its 95% accurate email data. By commissioning our services, you can rest easy with regards to concerns about generic email addresses and be sure that your mailing list is updated and unique.

3. Make Sure Your Email Doesn’t Look Like Spam

No one likes spam. A recent poll conducted by Spamlaws found that 52% of all participants stated spam as a serious problem.

It’s obvious that you don’t want to spam the recipient. But, as it occurs, you still find that your emails are ending up in the spam folder. Why is it so?

This is because there are spam filters that determine whether or not your email looks like spam. But what has that got to do with you? You know that your email is genuine, right? Well, the problem lies elsewhere. With almost 73% of emails being sent out every day constituting spam, spammers are always coming up with new ways to spam, and the filters change accordingly to keep them at bay. So, if your email does in any way resemble a spam mail, you know where it ends up, and why.

This means that you need to continually revise your email template to make sure that it hasn’t assumed any characteristics that make it look like spam. Just doing this consistently can bring down your email bounce rate by a huge margin.

4. Decide Upon a Mailing Schedule

Consistency is key to everything in marketing. It ensures that you remain in your customers’ minds for a long time. And in the age of decreasing attention spans, this is paramount. For example: According to studies, Tuesday is the best time of the week to send emails. So, build a mailing schedule centered around this time and day of the week. Being consistent with this will guarantee that your subscribers always have you on their mind and don’t mark your email address under spam.

However, this doesn’t mean that you send emails every day. By doing so, you will definitely end up landing in the spam folder. First, create a professional email template, decide upon its engagement patterns, come up with a schedule that is periodic, and then follow it to the hilt. This could signify that there’s a fixed campaign agenda so that your messages are expected by both your recipients and their servers.

5. Secure a Good Sender Reputation

“The easiest way to combat poor deliverability is to remove people from your list if they haven’t been opening, reading, or clicking.”– Brendan Dubbels

As seen above in the article, a good sender reputation is important for your campaigns to succeed and ensure regular deliverability because if you don’t, then the chances are that even your genuine, non-spam emails will not reach the inbox of your recipients. A small blemish on your reputation, especially for small organizations, could end up disrupting business and negatively impact customer relationships.

So, how do you ensure that your sender reputation has not gone to the dogs and if it has, how to improve it?

• Utilize email validation systems like the Sender Policy Framework or SPF to warrant that the host domains are licensed so that it helps you build trust in the minds of your subscribers.
• Certain ESPs ask for SenderID authentication because it helps with issues of email “spoofing” and phishing and brings down the percentage number of bona fide emails incorrectly marked as spam.
• Make use of DKIM authentication to make sure that your emails are getting delivered to your recipient’ inboxes.

Key Takeaways

Nobody wants their email to bounce. Particularly not when the ROI is hugely dependent upon it. So, it only makes sense to sort out your deliverability woes as soon as possible. Because if your emails keep landing up in the spam dump or bouncing, your email marketing campaign will never taste success.

Fortunately, there are many measures you can take from using concise sign-up forms, building your mailing list organically to authenticating your company name using reply-to addresses to correct these issues. Ensure that you have all the nitty-gritty covered, and don’t forget to keep track of your emails to view and fix any problems that lower your email deliverability rates.

Did you know that a staggering 49% of buyers prefer cold calling as the first point of contact?

Cold calling is not dead.

On the contrary, it has been found thata large number ofprospects, especially in the technology and professional services, respond well to cold calls.

But does that make your job easy as a salesperson?

Well, to be honest, cold calling, though useful, continues to be one of the toughest aspects of sales. Understandably, it isn’t easy to deliver a practiced pitch to someone who hasn’t shown any interest in your product previously. Besides, no two calls are ever the same – which can make the experience exciting, as well as a little scary at times.

Yet, it is a fact that cold calling remains one of the most effective ways of gaining customers for your business – which is why we have compiled this list of 20cold calling tipsthat will help you deliver more value and connect better with your prospects in the first go.

1. FocusOnYour Voice and Intonation

When you make a cold call, do not sound apologetic. Instead, sound cheerful and energetic, as positive behavior is usually quite infectious and tends to mirror with your prospects, leading to a better response. Remember, in the absence of body language and facial cues, up to 38 percent of spoken communication is comprehended according to your tone or how you mouth your words, and only 7 percent is comprehended from the words actually spoken. Hence, it is vital to ensure that you sound enthusiastic and understanding, instead of being impatient or irritated when you call up a prospect.

Another cold calling tip that works well is mirroring the speech patterns of your prospects from time to time to connect with them better.

2. Speak Slowly& Use Pauses ForMaximum Impact

Very often, we tend to rattle off a stellar script quickly on a cold call, waiting for a positive response from the prospect but end up being rejected. The reason, very often, is that people who talk fast may be hard to understand and come across as under-confident, which means they may not be taken seriously by prospects.

Talking slowly not only helps your prospects comprehend and absorb what you are saying, but it also shows that you are in control of the situation, building confidence and trust.

Speaking slowly and impactfully is an art that you must master with practice to improve your cold calling strategy. If you think you talk too fast,try including deliberate pausesin your speech or use a timer device to improve your delivery.

3. Respect Your Prospect’s Time

When you are cold calling a prospect, you are essentially intruding into their time. Therefore, it is vital to prove your value within the first few seconds of the call or risk being hung upon. Onecold calling strategythat helps in such a situation is asking for permission from your prospects to go ahead. For example, you can ask something specific like, “May I take 35 seconds of your time to [value statement]” to raise your prospect’s curiosityand alsogain their approval to speak further.

Even after the prospect gives you the go-ahead, it is essential to keep your conversation short and sweet, while focusing on the next steps to fix an elaborate meeting or demo wherein you can push the sale. One cold calling tip that we like to stress upon here is creating a targeted list of prospects before you even begin calling. Instead of making random calls, value your time and that of your prospects, by only calling individuals who fit into your targeted lead personas.

