The Four Types of Business Prospects You Will Meet In Lead Generation

Is lead generation work difficult to perform? Not really. It all depends on where you generate your B2B leads. In this line of work, your focus here is not about getting results (it is certain that you will get it, negative or positive). Rather, you should be more focused on maximizing the number of positive results. And here is where the challenge lies - how do you do it? The first thing that you need to do is to identify the different business prospects that you will meet in the course of your campaign. Some of them will make your work easier, while there are those that will make it even harder. The bottom line is in your handling of each one. You need to match your sales leads tactics according to the behavior of your prospects. There are four main prospect behaviors that you need to think of:

1.The Rejecters - these are prospects that have become sick and tired of hearing an endless flow of irrelevant or unattractive marketers. Be it in person or through b2b telemarketing, you job here is to make yourself different from the rest. Focus more on your business strengths, like your product or customer service, in order to convince these prospects that you are the real deal and should not be shunned.

2.The Undecided - these are basically the fence-sitters. They see that your offer is good, but they also see no reason to jump ship yet. Your job, should you choose to take this, is to make them decide to do business with you. This is not an easy task, mind you, since they can be a particularly tough bunch to crack. The key here is in understanding the real desires of these prospects. A skilled appointment setting team will be able to spot that in use it.

3.The Jumpers - these are the ones that can be a pleasure for telemarketers. Such prospects have become tired of their current services and are more than willing to jump ships. Of course, this does not make them easy to sell. They are after quality now, so you should put more focus on that. In addition, you need to add a sprinkling of gratitude in your words. This added touch will make them all the more willing to accept your business.

Go Green! Making Your Tradeshow Displays Eco-Friendly

If you're looking for a way to reduce your company's impact on the environment, there are plenty of things that you can do in the office. Things like moving toward becoming a paperless office, implementing a recycling program and utilizing video conferencing instead of flying across the country for a one day meeting are all easy ways to help the Earth. If you want to make this same difference with your tradeshow displays, you're in luck. There are a few easy things that you can do to go green!

Tip #1: Use LED Light Bulbs

If your tradeshow booth includes a lighting system, consider switching to LED light bulbs. For years, compact fluorescent bulbs were the ones to choose if you were trying to go green. However, with technological advances comes a new, better choice. LED lights require half the power of CFLs and about 1/10th of the power that's required to turn on traditional incandescent light bulbs. Additionally, these LED bulbs help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that come from power plants and don't contain mercury, unlike CFLs.

Tip #2: Use QR Codes On Your Tradeshow Displays

Another easy way to go green is to reduce the number of paper handouts you pass out to visitors. One great way to do this is to utilize QR codes throughout your tradeshow booth. Place these codes around your display and direct visitors to scan them with a smart phone or tablet computer. Depending on your industry, some attendees might not have a smart phone. If this is the case, consider having some handouts or put your promotional materials on a CD. If you're planning on using giveaways, you could also consider giving away a USB drive that's pre-loaded with your marketing materials. Although putting information on a USB drive could be slightly time consuming, it can drastically cut down on the paper waste that's generated.

Tip #3: Consider Using A Rental Tradeshow Booth

If you don't attend a lot of marketing events throughout the year, it might be better to consider using a rental tradeshow booth. However, this doesn't mean that you won't be able to use custom displays. Companies that provide custom displays will be able to help your business design personalized graphics so that no one will ever know that you're using a rental tradeshow booth.

Planning Trade Show Stand Giveaways? Questions To Ask Before You Spend The Cash

Most companies agree -- giveaways are an important part of a display for a trade show. However, these handouts and promotions aren't exactly cheap! Before you shell out thousands of dollars in trade show exhibit giveaways, ask yourself these questions.

Question #1: What Do You Want To Accomplish?

Before you can choose your trade show stand promotional materials, it's important to ask yourself what you want these giveaways to accomplish. If you want your item to be in constant use, giveaways such as personalized pens, post-its or notepads are excellent options. However, these promotional items will have limited space to personalize your message. If you're trying to share information about your company, it's a good idea to pair a small giveaway item with some printed material that tells visitors just what your business does.

Also, consider the shelf life of your giveaway. Some items, such as a candy bar with an imprinted wrapper, are meant to be consumed right away. While guests will likely love your treat (who doesn't like free chocolate?), they'll eat it and then throw the wrapper, with your contact information, away. Instead, look for a product that customers will be able to use over and over, like a coffee mug.

