Creating Your Google+ Page

Google pages are amazingly easy to create. In a pinch, you can throw one together in a matter of minutes, although this isn’t the approach the thoughtful and creative marketer should take.

If you want to make your Google page both memorable and easily recognizable, be sure to include your unique brand or logo – if you don’t have one yet, now is the perfect time to create it – along with a catchy tagline that will stick in visitors’ minds.

Another area that deserves special attention when you are social selling is the “About” section, which broadcasts the story of your company across the Internet. Make it engaging, compelling, even suspenseful if you can. It should be something customers are drawn to, not something that inspires a yawn and a quick click to another page. If you believe your “About” section is boring, you may want to consider hiring a professional writer to spice it up.

Sharing Your Google+ Page

Google is set up to allow you to use existing social media options, like Facebook and Twitter to share the launch of your new Google page with friends and followers. Just make sure your outreach doesn’t start and end with social media.

Other ways to let people know about your Google page include sending the link to your e-newsletter contact list and coaching your sales and marketing staff to talk up your Google page at networking events. You can also offer incentives to people who visit your page and click through to your websites. Free e-books and reports are always popular, and they are easy for you to create and for your visitor to download.

Although Google pages have only been available for a few months, businesses have already started to make good use of them to reach out to old clients and to attract new clients.

If you haven’t gotten on board yet, now is the time to do so.

Nowadays, most Americans turn to the Internet when they have a problem or need a service. Before the Internet was at nearly everyone’s fingertips, the yellow pages were a handy tool. However, clicking the mouse and typing on the keyboard has become more second nature than flipping pages in a book. With the advent of traveling or compact Internet devices, such as netbooks and smartphones, it doesn’t make sense to keep around these bulky books that need to be updated annually. Americans can now impulsively search for what they need while waiting for a bus or at a doctor’s appointment, and then simply call using the same device they searched on.

Mortgage marketing is one example of this phenomenon. Potential homebuyers can browse websites to look at homes for sale, as well as look up mortgage rates and compare between lending institutions. The Internet is especially useful in this situation as the interest rates can change quickly. This can also save time for businesses. Rather than spending time answering questions about interest rates and other information that cannot be included in the yellow pages as it changes too frequently, customers can simply view the website to get this information and only call if they intend to do business at the location in question. In this case, the Internet has definitely killed the yellow pages in terms of mortgage marketing.

While it can be frustrating for businesses that have been in business for a long time to change tactics, there are many advantages to online marketing as compared to the yellow pages. As noted above, this extra time spent on advertising can lead to a decrease in the time spent on phone calls with potential customers. Advertisers can also take advantage of blogs and targeted Internet searches to have their ads only show up for those who are interested. Businesses with excellent customer service are at an advantage as website reviews can impact customer decisions. While the yellow pages will be around for a while, it is wise to take advantage of Internet marketing to increase customer base.

Image by e-strategyblog.com via Flickr

Consumers are quickly making the Internet their primary destination for insurance shopping. They like the simplicity and convenience of comparing multiple quotes. They also seem to enjoy avoiding sales people (you) until they are educated and ready to buy. This, of course, makes your job much easier–assuming you are capturing all these interested leads.

Unfortunately, chances are that you are not Internet marketing savvy enough to attract all these hand-raising insurance prospects. That’s where an Internet lead provider can help.

Leverage Internet Marketing Expertise

Good Internet lead providers are companies that specialize in Internet marketing. All they do everyday, all day is think about is how to attract and convert customers in your market. Learn to leverage this expertise.

You already have an expertise–selling insurance. Taking the time to learn to drive Internet traffic, produce compelling content, design attractive landing pages, and get visitors to convert is an enormous distraction from your core business. Not to mention how incredibly expensive it can be, especially while you’re learning.

Aged insurance leads can reduce this risk even lower. These are professionally generated Internet leads, but have been allowed to aged (often due to more supply than buyers can purchase). This reduces their price, but not necessarily their value.