4. Ask Open-Ended Questions for a Two-Way Discussion

Cold calling is not supposed to be a monologue, but rather, a two-way exchange of information or conversation. Therefore, it is vital to prepare your calling script in a manner that it contains several open-ended questions, allowing your prospects ample room for response. For example, questions that start with ‘what,‘ ‘where,‘ ‘when,‘ ‘how,‘ etc., give your prospects a chance to share their point of view or experience, which leads to more engaging and personalized conversations.

Once you engage your prospect in a prolonged conversation, using an open-ended question, don’t forget to fill up the small pauses in the conversation with encouraging words that show you are listening to the speaker and comprehending what he or she is saying.

5. Be Prepared for Objections

Did you know that 58% of potential buyers feel that sales reps are unable to answer their questions effectively?

That’s precisely why it is imperative to prepare a compelling cold calling script, before picking up the phone, to objectively list your value-propositionand alsoprepare answers to common objections and questions that may come up during a call.

One of the best ways to do this is by documenting all the objections that have come up in your previous calls and preparing detailed answers to questions about your products and services. You can also exchange notes with your peers to come up with a possible list of reasons outlining why prospects may refuse your product or service,so as tobe prepared in advance to overcome these objections for a successful outcome.

6. Make Use of Voicemails

A large number ofcold calls go unanswered and end up as voicemails. However, many salespeople consider voicemails to be a waste of time, which is not exactly right. On the contrary, an effective voicemail can lead to a call back from your prospect, who is already ‘warm‘ by now, as you have previouslymade contact withthem via voicemail.

But how do you ensure your voicemail delivers the results you desire?

Well, the idea is to be different. We suggest that instead of starting with your name, which is the usual practice, start your message by outlining your value proposition, followed by your name and contact. It is also a good idea to keep your voicemails under 30 seconds, as anything longer will distract your prospect almost certainly.

You can also keep a few voicemail scripts ready and test their efficacy overa period of time. This will not only save you time but also improve your success rate in terms of getting callbacks from your prospects.

7. Use a Local Phone NumberForMaking Cold Calls

When you are making a cold call, it is always best to use a local number to win the trust of your prospects in any time zone. The reason being that customers naturally feel more comfortable receiving a call from a number with recognizable area code.

Another advantage of having a local number is the added convenience for your customers who can reach out to you quickly via local calls.

8. Keep Small Conversion Goals

Your aim is not to close a deal on a cold call. In fact, you should not even intend to sell during the first call. Instead, keep a smaller goal of building a rapport with the prospect on a cold call and discuss the next steps, such as fixing a time slot when you can speak in detail or have a demo.

However, don’t attempt to mold a prospect to your buying process. Instead, suggest the next step, listen to their feedback, and facilitate the buying process for them to seamlessly move them to the next stage of your sales funnel.

For example, say something specific like “Will Thursday at 11 am be a good time to talk?” than saying, “Let’s connect sometime next week to discuss this further.” Your aim is to get your prospect to commit to the next meeting during the first call rather than ending the call on a vague note without any follow-up plan.

9. Follow-Up Promptly

It is a fact that it takes multiple calls to convert a lead into a paying customer. Yet, most salespeople avoid making follow-up calls. Remember, persistence pays rich dividends in cold calling; most experts agree it takes a minimum 7 or more attempts to convert a prospect.(use some other website for stat ref. already used once) – other stats are by Velocify; a general statement has been included instead.

It is also a good idea to send a follow-up email after a cold call. You can always end the email with a direct question to set up a follow-up call to move forward in the sales process. While following up is great, you are also expected to be punctual, which means if you promise a prospect a call back at a specific time, make sure you do that, lest you lose your credibility with the said prospect.

10. Don’t Multitask While Calling

Sitting at your desk and cold calling for hours, repeatedly trying to connect with your prospects, getting through switchboards and IVRs, can be quite dull at times – but cold calling requires a high-level of focus.

Remember, no two calls are exactly similar, and you may lose out on some vital information within a few seconds of distraction. So, don’t let the humdrum of routine tempt you to entertain yourself with other things, such as social media, texting, or daydreaming while talking to prospects.  Instead, follow the good oldcold calling strategyof jotting down notes during your calls to stay focused and take regular breaks to prevent boredom from setting in.

11. Use Sales Dialer to Increase Your Productivity

Sales personnel spend a significant amount of time in cold calling each day. Yet, unfortunately, many of these calls go unanswered, and sales personnel end up wasting time in leaving voicemails and waiting for leads to call them back.

To make things easier, you may invest in a sales dialer, which can boost the efficiency of your sales team immensely. One of the most significant advantages of a modern sales dialer is that it can be integrated with your CRM to give you deep insights on every prospect, saving a lot of time for your sales reps. Predictive dialers are also designed in a way so as to automatically limit abandoned calls and comply with all the local regulations in your area around cold calling. Another benefit is that sales dialers usually match to a local number while calling prospects, which is known to increase the rate of the conversations.

12. Be a Good Listener

Every good salesperson is also a great listener. Yes, cold calling is not just about talking; it is also about listening to your prospects to make them feel valuedand alsounderstand their concerns.

When you listen actively, you keep the focus on the prospect, which is rewarding for both the parties because the prospect feels good talking about himself or herself while you win their trust and also gain information that may help you address their pain points better.

13. Accept RejectionWitha Smile

This may sound a little philosophical, but rejection is part and parcel of your life as a sales rep, especially if you make a lot of cold calls. It is a fact that nobody closes 100% of their prospects – which means you will face rejection many times. However, you cannot let it get to you.

Instead, keep a positive attitude, replay call recordings frequently to understand what went right and what went wrong, and continue doing your job with confidence as there is nothing to feel sad about.

14. Know Your Prospects Before You Call

If there’s only onecold calling strategythat you intend to follow, it must be this – researching your prospects before you call them up. You can use market research and social media to find out more about your prospects and how your product can deliver value to them. This will give you a significant advantage as you’ll be able to talk to them about their business and needs when you call them.