Question #2: What Do You Want To Give Away At Your Trade Show Stand?

Once you know what you want to accomplish with your trade show stand giveaways, it's time to decide what type of item you want to give away. Do you want to give out bigger items such as stainless steel water bottles or gym bags? Or are you looking for smaller things such as pencils or stress balls? If possible, tailor your promotional items to your industry. Knowing your industry and what type of items your customers prefer will definitely help keep them interested in visiting your display for a trade show. It's also important to choose something that you'd like to receive yourself. Before you pull the trigger and purchase your giveaways, ask the employees in your office to rank your top five choices. This can help ensure that you're buying something that clients will be excited to receive.

Question #3: What's Your Budget?

Budget matters! Chances are good that you're already spending a lot of money taking your trade show exhibit to an event. If you're working with limited funds, you're not alone, but that doesn't mean you can't afford to give your visitors a great giveaway. Look for something inexpensive, yet desirable, like a USB drive, a keychain bottle opener, car ice scrapers, clocks or pens. If you have a little extra room in your budget, look for a higher value promotional item, such as T-shirts, stainless steel water bottles or even a tote bag.

Why Vehicle Wraps and Graphics Are A Smart Choice for Advertising Your Business

Why advertise your business with a vehicle graphic or sign?

As a business owner, you appreciate the importance of effective advertising. Radio ads may not be heard by the customers you're trying to reach and can be expensive. No one reads the newspaper anymore. And internet advertising can be an uphill battle trying to get found on Google.

However, with people driving so many miles these days, perhaps no other form of advertising is as most effective. Your company's car or truck can stand out and make a memorable impression; leading to community awareness of your services.

Why is this the Case? Well, think about the number of cars that pass you (or you pass) every day you go to the market, pick up kids from school, or are just stuck in traffic. That's how many opportunities someone who drives a vehicle with their business information on it gets everyday to sell their services. And when you consider that you actually have a life and can't spend every minute on your business, what if you could advertise it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without even trying? Now you're beginning to see the wisdom in using your vehicle as a mobile billboard!

Now, before you go and grab a marker to write your contact information on your car's windows, calm down. You have to realize that it isn't just the fact that the information is ON the vehicle that will get you into the minds of potential customers. It's HOW it's done that matters. For example, I don't know how many times I've driven off the freeway and seen a sign claiming to teach me how to make my income increase by ten's of thousands of dollars that was written by hand with a marker on a piece of cardboard! Really? I doubt it. But why? Because of the sign! Well-designed vehicle graphics can really get you noticed and give people a way to know you are available to help. AND make them WANT to call you.

Vehicle graphics can be placed on virtually any part of a car. They can be made of very durable materials that are rated to last years. And rather than just using simple, cut out vinyl letters, you can have full-color, photo quality graphics that 'pop' and get noticed. In addition, when you consider how much it can cost to paint a work vehicle to look presentable, why not take the money and give it a full wrap for relatively the same price or cheaper; especially if the body is relatively straight?

Trying to advertise in the newspaper can cost you thousands of dollars over a period of a few years. Advertising on the radio can cost a chunk too. But if you drive a vehicle (which who doesn't these days), then you can get great exposure for your business and advertise everywhere you go more effectively; all for a price that's competitive with other forms of advertising.

What can we do to help? When trying to come up with a design for your car or truck that will work in real life, we can make things easier. We can help make the design in your imagination a reality. We'll work with the wrap installation company to format the design in a way that you can use. Then we'll give you a copy to keep and use as you see fit! We can also set you up with a professional installation technician who can have you rolling around town in no time!

How Different Businesses Can Gain From Online Animation

Motion graphics, as the name suggests, is graphical communication of a piece of information. It involves communication with the use of sounds, music, graphs, designs and texts. They are extensively used in online animation, which results in quick and easy advertisement of a product or services provided by a company.

Motion graphics communicates the information graphically making viewers doesn't feel the pressure of going through a commercial. Users, on the other hand, get the same feel as they would get after watching a live video.

How the usage of movement of graphics in online animation can help different sectors:

Education

Graphical representation of information can help education sector immensely. Large or complex subjects such as medicine and astrology can be taught well with the help of animation. For example, if pupils have to be told about our milky way or the anatomy of a human body animation can show a subject matter in varying proportion or highlight it to show its effect clearly to viewers and learners.