Focus on What You Do Best

Buying Internet insurance leads allows you to do what you do best. In addition, it can give you the piece of mind that your marketing is taken care of by professionals. Even if you get the wrong lead provider at first, you can quickly re-engage a better “marketing department.”

Focusing on what you do best should not be taken lightly. It will also make you a better lead buyer. Instead of trying to learn how to attract the right prospects via the Web, focus on defining your ideal prospect to the lead provider. This will help them make you more successful and keep you focused on what kind of prospects you can convert into policies.

Increase the Quality of Your Prospects

The big benefit to adopting an Internet lead provider strategy for your insurance marketing is simple–your leads get better. My guess is that your current marketing plan has you advertising on grocery carts, bus benches, local newspapers, and trolling community service organizations and networking groups. In general, these simply stretch your budget and time thin on the hopes your message will fall on the right eyes or ears.

Buying Internet leads is quite the opposite. You are simply buying those who have expressed an interest in your call about insurance leads.

Aged insurance leads can be a solid marketing strategy for anyone in the insurance business, from independent agent or broker all the way up to a large insurance company call center. The power is in letting experts in Internet marketing bring you eager and interested prospects–consumers that have asked to be called. And if you are just looking to get into the Internet lead game or want to reduce you marketing spend, aged insurance leads are the best opportunity in the Internet lead market.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If you’re in the financial services industry the terms debt leads, aged leads, mortgage leads must all be familiar to you. Debt leads can be classified as fresh and aged. Fresh debt leads are considered to be the best as they consist of the most recent list of prospects who have inquired about your service. They are on the immediate lookout for solutions. They are only moments old, making them easier to follow up on and also convert into sales. For this very reason they are very expensive to purchase.

Aged debt leads on the other hand are debt leads a couple of days, weeks, or months old. The list of aged leads that you purchase contains the names of debt leads that had inquired about the financial service but were either not contacted, did not take any debt settlement offer or were just unreachable. That’s why the term aged leads. Companies are willing to sell aged leads really cheap to get some return on their marketing expense. This is a big opportunity for you.

If you’re a savvy sales person, dealing with aged leads should not be an issue and you can get sales out of them. Some things that you should know about aged leads are:

1. Untapped Potential – Aged leads do not mean that you are not going to get any sales out of them. In fact if you end up converting even a couple of these leads into customers you recover much more than you invested. Aged leads come cheap and you have little to lose in purchasing in bulk and calling for the occasional golden nugget.

2. Help you fine tune lead management skills – If you have purchased debt leads when they were fresh off the market and not been able to convert them into sales, it is an indicator of your poor lead management skills. Letting fresh debt leads and mortgage leads age while you tune your sales process costs you lots of money. Using aged leads allows you to get that lead management and sales process fine tuned, without wasting precious marketing dollars.

3. Valuable training material – If you feel your leads have become outdated due to the current economic situation, use these aged leads as training for your sales. You may end up closing a sale and at the same time identify some hotshot sales talent.

4. Quality of aged leads can be a great way to test for good lead provider – When you purchase aged debt leads online and they are plagued by bad contact information – something is wrong with their marketing methods. Buying aged leads can be a cost effective way to test multiple lead providers’ data quality–before you spend a lot of money.

5. Classify aged leads according to financial needs and not time – When you purchase aged leads, use your CRM system to immediately classify them based on what they need and how you can assist them and not on the basis of how old they are. This will help you contact your most likely clients leaving the other aged leads for later follow-ups.

Aged leads can form the pillars of your business if you have the right lead management system in place and make your debt lead purchases from a reliable source. Remember, finance leads rarely really age–they always need your help and guidance. So, try aged leads in your sales plan.

There is a big discussion in the sales and marketing community on lead nurturing. Most equate it to a fancy term for drip email campaigns. This analogy would mislead you into missing the value of lead nurturing for your prospects.

Lead nurturing is especially powerful when you are attempting to nurture aged leads back from the dead.

Drip Email Campaigns

The concept of drip email needs little explanation. Debt and mortgage businesses have been using this technique for several years. It is very productive, for the effort put forth.