To make this process much more efficient, you can also use an intelligent lead generation software likeClodura, that helps you identify companies in your target market and reach out to the decision-makers with complete contact information, including email Ids and direct dials. The software also provides intelligence on 25+ vital buying signs to identify low hanging sales opportunities to close more deals.

15. Measure Your Call-to-Conversion Ratio to Achieve Your Goals Faster

Like all salespersons, you certainly have a sales target to meet.But do you know how many calls will it take you every day to achieve this goal?

Well, you can figure out the magic number of calls you need to make each day to hit your monthly quota by calculating your call to conversion ratio. For this, simply count the total number of calls you made in the previous month, how many of these calls were answered, and how many of those answered callsactually qualifiedinto the next stage of the funnel.

For example, Joe decided to calculate his call-to-conversion ratio and found the following:

Calls Made – 100

Connected to Prospects – 6

Conversions –1

This means that even though Joe has aconnectrate of6%, he is onlyconverting 1 out of100calls he makes. So, if his monthly target is convertingcustomers, by this calculation, he needs to make about1,000calls every month to meet his goal.

To get even closer to your sales goals, we suggest that you craft a compelling sales pitch and tweak it for your prospects after solid market research.

16. Plan Your Schedule

Do you have ten calls lined up for the day with noparticular schedule?That’s a mistake that may cost you some eager customers.

Apart from cold calling, there are several other tasks that you must fit into any given day. These include internal team meetings, strategic planning, market research, customer demos, follow up calls, etc.

To ensure you accomplish everything you have targeted for the day, it is necessary to have a fixed schedule, lest you feel overwhelmed. A good idea is to use the best times in the day (which have higher prospect connect ratios) for cold calling while reserving the remaining hours for peripheral activities.

But, how do you pick the best times for your calls?

By finding out the timings when people are most likely to answer your calls.

Think about it –How likely are you to answer a call from an unknown number at nine in the morning when you have just arrived at work, or, at 5 pm, when you are hurrying to wrap-up the day’s work and leave for home?

Also, you can analyze the call records of the prospects you have closed and check if there is any pattern regarding the number of calls received on anyparticular dayor time.

You will notice that prospects are more likely to answer calls when they are not heavily engaged in work, that is, before lunch or towards the latter half of the day. Use this time to connect with your highest quality prospects, and the remaining time in the day can be used for planning your schedule, modifying your script, sending follow-up emails, etc.

17. Know the Best TimesAndDays To Call

Managing your time can be tricky while cold calling. For example, you may dedicate an hour to cold calling every day but find that your prospects are not always ready to answer your calls when you call them. So, even after your scheduled hour is over, there may be several callbacks, and you must always be ready to answer the phone and do your job superbly.

However, this does not mean that you can’t plan your day at all while cold calling. To ensure maximum results, avoid calling during times or days when you aren’t likely to answer the phone yourself, such as Monday mornings, lunchtime, after 5 pm on Fridays, etc. If you are calling prospects in different time zones, you must also make sure not to call up at an inappropriate hour to cheese them off.

Of course, there’s no guaranteed formula to calculate a golden hour when all your prospects will answer, but research indicates Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to be the best days for cold calling.

Statistically, Wednesday is considered to be the best day for cold calling, with a maximum response rate between 4 pm and 5 pm every day.

18. Make Gatekeepers Your Ally

Do you hate it when a receptionist or secretary answers your call instead of the decision-maker you intended to reach out to?

Well, turn this moment of possible defeat into victory by being pleasant to whoever picks up the phone and seeking their help in reaching out to the right people in the organization. For example, asking something as simple as “I was wondering if you can help me” can open the gates to vital information such as the names of other key personnel in the company and the best time to call them.

19. Prioritize Your Call List

You have multiple calls lined up for the day – but how do you decide whom to call up first?

Well, the most practicalcold calling strategyis calling your highest quality prospects first, during a period when they are most likely to answer your call. But how do you separate the highest quality prospects from others is a question worth considering. For this, you need access to reliable market intelligence that will keep you informed of trigger events that may warm up your cold leads.

For example, if you are a hardware company, news about a business moving to a bigger location may signify an opportunity and give you the perfect reason to connect and pitch your service. To track such trigger events and market intelligence, you can rely on various tools, such as setting up Google Alerts, using Hootsuite to ‘listen’ to social conversions, and using a lead management software like Clodura, that provides you with relevant intelligence about sales opportunities, which could be the low hanging fruits you can immediately aim for.

20. Never Stop Practicing

Practice makes perfect– Truer words have never been said! That’s why it is vital to practice your script in front of the mirror, and over repeated calls, to improve your success percentage.

By going through your cold calling script, previous call recordings, and the common objections raised by prospects, you can pick up subtle cues to refine yourcold calling strategyfurther.

For example, maintaining the right tone and pace while talking, recognizing the verbal cues given by prospects, perfecting the answers to common queries and objections, and tweaking and delivering your cold calling script correctly and confidently in every situation.

Wrapping UP

If you are a sales representative looking at improving your conversation and closing rate, these 20 tips will surely transform the way you connect with clients and help you generate more meetings out of your calls.

However, once again, we’d like to add that you can never convert 100 percent of your leads, which makes it important to keep a positive and resilient attitude towards rejections, learn from them and move on. Even if you face a rude brush-off, maintain your calm, and learn from the experience. By mirroring the prospect’s emotions in such a situation, you are only going to make your day worse. Remember, you are only doing your job, and there’s no time to feel hurt or give up.

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B2B buyers receive hundreds of sales emails daily. The buyers open only a small percentage of these sales emails, and even fewer of them are read. A minimal amount of emails is either opened or replied or forwarded to the concerned person. Or else it is also marked as spam by the buyers.

