Suggestion: Be this guy instead

You may recall that in our first post in the “Don’t be that guy” category, I called out Citrix for the overly aggressive sales experience I had with them when I signed up for a webinar.

I think it’s only fair that I follow up with a suggestion on how these first interactions might have been done differently.

Step 1: Align the first email with the first step in the sales cycle.

The fact that I was required to used the GoToWebinar product in order to attend the webinar should not have translated into the broad assumption that I have an interest in the product. The email, as you recall, began with

Thank you for your recent interest in …

and thus was geared towards a lead.

A more appropriate introduction might have been:

Thank you for signing up for (the webinar). Citrix is pleased to partner with (webinar company) to bring you this informative presentation.

Step 2: Segment responses for follow up.

The second part of the email might have contained a link:

Would you like to learn more about collaboration technology? Please take a moment to view this presentation. You are welcome to contact me directly at …

As you can see, the link to the presentation provides a data-gathering opportunity.

The recipients who click through to the presentation might indeed be interested in the product. They might receive a second email thanking them for their interest and asking them to expect a call.

A different email might be sent to those who did not click through to view the presentation:

We hope you enjoyed (the webinar). We are proud to make it possible for you to experience the best web collaboration experience ever. Should you wish to learn more about (our product), please feel free to contact me or check out this presentation.

Step 3: Don’t hand it off to sales until it’s actually a lead.

Making the effort to nurture recipients into prospects and prospects into leads increases your chances of connecting with those who are interested in your product at the right time.

This makes it possible for salespeople to manage their time more efficiently. Even though it requires significant involvement on marketing’s part to nurture those leads through the process, by the time the leads are handed to sales, the chances of leads actually closing will increase.

(In our particular example, however, the issue was compounded by the fact that the salesperson lied. My suggestion? Just don’t do it.)

Don’t be that guy

I love to learn for the sake of learning. (Unless it has something to do with math.)

My favorite mode of learning is what they used to call in public schools “self-paced.” I am a frequent consumer of webinars and online courses. I’m a constant consumer of books. (Sitting in a classroom – or conference room – doesn’t work for me. I think my mom calls this “ants in the pants.”)

A couple of my favorite topics include marketing and sales. Which part? All of it. Lead generation, lead nurturing, lead conversion. Cold-calling, warm-calling, call scripts.

The funny thing is, I don’t study this stuff because of my job (although, as a marketer, it is tremendously useful).  I study this stuff because it’s interesting. It’s really about human behavior. Mine and everyone else’s.

So it was in this spirit of learning that I signed up for a webinar … about webinars. Which, by the way, I thought was terrific! (In fact, I plan to use the invitation/landing page concept right away.)

When I signed up, I received an email from Citrix. What struck me immediately was the first line of the email:

Thank you for your recent interest in GoToMeeting now with GoToWebinar, the 3rd generation of web conferencing and collaboration technology.

Hmm. I’m not at all interested in GoToMeeting. I simply signed up for a webinar. I hope they leave me alone.

Email marketing is, of course, part of what we do. You probably do it, too. In fact, our email campaigns are a key part of my job. So I consider each marketing email that I receive to be a learning tool. In this case, the lesson is “Don’t assume.”

I will be calling you in the next day or two to review your needs or interest and help determine if our service is the right solution for your online meeting & collaboration needs. If you would prefer to schedule our call, please let me know when you have availability.

Oh no. They’re going to call me.

I found this email to be so pushy and assumptive that I shared it with one of my colleagues. It turned out she had received the same emails – and already received The Phone Call:”I told them we were not interested at this time,” and added, “(they) were ‘pushy’; I didn’t like it.”

Whew. I was relieved that The Phone Call was over.

Or was it?

A couple of days later, I finally received The Phone Call. I was surprised because this was the same person that spoke to my colleague – what kind of sales manager would allow salespeople to call in to the company just a couple of days after already getting a “no, thank you”?

And wait till you hear how they started the pitch:

Hi, Rhishja. I’ve been talking to other people in your company and they have expressed interest in our product.

As soon as there was a pause I said, “You spoke to Denise a couple of days ago, and she told you we’re not interested at this time. All we cared about was accessing the webinar.”

Silence.

I broke the silence by thanking them for checking in with me.

I understand that prospects need to be contacted. I understand the concept of sending marketing emails to prospects. And follow-up calls. I get that. I live that.

But there’s no excuse for lying.

Have your own “don’t be that guy” story? Share it with us!

What’s the true cost of Customer Lifetime Value?

How often have you heard the phrase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)? According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with over 1.7 million articles, it’s “a metric that projects the value of a customer over the entire history of that customer’s relationship with a company.”

But even if you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, don’t ignore the dynamics of marketing to your base. Politicians do this especially well. But no one does it better than the TV networks.
A few years ago, ABC was in last place among the big three. But now, by giving its base what it wants, Disney’s network has runaway hits like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Dancing With The Stars, Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy.

In fact, many companies totally ignore the impact that loyal customers can have, when the benefits of increasing it are so dramatic:

> A 5% increase in retention can create an 85% increase in profits;

> A 10% increase can translate to a 20% increase in sales;

> Extending customer lifecycles by three years can triple profits per
customer.

As you’ve no doubt heard, it’s difficult to improve what we cannot measure. So it’s even more difficult to accurately project how much you should spend to acquire, service and keep your customers if you actually don’t know their value.

But it’s ALWAYS far less expensive to reach out and market to your current customers than to your prospective customers. That’s why tracking your CLV will help you –– and your organization –– find, keep and profit from the right customers.

Welcome to Touchpoint Insights

With over 100,000 new blogs being created each day, blogging is here to stay. And with that, our entry seems to be not only reasonable, but timely.

Our goal with this blog is to discuss the things we think about every day in our professional roles as brand and marketing consultants. As it says on our website, MCorp. is a Strategic Brand and Marketing Consultancy. The contributors to Brand Perspectives are our partners, associates and friends.

Though we’ll do our best to avoid promoting ourselves, we’re sure that some of our expertise and points-of-view will make their way into this dialogue. After all, we’re marketers at heart. As the scorpion said to the frog “it’s my nature…” We’ll subtly provide more info on us as the Blog progresses.

In the meantime, we’re not sure where this is going to go. A lifetime of carefully crafting each thought, message and word long before they “see the light” is about to take a sharp turn down a road less traveled. We’re just hoping we don’t hit a tree. So if there’s anyone on board with us, we hope you enjoy the ride.