Real estate

Construction sectors can also look to gain from online animation. They can through moving graphics show their prospective clients what is yet to be constructed or which is still under construction. Viewers can, with animated graphics, get the same feel of a project as they would after visiting it in real. This means that viewers can virtually see what is otherwise not possible in reality and thus can go for a project after making an informed decision.

Training

Through motion graphics giving training to trainees becomes much easy. Animated cartoon characters can actually show the best way of doing or learning a course. For example, if trainees are to be told about a yoga session, an animated video can show the perfect way of taking a class. Similarly, if swimming is to be taught through video tutorials, animated characters can very well help trainees in this regard by showing the movement of their body in water.

Popular Advertising, Promotions and Marketing Tasks and Trends Today

Advertising, promotions and marketing tasks and trends have undergone a lot of change over the past few years. For example, while print newspaper publishing has seen a decline, one major trend today is more towards electronic media. Thus print ads are rapidly been replaced with digital advertisements.

"Advertising, promotions, and marketing will continue to be essential for organizations as they look to maintain and expand their share of the market". (BLS.GOV)

What Are Other Popular Advertising, Promotions and Marketing Tasks & Trends Today?

What's else is going on today in the world of marketing? Here are some trends and tasks performed in the industry:

1) A popular trend today is to target existing and potential customers using social media networks and other similar mediums. This helps establishments reach their targeted audience easily.

2) Today's advertisements need to be planned by the marketing managers so that they are able to reach their intended target. New strategies need to be developed based on the specific requirements of the product or service that is marketed.

3) Factors like market characteristics, cost and mode of media for advertising need to be identified so that it becomes easy for promotional activities to reach a wider audience. It is also advisable to develop a pricing strategy for the products that are been marketed.

4) Marketing campaigns can create interest among the customers using websites, social media and live chats. These promotional activities encourage existing and potential customers to open a channel of communication with the organization.

5) Multiple channels of communication that are opened with customers can help marketing mangers monitor trends for new products and services. This helps in determining the specific needs of the customer and ensures that the advertising strategy is successful.

Product/Service Distribution Channel Strategies in Marketing

Whether you're selling a service or a product, you need to figure out a way to get it to the customer. Sure, you need to first determine where the customer is and which distribution channel to follow, but after that comes the decision about your 'distribution strategy'.

"Isn't it odd that you don't address the strategy before everything else?"

Not really, because the strategy only pertains to the distribution channel.

Here are three options for you:

Intensive distribution

Aim - make it convenient for the masses to buy your stuff.

Place your good/service in as many places as possible so they are readily accessible. Fast moving consumer goods, like:

• Bubblegum - to chew and stick in your sister's hair
• Pencils - for gardening in your petite lawn
• Milk - to compensate for the country-wide cow strike
• Eggs - to splatter all over your kitchen floor so you can enjoy cleaning it with detergent
• Detergent - to clean up the eggs, and
• Toothpastes - if you're into hygiene and all.

Selective distribution

Aim - make it convenient for a smaller group of people to buy your stuff.

Based on the optimal profitability of each outlet, you select a handful of retail outlets or merchandisers to sell your good/service. For certain commodities, it is simply not economical to sell them at every store round the corner. Examples of these include:

• Electronic appliances
• Clothes
• Shoes
• Sports goods, etc.

Problems of Traditional Event Marketing and Finding Alternative Solutions

Traditional event marketing methods have taken a backseat. Organizations using traditional event marketing strategies are left behind in terms of products sale and acquiring new customers. In spite of spending millions of dollars on advertising, companies are not being able to generate effective leads as expected or converting them into loyal consumers.

Problems Faced Due to Traditional Event Marketing

Time Consuming

You need to have timelines in place to plan and design campaigns on how to market your products and services via newspapers, magazines, on television, and radio. Online marketing also takes some planning time; however, in comparison to traditional means, it is much less.

Quite Costly

Newspapers adverts are quiet an expensive investment and often you need to buy such ad space in bulk in order to get competitive rates. Television ad space is another high-priced domain; only the very best of organizations generating significant returns on investment choose to go with this medium. No Customization Option

You cannot suddenly customize an event campaign on a newspaper or magazine once it is printed. The only option you have is to write fresh and updated content and submit it to the newspaper agency to get it printed on the next issue.

The Solution

Online marketing methods are becoming increasingly popular day by day simply because they are much more user-friendly that allows you to promote events and activities within a shorter time span. Let's look at the benefits of online event marketing.