Despite the challenges, Email marketing remains a powerful and personal method to connect with your ideal buyer. It can be tailored and personalized as per the buyer’s interest to make the communication more relevant.

As per SmartInsigts.com, email marketing is the most effective digital marketing technique and top-ranked channel, beating Social media, affiliate marketing, and SEO.

So, email marketing becomes an essential channel to connect with potential buyers for digital marketers. That’s why building a proper email strategy is the most crucial part of any email marketing activity.

You expect a response as soon as you hit the “Sent” button. Practically, this doesn’t happen. More often, you fail to get a response from potential customers. You have experienced that most of the readers delete the email without even reading or also tend to mark it as spam.

Have you tried to find the reasons behind this? Emails can be one of the reasons for the failure of your marketing campaigns. But the problem is that-most of the sales executives don’t know how to write sales emails correctly.

Emails area medium to build a connect, establish a rapport, and present solutions to tackle the challenges faced by your client.If the email is notable to do the same, then it is a waste of time and effort for your team.

A few reasons, what might be wrong in the email:

Email doesn’t have a structure or flow. Here, the sales executive jumps from one topicto another without a logical flow

Vague subject and lack of context for your potential buyer

Many times, in the opening sentences, the salesperson straight away talks about what the company does. Why would your buyer be interested to know all about this?

Email is too salesy and lacking a personalized touch

Inappropriate call-to-action in between of the email body ruins your email

The content in email is salesperson-centric and not customer-centric

In the end, email without an appropriate call-to-action and having arandom closure

Length of the email is too long and does not have a proper flow

If your email has an attachment, it triggers the company’s spam filters

The results of unmindful emails can be devastating. As a sales representative, you need to learn the ways to master emailing for better prospecting. It is necessary to find out ways to improve email reply rates by testing and trying out different email marketing techniques to gain your customer’s attention & confidence. In this article, you’ll discover how to write the sales emails to achieve sales goals.

1. Personalize-

Mass emails are now an old part of outbound marketing. Customize your email with customer’s name, company name, designation, citing a relevant happening, addressing a specific problem

Mass emailvs.personalized email

Mass Email–

It is the same email sent to an extensive subscriber list yielding a low conversion rate. It is not customized and contains no personalization. These emails are sent to an unfiltered audience that may or may not be interested in your offer.

• Personalized Email– Personalization means a lot for email marketing. It enables the sales executive to send more relevant emails based on the buyer’s interests and information. Personalized emails are better at generating qualified leads and offer a better ROI compared to bulk emails. It improves click-through rates and conversions.

With personalized email usage, you can build a connection, establish a rapport, and offer a tailored solution to your ideal buyer for the problems he is facing. For example- from writing emails with personalized subject lines to behavior-based trigger emails like license reactivation email, sales offer introductory emails, requests for a conference call, demo request, etc.

Example for personalized email:

Hello David,

I tend to reach out, as I came across ACME Corp’s website and noticed that your digital marketing team is publishing fresh, new content now. Generating fresh leads through the website is a challenging task, if not done in the right way.

I’ve been working with many software products companies to help them generate more leads from the web content using our marketing automation platform.

Let me know if we could connect at 3 or 3.30 pm on Wednesday or Thursday to speak more.

Regards, James Lee

2. Research-

It is the next critical step to follow while drafting an email to your potential buyer. As a foundation of the email, you need to dive deep into your research to understand the industry and the potential contacts. It helps you to understand the customer’s current landscape & issues. With thorough research, you can get a sense of the challenges that the potential customer is facing. Your email needs to bring a valuable solution to tackle the problem.

For example:

If your potential customer is looking to bring in the automation in sales teams to improve efficiency and effectivity.

Now automate your mundane Sales task. Drive your sales team performance and productivity with an AI-based automation tool.”

3. Email Structure-

Before drafting an email, visualize your email structure.Preparea rough draftof your email structure, which could be a basic structure of your email. Be clear with what you want to convey to your customers.

Sales email Structure Format:

Here are two types of email formats listed:

Cold email format:

• The subject line – mentionboth the companies – the potential company and your company,who you are. Giving clarity is essential when your lead is completely cold
• Paragraph 1-warm upyourlead. Showwhy youthinkyou wouldbe a good match
• Paragraph 2– detailsonwho you are, the offer your brand, the valueyourproduct offersto the customer. Then throw a reliable supporting statistical data to make your product value clear
• Paragraph 3-ask gently open-ended questions about what exactly your lead looking for
• The sign-off – Show the positive attitude in the last paragraph, asking foracall to action from your potential lead

Sales Letter of Introduction

Even anecessaryconnection request can have a stuffy subject line conveying your main idea without being dry and cold.

• Paragraph 1-Give acombination ofthe enthusiastic praiseandletyour leadknow who you are
• Paragraph 2-Give a general overview of what you are offering and the value your product holds to resolve the current issues faced by your leads. It recommended introducing yourself and company than doing a sales email
• Paragraph 3-Directing asking for the call or meeting; this will add a potential topic of conversation with your buyer
• The signature needs to be direct and straightforward, with no need for extra details clogging up the sales email structure

Sales email structureExample:

“Hi Lisa,

Thank youfor emailing us!

I amJames, working asBusiness DevelopmentManager at Clodura,an AI-poweredsalesengagementplatform for B2B Sales. We help companies to automate the__irdaily mundane sales activity.

As you mentioned the concern that you’re sending your business proposals into a black hole, it struck a note with me. This issue is faced by your sales and marketing team.

Now at Clodura, I help B2B companies to solve the problem, by giving them insight into who engages with us forLeadGen.

I think I can help you prioritize the ideal customer list with more engagement. Can we talk about itonWednesday at3 pm EST?

Regards,

James Lee”

4. Unique subject line-

A good or bad subject line can make or stop a prospect from opening a sales email. It can make or break a deal. It should be creative and exciting enough to prompt the prospect to open the email and read more.It is recommended to use a unique subject line to get your customers to open the email.