Similar to direct mail it is a game of large numbers. You buy or acquire a large list of leads and hit them with a series of messages on a time-released schedule of emails.

Unfortunately, these emails are getting less productive and increasingly snagged in spam filters. That is why you need to change the game.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing still relies heavily on email and time-release of marketing material; however, it is much more of a multi-disciplinary approach.

Lead nurturing is about engaging your leads in a variety of ways. This is particularly important when you are working aged leads because you may not be sure which is the best contact method—phone, address, or email.

Setting up your lead nurturing campaign has three dimensions:

1. Schedule of release - Similar to drip emails you want to establish a schedule for your marketing. What are you going to do on day 1, 5, 15, 30, 90, 120, or whatever time scale you think is most productive? Set your campaign horizon longer than you might think. Debt and mortgage customers often respond months after an initial inquiry based on changes in their situation or the market.

2. Method of contact – Mix it up. You are never certain what channel will bring a response. Debt prospects might avoid the phone, younger prospects may prefer email, older prospects might take action on traditional mail–use a variety of methods, yet make them coherently linked.

3. Response to action – This is where the real magic happens with lead nurturing. Be ready to take action and change course based on a prospects action or response. If you get them on the phone you don’t want to have an email come out the next day that says, “I am trying to reach you.” If they call you, reply to your email, or you get them on the phone you need to have a plan and process to change your flow of messaging.

Lead nurturing can significantly increase your lead conversion because it seems like a much more natural and personal sales approach to the customer. Give it a try and turn off that spam campaign.

Related articles by Zemanta

• I Am An Outbound Spam Filter (collaboratemarketing.com)
• Caught in the spamstream. (redcouch.typepad.com)
• What will your customers do? (thecustomercollective.com)
• Why Isn’t Direct Mail Regulated Like Spam? (life.firelace.com)
• Turn Your Leads into Sales Appointments (leadmarketwatch.com)

It has been awhile since we talked about email. I am still surprised how many people buy Internet leads and never use email. If a homeowner or borrower is going to the Internet to inquire about mortgages or debt settlement I guarantee you they are email users.

Phone calls are instant success or no success. You either get the prospect on the line or you don’t. And you certainly will not get a voicemail or phone call forwarded to a friend (i.e., referral). In contrast, a good email lingers in the inbox begging for a response, follow-up, or forward to a friend or colleague.

Emails get responses.

1. Subject lines matter – Start your marketing at the subject line. You have a handful of characters to get a reaction-an open. I like to use names. If you put the prospects name in the subject it is less likely to get deleted. Another secret of the trade is to use Fwd: on the subsequent follow-up. They will feel like they missed something and definitely open up the second email.

2. Keep it short and simple - No one reads books, newspapers, or long emails any more. Keep this in mind. Make your email short and personal. Again try to use names and cut out all the useless intros, exits, and flowery language. Use the Ernest Hemingway approach-simple language and make every word count.

Look at a few of the emails you send to your friends and family. That is what your marketing emails should look like.

3. Make it about them, not you - Stop talking about how great your company is and how smart you are. Prove all that in your signature block with links or accreditations.  Spend all of the body of your email talking about outcomes that they may be looking for and your process to make sure you are 100% listening to their needs and financial objectives.

4. Be consistent with your communication - Nothing builds the strength of an email-marketing list like reinforcing it with a pattern or regular intervals of contact. Have your prospects expecting that bi-weekly mortgage update or debt newsletter. You will always ensure you are top of mind when they are back in the market or when one of their friends says, “do you know a good mortgage (or debt) person?”