Takes Less Publication Time

You want to display an event campaign on Facebook within an hour. You can actually do it in minutes! You create the campaign and post it on your Facebook profile page and also on the relevant "Groups" pages if you feel like. The campaign gets live instantly and millions of people can view it anytime once they start browsing the site.

Print Media or Promotional Gifts?

In this information age, we all know how hard it has become to survive any business. Companies all around the world face an initial trouble of reaching their potential customers and make their business visible to more and more potential customers. So, the solution that comes above all of this trouble of reaching to potential customers is "advertisement and marketing" through various sources of advertisement and marketing. At early ages, when we talk about marketing, print media and billboards come prior to every possible unit of marketing, but do you think that this method of advertising is effective anymore in this information age? The answer would be NO!

Marketing through print media and billboards has become a very old and useless source of marketing. It is useless and ineffective in many ways. Let's take consider print media as your source of marketing for your product, company or brand. Following are a few things that highlight the ineffectiveness of advertising with through this old marketing source.

1. Not reaching the targeted customers

2. Limited advertisement

3. Huge budget

4. Outsourced marketing campaign

5. Less attraction

Not Reaching The Targeted Audience

Do the marketing and advertisement agencies that provide print media marketing solutions, offers you a guarantee that your advertisement would only be displayed to any particular group of people? Does your advertisement offer something different for every possible potential customer to you according to their area of interest? All these questions are answered by this simple sentence, "print media marketing campaign doesn't offer you a guarantee of reaching your targeted audience or potential customers".

Limited Advertisement

When you decide marketing your brand with print media, you queued up in a group of people ready to spend twice the budget of your whole business just to get priority among all other people queued up alongside you. However, your advertising budget is good to go and your print media advertisement is live on different sources of entertainment. But, the display time of your advertisement leaves a big question mark to your promotional marketing campaign. Do you think that in an ocean of entertainment world and competitors paying, your advertisement is good enough to distract attention of your potential customers towards you? Yes! You are right, the answer would be NO.

Huge Budget

The most important thing to consider for a success of any business is utilizing the "Capital" in such a manner the holds back your ROI above all. But, when you go through print media marketing, it really costs you a fortune. Most of the times the required budget of any print media advertisement is equivalent to the whole budget of any business, so spending that much on marketing and resulting a complete failure cannot allow any business to survive longer.

Outsourced Marketing Campaign

No one cares about your business any more than you by yourself, but you cannot go with a print media marketing strategy on your own. It would take you hiring a huge staff with a very decent amount of salaries and demands for your print media advertisement to kicked off and paying them won't be sufficient enough, Now you have to pay another print big amount to the media solutions providing agency which for sure takes your business another source of making money, no matter you do or you don't.

Less Attraction

The Nitty-Gritty of your advertisement is undoubtedly covered by then and left behind by the glittering models and their stardom. The viewers you are targeting are not attracted towards your products, brand or your name but are attracted towards the celebrity touch that you think can drive more attraction towards your business which for real is a big question mark.

Now! What is that you can do to promote your business and achieve those five important aspects of success to any business? Following are the five important parts that should consider prior to starting any marketing campaign.

1. Inexpensive and effective marketing

2. Reach the targeted audience

3. Advertisement under your supervision

4. Attractive marketing tool

Over the last decade we have seen various tricks and methods of marketing and advertisements, but what really stands out above all is giving away "promotional gifts". Companies all around the world use this simple and cost effective form of marketing but many of them results a failure by not choosing the right promotional gift for this information age. Using pen and mugs for promotion is far too old for advertisement and gaining attraction towards you and your product. Customers with this information age look for something different in you to get attracted and pick you out of millions of others trying to get their attention. You need to present yourself in such a manner that reflects an image of technically enhanced and up to date company and for this, nothing can favor you any better than USB memory sticks.

USB memory sticks which are commonly referred as Flash drives are small storage devices that can store tons of data and can be moved very easily in your pockets in a form of key chain and many other forms. USB memory sticks can be used very efficiently to advertise your brand in the form of branded USB, branded USB allows you to engrave, print and customize a Flash drive according to your product and niche of business and it helps you achieve the above 4 aspects of a successful marketing campaign.