Words to Avoid

It is recommended to be direct, be humble, avoid bragging, and boasting. Avoid words and phrases like the ones below listed:

• Anything to do with money.Spam filters will catch these kinds of words- Earn, free, bonus, profits, price, credit, or anything with a dollar sign
• Marketing: –Email marketing is one of the most successful marketing channels used frequently. But that doesn’t mean as a salesperson you need to remind this to your potential lead
• Stop over-emphasizing words: –Avoid using words like – Exclusive, Surprisingly, or such synonyms. Only if you have a ‘special offer’ for a select group of potential buyers, then use any of the synonyms to convey your buyers about it, avoid using these
• Superlatives: –Avoid using words like FANTASTIC, INCREDIBLE, and AMAZING. It is recommended to let your product and the offer do the work. If your product and offering match to your ideal buyer’s requirements, it is undoubtedly getting a response to the email

Proven sales email subject lines by sales executives

To increase the email reply ratios, here are proven salescoldemail subject lines used daily

• “[Introduction] [your name/company] <-_> [_customername/company]”
• “Idea for [an issue the prospect is concerned about]“
• “Trying to connect.”

Here, are three examples ofgreatopening lines to use in your sales emails:

• The context builder:I wanted to reach out, as I came across your website and noticed that your digital marketing team is publishing much fresh, new content now.We’vebeen working with many B2B companies to help generate particularly more leads from the content with our marketing software automation tools.
• The trust builder:My name isJames, working asBusiness Development M__anager atClodura. Clodura is offering lead generation platform for B2B Sales. We help companies to automate the daily mundane sales activity.
• The referral request:Thank you for emailing us!

This email is with reference to your concern raised in the message you have dropped on our contact us form.

As youhavementioned the concern that you’re sending your business proposals into a black hole, it struck a note with me. We, at Clodura, help B2B companies to solve the problem, by giving them insight into who engages with us forLeadGen.

I think I can help you prioritize the ideal customer list with more engagement. Can we talk about itat3 pm EST onWednesday?

5. Straight to the point-

Get straight to the point. Note that your prospects have a short time, so it is recommended to keep your message short and to the point.

6. Embed Call-To-Action-

While creating an email,insertCTA to get more response. Your action should be clearly defined in the email. It should prompt the ideal customer to take some action.

It would great if you ask confirmation ofthemeeting or call. Below are examples for reference:

“Would you be able to talk at 2 p.m. on Wednesday? Let me know what works best.”

Or

“Can we meet at your office on Tuesday inthesecond half to discuss more on how our product can help you to move ahead.

Note-Your pitch shouldn’t be a monologue.It should include open-ended questions so that your potential buyer speaks up about his problems and ask more about how to get that resolved. It is suggested to start your pitch with a quick snippet about what you do to provoke your ideal buyers’ interest. If your customer is interested, he/she indicates accordingly.

7. Finally, concentrate on benefits:

It is one of the fundamental principles of selling your product or service. Talk about how your product benefits the customer or enhance his productivity and optimize resources,time, and effort.

To market your product or service, emailis afast, flexible, and cost-effective method. Email is the channel to reach out to your new customers and helps in retaining your existing customers too. In addition to the above points, emails are now personalized messages targeted to connect with your ideal buyers. Following the above simple steps, will undoubtedly improve email response rates,while working onemailmarketing campaigns.

After having been workingonyouremailstrategy, still, your emails are notgettingresponded to. Then learn how do you ensure your sales emails not only get noticed and opened but also read and acted upon.

There are other reasons for the failure of email marketing campaigns.You need toidentify your email marketing problems and know thetricksto fix them.

Post emailsending, you must do the email campaign analysis. This data is acquired fromvariousemail marketingtools and platforms. Here are a few more reasons listed, which might lead to emailmarketing campaigns which failed to get the expected results:

• Spam: -Unsolicited commercial email or ‘spam’ irritates consumers. If your messages aren’t targeted to the right customer, the recipient may delete your email or mark it as spam. Ensure that you are emailing to the ideal buyer, it is recommended to update and maintain your database
• Low open email ratio: -Low number of ideal buyers opens your emails delivered
• Low click ratio: – Low number of click ratios within the open emails
• Low Delivery Rate: – Low delivery rates as you might not have the correct emails of the customers

If your sales pitch is simple and to the point in email marketing campaigns, then the results generated are vast. Just keep in mind that your emails shouldn’t be very complicated.

How to update and maintain youremaildatabase?

Firstly, you should have the correct emails or contact details for your potential buyers. Before you begin with any marketing campaign, keep your database freshand accurate. The impact of bad data can be multi-fold and choke up your email marketing engine with high unsubscribes, spam complaints, and bounces, leading to a lousy sender domain reputation.

How is it possible to keep the contact database fresh orup-to-date? Well,Cloduraoffers a unified platform where you can obtain the contact detailsofquality leadsin just a single click. Don’t push your luck guessing email addresses and contact details.

A sales executive can launch customized email campaigns. You can manage email campaigns and have a look at thereports. Get the complete view of email opens,email clicks,forwards,replies,etc.

You can not only bypass the spam folderwith intelligent & personalized email sequencesbut also track conferences happening around the world and connect with their attendees seamlessly. Moreover, the sales team can track events and get to knowmoreabout the attendees. And check out what they are tweeting about the event.

Clodurais anAI-based platformwhichallows you to append and enrich yourCRM and marketing automation platformdata in just one click. With more than 200 million contacts, 15 million companies, and over 100,000 active sales triggers, you can update your CRM or contact listseamlessly. If you are looking for sales enablement and sales automation tools to elevate your lead generationgame, then contact us.

An Explanation with Examplesof Total Addressable Market Analysis This article is a continuation of our earlier article – What Is Total Addressable Market and How Does It Work? As you know, thetotal available marketdemonstrates the overall market opportunity that exists within the market for your product, service, or software.