5. Repetition builds relationships - I am going to repeat this, because it is so important. Repetition builds relationship. If you have your prospects and clients in your email list you are guaranteed to build a relationship with a good percentage of them. Showing up in their email inbox on a regular basis is going to build a familiarity and trust that is going to turn that aged leads list into a customer loyalty list in no time.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Dos and Don’ts of Email Marketing (craig-edmonds.com)
• PPV Advertising 101 – Untap the Potential (Part 3 of 3) (shoemoney.com)
• Four Important Things You Need Why To Build Email Lists (tlmarketing.net)
• 4 Fundamentals of Marketing for Direct Sellers (myventurepad.com)

Leads created on the Internet don’t need to stay on the Internet. In fact, you may find out that conversion increases when you use a multi-channel marketing approach. Direct mail may seem old fashion, but lots of mortgage brokers and debt businesses are finding it very productive.

Buy aged leads  - The advantage of using aged leads for direct mail is that they are already self-targeted. They have told you that they are in the market for a particular product or service.

Offer them outcomes, not products – This is so important. Most of the direct mail pieces I get are full of guarantees of lowest rates or payment. This always triggers my B.S. meter, which results in a quick trip to the trash. Make sure your direct mail copy is talking about outcomes (e.g., eliminating collection calls, reducing bill paying stress, avoiding loan payments after job loss).

Try to get them to opt-in – Permission and email marketing is still one of the most efficient and economical ways to market to prospects. Getting your aged leads to opt-in to your permission-marketing program immediately increases their value. It makes a purchased list your list.

Follow-up - Nothing builds trust and loyalty more than consistent follow-up. One good mail drop is more powerful than none, but if you really want to maximize the ROI on your aged leads purchase you will design a campaign that follows up. Look for multiple touch-point opportunities (i.e., holidays, birthdays, market news, changes in laws and legislation).

Simply the change of channel can be effective in activating the most stubborn of aged leads. Consumers are looking for interest and creativity. They are looking for mortgage and debt businesses that are willing to go above and beyond for their business.

What is your out of the box idea for today?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Word to the Wise: Email is not direct mail (boxofmeat.net)
• Marketing Strategies Through Emails (raunchyjohnson.com)
• Turn Your Leads into Sales Appointments (leadmarketwatch.com)
• The Different Kinds Of Email Marketing Solutions You Must Learn (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Top 6 Tips for Direct Mail Success – FrugalTech (5min.com)

Social media marketing is all the Internet marketing rage. As a result, many companies are charging in trying to find a way to take advantage of it. However, there are numerous pitfalls that you will want to avoid if you go down the social media marketing path.

Let’s focus on three very popular social media marketing methods, including Twitter, Facebook and Blogs.

Twitter

Twitter is a social messaging service that allows you to gather followers and to also follow people that have similar interests. The basic purpose of the service was to keep “friends” apprised of your daily activities, but it has quickly evolved into a very powerful marketing opportunity. By seeking to target followers based on demographics, interests, and connection–then sending them periodic messages, you can build a brand and even effective market products and services.

However, before jumping in with both feet, it is a good idea to watch and listen to how other companies are utilizing Twitter. While it is tempting to rush in with your own message, it is best to follow a simple rule of thumb – for every one Tweet you make marketing your stuff, you should make 3-5 that are non-related or even promote things your followers are marketing.

This helps build trust with your followers, giving them confidence you are not merely spamming them and legitimately add value to their network. There are a lot of people promoting things on Twitter, but being aggressive and singly focused on that objective will quickly get you blocked.

Facebook

Facebook operates on a similar concept with Twitter. However, there are some extra features and opportunities. This is a great place for social networking and you allows you to build a very large and targeted audience if you patiently and smartly work on your Facebook profile and connections. Thousands of companies are using Facebook, helping to strengthen their brands and engagement with consumers, notwithstanding the excellent opportunity for very effective for product promotion.

Again, you should avoid the aggressive sell when you are using social media marketing. Subtlety is the key and taking the time to focus on actual relationships instead of trying to broadcast your message is the smartest way to use this channel.

Blogs

Weblogs have gone mainstream and nearly every large company or corporation is in the blogging business. Sun Microsystems is an excellent example, encouraging their employees to blog. You will also find large corporate heads dipping their toes into the blogosphere. This is a different and slightly more evolved form of social media marketing, but it is no less powerful.