Inexpensive and Effective Marketing

We all know that how easily these storage devices can be obtained from anywhere, and when bought in a bulk quantity it really affects your marketing budget not more than a bee sting and it really is an effective marketing tool. You can use it as a free giveaway in your press events and launch events so that the people and your potential customers would remember your event and company for a long time after leaving that venue. When you giveaway a branded USB as a promotional gift, it delivers an image that presents you and your company as an updated and technically enhanced company. It advertises your name in many ways, the most important and above all advertisement is your logo that has been engraved on the Flash drive. Whenever the recipient of the giveaway plugs in that media, your logo glows and flashes again and again and due to its tiny size it stays in front of your potential customers every time and we cannot underestimate the usefulness of Flash drives.

Targeted Audience

Considering the targeted audience is another important part of the advertisement and success of any marketing campaign. If you don't know your potential customer for you are unable to attract them by giving them something of their interest, then you cannot consider your advertisement as a successful campaign to drive more sales. Customizing USB memory sticks allow you to give something special to every group of your potential customers, let's consider how useful it could be given a football shaped Flash drive to a member of the football fan club. Customizing these Flash drives allows you to target every group of people according to there are of interest.

Advertisement Under own Supervision

Advertising through branded USB doesn't require any team of professional or any advertising agency that cost you a very huge budget. With branded USB you just have to give it away in your events which are commonly organized after every few months, so in that way now you are free of outsourcing your marketing campaign and save more and more money and focus on improving services with your saved money.

4 Items to Add to Your Online Marketing Strategy in the New Year

If you're wondering where to spend your hard-earned marketing dollars for the coming year, this article offers 4 online marketing strategies that will give you the best bang for your buck.

1) Website: If you haven't developed a business website, now's the time. There's no excuse for not having a business website in 2013. Whether you sell items online or not, websites have great marketing value. Most consumers locate and research businesses online before dealing with them personally. If you already have a website, have professional look at it to determine whether it's working up to its potential. Is it being indexed by the search engines? Does it have enough content for both search engines and customers? Are there keywords? Is there meta-data? Is there more you can add to it to make it a more effective business tool? If you can't answer these questions, hire someone who can and who can then fix it for you. A website may be the first impression your business presents to potential consumers. Be sure you have one that's maintained on a regular basis.

2) Blog: Blogs are a great addition to any online marketing strategy. First of all, they are indexed by the search engines more quickly than websites so you can use them to drive traffic to the website. Secondly, they are more dynamic. You can easily update a blog with news, updates and announcements about products, services, your business and industry. Lastly, you can use them to interact with consumers, asking and answering questions, getting feedback and more.

3) Press Releases: Press releases may sound "old school," but they work. Now, press releases can be posted online where they will stay, forever driving traffic to your website. Submitting press releases to local media outlets gets your business known among reporters who might need your expertise on a related story at some point. Consider this: If your business is lawncare, wouldn't you like to be the business owner local reporters interview when there's too much rainfall or too little rainfall?

Reasons To Take Marketing Risks In Your Business

Marketing outside the box is a mix of skill and adventure, rewards and risks, and many times, failures before success. These real life stories give synergy and reasons to take marketing risks as market competition becomes tighter.

A marketer is keenly reminded that the very nature of taking risks and entering new markets or bringing a new product/service to an existing market, also means that there are no guarantees.

1) Let Passionate Cause Drive Creativity - Dhani Jones

It began with one NFL player, Dhani Jones, who had a dear friend who loved to wearing bow ties. After his friend was diagnosed with cancer, Jones was moved to begin wearing bow ties as a reminder and to offer support. He stuck with his brand of thoughtfulness regardless of the team heat he brushed off from the sidelines, determined to use that bow tie as a positive message. Ultimately, he change people's perception of him, the perception of players and of the NFL.

2) Have Fun With Marketing Creativity - Ralph Lauren

In 1967, Lauren began designing men's neckties, branding them under the name "Polo" and selling them at large department stores. From having a brain tumor removed in the 1980's to today's famous clothing brand and collection of rare automobiles, Lauren has never stopped being "out there" creative. From the Bronx and filled with market rejections, with no previous experience and no degree, Lauren knew he had to work twice as hard as others to achieve success.

3) Listen To Positive Free Thinkers - Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was labeled dumb and scatterbrained by his early school teachers but he went on to become one of the world's genius inventors and founded General Electric; a remarkable company the world respects.

4) And Entrepreneural - Richard Branson

Best known for his adventurous spirit and outrageous business tactics. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 to start his first successful business venture; Student Magazine, bought his own 79-acre Caribbean island when he was just 24 and he was knighted in 1999. He is the billionaire founder of the Virgin brand of 360 companies and growing. Today his marketing risks have established the famous Virgin Atlantic Airways.