No matter what kind of business you have- start-up, small-medium enterprise, or large enterprise. It is essential tounderstand and access your potential marketsizeandmajor players. TAM is a popular metric but often misunderstood.

How to not mess up with your TAM analysis?

Here are a few points listed below: As a form of Market sizing, is often misunderstood by many of the businesses. It is an exercise to shed light on your potential market, and stakeholders can invest funds into the company’s new product or services. With TAM, you gain insights on where is the possible opportunity? Where do your competitors stand in the market? Sales representatives need to avoid below blunders:

1. Don’t define the market size with the problem

For example- if there is an Opioid crisis in the USA and is a $100 billion problem, then it is the size of the problem and not the size of the market. You can’t define the size of the market with the size of the problem.

2. Market Approach:

It is a huge mistake to underestimate or overestimate the market size. For example, if a sales executive thinks, he will gain at least 2 to 5% of the market, which is a substantial total market slice for his product.Or itcanbemorethan 5% of the market sharealso. So, guesswork doesn’t work out.It is recommended toapply the Market approachas per our product.

There are three types of market approaches- Top-down (Using industry research and reports) – Bottom-up (Using data from early selling efforts) – Value theory (Using conjecture about buyer willingness to pay) Find more on the market approach . As a sales executive, ensure to use the approach that gives a fair idea about the potential opportunities in the market.You would either overestimate or underestimate the market with regards to the product or service.

3. Understanding the room in the market:

You must select the market that is suitable for your product. The market depends on what kind of product, service you want to sell to your ideal customers. So, for example, if there is a $500 billion market for the Automotive industry, then that’s the size of the automotive market and not yours. You are a manufacturer of the automatic car headligh tsensors for luxurious car models. Then your potential market could be $1 million.

4. Geographic Location:

Next, you need to concentrate on geographic location. Which is the ideal location to sell your product, service, or solution? Is it the USA, Global, or Asia? Carefully think about the location and then move ahead.

5. Coming to Pricing:

How do you know what is the price of your product? How do you work on the critical assumption? If your price calculation is wrong, then it’s sure that your TAM calculated is also inaccurate. For more information, check out the article on- How to calculate your product price? TAM is calculated based on Customers and Price.

When you talk about the customers, these are real people who are going to use your product. Be very careful about your genuine potential buyers.

Let’s list out parameters to calculate the TAM.

1. Country/Location: It is necessary to know where your ideal buyers are located- are they globally or in the United States, Asia, Europe, or anywhere. Defining the country or location parameters before you start with the TAM calculation will help you to study the market and locate your potential customers.

2. Industry: It is always better to define your industry. Or in other words, in which industry you wish to sell your product. For example – if you have software or plugin that simplifies and enables Core Banking Software. The preferable industry for your product to sell will be Banking. Parameters to calculate TAM

3. Company Size: The company size is defined on the bases of the number of employees and the average annual revenue. Size: Companies are classified into start-ups, small-medium enterprises, or large enterprises. Why does it matter? You gain knowledge whether your product is made for Start-ups or SME or enterprise-grade level. Additionally, you can understand where your competitors stand in the market. Without a solid grasp on company size, you will end anger the business through out the product’s life cycle. – Revenue: This is another critical parameter to consider at the time of calculating TAM. It gives an idea about what type of potential buyer you are looking for.

To define your product price, this step becomes too crucial. Here, as a sales rep, you should understand how big the company is with respect to the annual revenue generated. Let’s consider two scenarios: In scenario 1, if your product is suitable for start-ups or SMEs, then the product price is set depending on the usage. The usage will be less say-10 people of the company or up to 100 people. Here, your ideal buyers are the people who look for the agility, affordability, andquick ROI of your product.

In scenario 2, In a large enterprise, yourproduct or services should be according to enterprisestandards.Itshould be scalable & robust.It shouldbe compliant with stringententerprise policiescovering security, privacy,and breach norms. When you are fixing the price for your product, considering the above two scenarios becomes mandatory. Here, as a business owner, decide whetheryourproduct worth a 99 cent or $99 or more?

4. Hiring Area:In this parameter, you can understand what kind of positions are open within the potential company. For example- if ACME Corp. company is looking out to fulfill the accounts payable position and you have a software or product that can automate the same task. The company can be your potential lead. In the same manner, you can look for the hiring areas within aparticular domainor company. Hiring Areas Parameter

5. Technology: Technology parameter plays a significant role. Here, as a sales representative, you are looking for leads in a specific technology domain. These leads require a technology-based product or service. Let’s take an example of the technology filter. You have a product or software, especially for data security and data breach. So, potential customersmightbe companies using Cloud Networking, Cloud Connectivity, Cloud Protocol, etc. Technology Parameter

6. Operating Systems: Moving ahead in the parameter filters, Operating Systems are a crucial factor in deriving your Total Addressable Market (TAM). Applying this filter helps you understand the demand for the type of operating systems used by potential leads. For instance, if you offer software or plugins that operate on cross-platform environments, Apple iOS, or Linux, your potential customers will be individuals or businesses utilizing these operating systems. To ensure smooth functionality on macOS, consider addressing any issues related to macOS updates like macOS Sequoia issues, which can impact user experience and adoption.

7. Programming Languages: A programming language is the last but not the least parameter to calculate your TAM. This parameter helps you to understand potential companies using whichtype ofprogramming language. With the same example, you have software or framework to accelerate development on Java or Python, so the potential customers will be companies usingthese programming languagesor doing software development using the same. Programming Languages Parameter After applying specific filters, your sales reps will have a detailed Total Addressable Market analysis report.

Total Addressable Market analysis report for the selected industries In the above image, a sales executive can see the market intheUSA for the Industries you have selected. Comparison for company size and revenue opportunity Additionally, you can compare company size and revenue opportunities that you can grab.