The key to blogging is the creation of an audience of targeted readers, by providing them with valuable resources and insight into a niche, community, company, or topic. Whether it’s the latest product news, happenings and events in a local community, or simply free information or pointers to other related Web resources, blogs are a great way to get in touch and stay in touch with your customers and prospective customers.

Again, hard selling is discouraged in blogging, but you do have a little more leeway here with the ability to place graphics that promote your items, as well as occasional posts about an upcoming launch.

Putting Together a Social Media Marketing Plan

All three of these new media marketing methods offer a powerful way to reach out to your customer base, growing your company and increasing sales. By taking the time to utilize these new marketing methods, you will keep your company on the cutting edge and your sales figures going up.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Terrific Twitter Tactic for Marketing Professionals (themarketingprofessional.com)
• Does Social Networking Require User Policy Changes? – CIO.com … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
• Small Business Discovers Social Media (revenews.com)
• Social Selling, Classic Belly to Belly Sales 2.0 (bettercloser.com)

So, what did I learn about marketing from dating?

Be on Time

Nothing is worse than missing a customer’s expectations. No one likes waiting on a date that arrives 15 or 30 minutes late. Make sure that you don’t make the same mistake in your marketing. Your campaign should make small promises, like when you will pick her up, and make good on everyone–come hell or high water.

Have a Plan

Ever gone out with the person that can never make a decision–what restaurant to go to, what movie to see, where to meet for drinks? No one likes to go out with someone who never has any ideas or a plan.

Avoid this syndrome with you marketing. Lay out your marketing in a very intelligent, logical manner. Your campaign should always be foreshadowing the next step. You should be constantly setting expectations or getting feedback. The plan should make the customer’s experience smooth and delightful.

Don’t Waste Time

I hated getting trapped on that date when it was immediately obvious that things were not going to be compatible. What a huge waste of time and money. Remember this principle in your marketing. Be clear what you are offering. Avoid being tricky, clever, or misleading.

Your customers that respond to your advertising will be more targeted and responsive if you don’t waste their time trying to figure out what they are going to get.

Pay for Everything

Ever been stuck with the bill on a date as your deadbeat slug does the “OMG, I lost my wallet” pat-down? How incredibly obnoxious. Only one step down from the, “I’m sorry sir but your credit card has been rejected.”

No one likes surprises. Avoid up front fees and charges if at all possible. However, if they are a necessity–say for appraisals–make sure you are very clear in the beginning about the fee and specifically why you have to charge it.

Put Them First Always

This last point should go without saying, but it bares a reminder. ALWAYS put your date and your customer FIRST!

Constantly Enhance and Adapt

The market and your customers are always changing. Markets go up and down. Customers go hot and cold. It is not always clear as to why they change or why a marketing campaign degrades, but look for trends and shifts in your metrics.

Your market process should have testing and measurement processes that constantly look for and adapt to these subtle changes.

Differentiate

One of marketing biggest goals is to make your products and services stand out from the crowd. Take a quick review of your marketing materials today. Are you saying something different? Are you making it clear what is different about you? Are you communicating that you are the market leader?

Following the leader always makes you #2!

Marketing Strategy Fits Product

This is a mistake that I constantly see in marketing–marketing doesn’t match what you are selling. Products (especially in debt and mortgage) are constantly changing and shifting. Are you marketing yesterday’s program or rate environment?

Make sure that all of your marketing messages tie closely to your products and sales process. Marketing should not only tell consumers what they can get from you, but also what to expect during the sales process.

Distribution is Critical

Consumers will never see your award winning marketing if it sits in some sales person’s desk drawer. Make sure you have a plan for distribution for every piece of marketing collateral.

Make sure that you message fits the medium. Your yellow pages ads should be different from a website banner, different from a blog post, different from a direct mail piece.

Diversify

You never can be sure what will work. It is important that you are always trying different things and different mediums. Get a plan and then test it. If you haven’t tried online marketing, Twitter, Facebook, or think that newspapers are dead; don’t be hasty in discounting any marketing method–test it.