Wrapping up Working on the total addressable market correctly; it will allow investors and entrepreneurs to get an understanding of thepotentialmarketand plot a landscapeofthe competitive market dynamics. With Total Addressable Market analysis, you can: – Tackle the enormous market. Furthermore, you can dive deep into the niche marketwith regards to your product, service or solution – Identify major players of the market – Analyze the entire marketin a few clicks with a simplified way When you leverage technology-based tools, itwill help you to analyze the potential market.

Here are a few benefits that you can have: – More accurate market sizing than manual work, saving precious time and resource effort – Market insights ona varietyof vital signals including competitors too – It helps to make more informed decisions, increased operational efficiency With a good knowledge of TAM, canhelpstart-ups, SMEs, and large enterprisesdevelop accurate sales pitches. They can bring up confidence in investors and stakeholders for the product and services to be launched in the market.

https://tam.clodura.ai/ allows your sales and marketing team to identify your potential buyer, prioritize the right market, and find leads that generate revenue faster. Learn how we can help you to identify your market with the robust AI-enabled suite by defining your TotalAddressableMarketand effectuate more revenue!

Email marketing is one of the most popular and affordable marketing techniques that are extensively deployed by businesses to reach out to new prospects. It allows you to reach thousands of potential customers with just a click of a button. As a result, email marketing has surpassed even SEO (along with social media) when it comes to profitability with about 75% of the companies reporting an excellent ROI from their email campaigns in 2016. There are many disadvantages of email marketing tools like spam, and undelivered emails. But this does not mean that email marketing is easy to execute. Complications can arise, especially when you fall into the trap of deploying countless email campaign tools. Here are the many disadvantages of email marketing tools that hinder the performance of your email campaigns –

1) Spamming – Why do Emails Reach the Spam Folder?

Emails that are sent out in bulk with the help of marketing tools often end up in the spam folder. This happens because the email service providers always try to cut down on the number of unwanted emails that a person is receiving. You should consider email spamming as a serious issue since you may be subject to penalties of up to $16,000 in accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act. Email marketing tools often give an indication to the service provider that the same email is sent to a large number of people. This ends up triggering the spam filters if they are not sure that you have taken due permission from the email recipient.

2) Unsubscribe Option – Why the ‘Unsubscription Count’ Matters

Marketing tools often provide readers with an option to unsubscribe from the mailing lists. While this is a good value to provide to your readers at times, it can also end up biting you in the face in case you are experimenting with different engagement options or end up making an unintended mistake. For example, let’s say you want to wish your readers a happy new year in their native languages. You divide the email list based on the language parameter and send out the emails accordingly, only to realize later that you have sent the wrong email to the wrong recipients. How do you think the Unsubscribe button will perform in this case? There is a lot of noise in a modern-day inbox and your readers might think that they have subscribed to a list that they did not intend to! Hence, an exodus may follow.

3) Name Stamp – Why Email Marketing Tools Hinder Branding?

Have you ever noticed some emails having a perpetual stamp at the footer that gives you the name of a marketing tool? For example, email marketing tools like Mailtrack add a stamp at the end like “Sent with Mailtrack”. That often proves to be a turnoff for some readers who might become wary of the fact that you are tracking how and when they read your emails (as that is what Mailtrack does). Some might even consider this a breach of privacy! Therefore, your email marketing efforts can end up backfiring with the marketing tools attracting all the unwanted attention instead of your email body. Whatever be the case, the practice also interferes with your branding efforts since it becomes blatant that you are dependent on third-party apps for your in-house requirements.

4) Lack of Personalization – Why Email Personalization Matters?

The usual email marketing tools are only capable of sending out bulk emails to a bucketload of addresses. This often works by trying to write an attractive email headline and praying to God that people click on it. As one might guess, this is not the most optimum method to go about. Personalization is the best thing to ever happen in the email marketing industry and you would be leaving money on the table if you are not making use of it. Email personalization is crucial since it requires you to know everything about the prospects and address the issues that they are facing in the emails. On the other hand, personalization also helps you to segregate the email list on the basis of the recipients’ demography and the time of the day. Hence, this has a direct impact on your ROI since more number of people end up reading your emails as well as engaging with them.

5) Same Time Stamp – What is an Email Time Stamp?

An email time stamp shows the time at which the email was received according to the timezone of the email recipient. Email marketing tools often send the emails in a hurry from the server so all emails end up having the same timestamp, regardless of the time zones the recipients may be in. This can often create a lot of confusion, especially when you are sifting through a chain of emails to determine the time at which they were sent or received.

6) Same Subject Lines

We have already seen how marketing tools lack the quality of personalizing the emails according to the recipient. A huge aspect of it is the email subject lines. The email subject is the first node of interaction with a prospective client since it is the first thing that the recipient notices in the inbox. Bulk emails cater to the data set of email addresses as a whole. Hence, the endgame here is to make as many people as possible click on the headline and read the email. So the email headlines come out to be something like –

• Discover 7 essential tools to streamline your marketing efforts, including a GIF compressor to optimize your visual content. (educational)
• The Winners of the Facebook Contest are Here! (announcement)
• Please Me Before it’s Too Late! Touchscreen Phones at Heavy Discounts! (humor)
• Why is Your Child More Digital Than Bill Gates (intrigue)

While this is not necessarily a bad way to go about, you can boost your revenues by multiple folds with personalized emails. What if we told you that personalized emails are known to boost transactions by 6 times as compared to bulk emails? Take a look at these subject lines –

• Hurry! Free Shipping for a Limited Period! (sent after a customer leaves the website without buying)
• An Item in Your Cart is About to Sell Out! (sent after customer fails to check out cart)
• Happy Birthday! Here’s a Gift for From all of Us at BlaBla (promotional offer sent to the customer on his/her birthday)

These headlines may look analogous to the usual ones, but they are more relevant to the recipients since the emails are being sent after careful consideration and analysis. Email marketing will always be at the crux of modern-day digital marketing. Hence, it is important that we do everything in our power to extract the best possible ROI out of it. Which marketing tool do you use? Share your views with us in the comments below!

Whatever business you may be in, the importance of email marketing cannot be understated. This is due to the fact that whatever brings money into your pocket can never be termed as a failure. Statistics state that an email campaign provides the highest ROI out of all available marketing channels.

When we compare email marketing with social media, numbers suggest that the organic reach of Facebook has been trimmed down by the advent of upgraded algorithms to only 2-6% of your page’s followers. The scenario is even worse for Twitter where only 2% of your followers may see your tweets.

On the other hand, emails have an average open rate of 21.73% with an average CTR of 3.57%. Hence, marketers who understand the potential of email marketing often reap huge benefits.

If you have been planning to run an email campaign but are lacking the required direction, here are some steps that will guide you along the way:

1) Dynamic Universe – What is it and How to Build a List for an Email campaign?

The Dynamic Universe of your company are the prospective customers in your industry that you can reach out to and try to convert. These are the ones that can be provided direct value through your products and services.

You can build an extensive list with the help of the following methods. It goes without saying that since we are explicitly talking about the dynamic universe, you will only entertain prospects that fall under its purview. Expending time on companies that do not fit the bill will only end up putting further strain on your operations.

a) Analyze Competitors: You can begin by analyzing your competitors and noting the kind of clients that they are tapping. Similar clients can be approached to explore synergies.

b) Leverage Web Analytics: Take a long look at the visitors that your website attracts and try to answer the following questions:

• Where do these visitors come from?
• What organic searches are they making on search engines to reach you?
• How are they interacting with your website? This will show you how serious they are about their prospects to find solutions.
• What kind of content are they consuming?
• Etc.

c) Use Social Media: Social media is indeed a powerful tool that can be used to find new prospects, especially on professional networks such as LinkedIn and Quora. Industry-specific networks on these websites are a great source of information about the pain points of your prospects and the kind of solutions that they are searching for. Thus, this gives relevant insights about the companies that can be approached in the process.

d) Attend Meetings/Seminars/Events: There is no better way to learn about your clientele than meeting them face to face. The bottom line is to have a hearty one on one session with prospects, pitch your services and get feedback. This forms another level of trust that can quickly fill your sales pipeline with leads.

2) Hot Leads: How to Find Companies that are Hot?

Once you have a list in place, the next step is to find the hot leads that have the most chance of converting. This can be done through BANT Analysis, which is a popular method of scoring leads based on insights like their budget, decision making the authority of your point of contact, the pain points of the company that is making it pursue a solution, and the timeline over which they are expecting a solution.

These insights help you better understand your prospects and rate them accordingly as cold, warm or hot. To do this, simply connect with companies in your dynamic universe and analyze their situation with the help of relevant questions.

For example, if you offer customized software solutions in the IT industry and your prospects are looking for the same, you can score the leads by asking the following questions:

1. What is your Budget for the required technology?
2. What is the priority of this project compared to other ongoing projects in your organization?
3. Who has the authority to make the purchase? Are multiple people involved?
4. Have you implemented any other tech/software in the past?
5. What technological challenges does your organization face usually?
6. What are your expectations from this project when it comes to ROI?
7. How soon do you want to see the solution in your office?
8. What is your expected timeline?

3) Decision Makers: Why is it Crucial to Find Emails of Decision Makers?

While it is important to maintain the quantity of your email list, the quality of the list is what matters most. It proves extremely difficult to convert a prospect if you cannot connect directly with the decision-maker.

Though, email addresses of other company contacts are just as useful. The best practice is to find as many emails as possible of your target company and try to connect with all of them. This will turn multiple eyeballs on you and increase your chances of connecting with the decision-maker.

So to sum it up, here is the usual algorithm that needs to be followed –

1. Research about the prospective company and identify the decision-maker
2. Try to find his/her email address. This can be done by surfing through their company website, Linkedin accounts, and other social media accounts.
3. If you are unable to do so, find emails of other employees and ask them to point you in the right direction.
4. Understand their requirements and pitch your services accordingly

4) Tracking Emails: How to Measure the Performance of your Email Campaign?

Thinking that your job ends as soon as you click the send button can kill your campaign. Sending out the emails is just the beginning. The real challenge lies in analyzing their performance and shifting gears accordingly.

You can begin this by tracking your emails. Insights like Open Rate and Click-through-Rate (CTR) should be looked into to understand what works and what doesn’t. Here are some of the main performance metrics that should be measured for every email campaign –

1. Open Rate – The percentage of prospects who actually click on your emails and read them. Thus, this tells you about the importance of email headlines.
2. Click-through-Rate (CTR) – The number of readers that click on the CTAs has given in the email.
3. Delivery Rate – This tells you about the number of prospects who are actually receiving your emails. Thus, tells you about the quality of your email list.
4. Forward Rate – As the name suggests, it measures how often your readers send your emails to someone else.

While it is important to keep an eye on these metrics, it is also crucial that you do it the right way. Using simple marketing tools may not be the best bet here since they often end up adding their info at the footer of the emails. This indicates to your readers that their moves are being tracked and this may have a negative effect on your engagement. Hence, email automation tools can be the best bet here.

On the other hand, it is also crucial to bypass the spam filters of email providers so as to maximize the reach of your email campaign. Here are some tips that will help you do so:

• Maintain the quality of the email content
• Design professional emails
• Avoid using too many Sales oriented language. For Example – “Buy Now”, “Click here to get a discount”, etc.
• Craft relevant subject lines
• Never use URLs as Link text
• Use a corporate email account to send the emails
• Use minimal and high-quality images
• Use a reputable email service provider
• Include a text version of your email

Email Marketing is truly a powerhouse when it comes to landing new customers. It can easily have long-lasting effects on your revenue if executed in the right sense.