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| 17.06.2010 Kent & Sussex Business Forum e-vu appeared at the Forum alongside the Dragon Slayer Peter Moule, to explain why CRM is a lot like dating. The Forum (www.kentandsussexbusinessforum.com) was the first event of its kind, held in Tunbridge Wells and offering expert advice to local businesses. e-vu made a 30 minute presentation as well as hosting a stand throughout the day, offering advice on CRM strategy and applications. The event was a great success, with the support and backing of the FSB, West Kent Chamber of Commerce, and with media sponsorship provided by the Courier Media Group. Keynote speaker, Peter Moule, famously successful not only as a winner of the Dragon's Den backing, but now in business with Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan, gave a lighthearted and personal account of his rise to fame and fortune. 25.02.2010 e-vu launches a new plug-in for GoldMine At the recent Technology for Marketing & Advertising Show (23/24 February 2010) e-vu launched its latest plug-in for GoldMine: e-vuForms. This plug-in provides the ability to capture data using a digital pen and 'smart' paper, transmit the data via WWW into your GoldMine system and then trigger various GoldMine functionality. e-vu were delighted to share a stand at the TFM Show with Frontrange Solutions and the Access Group where we showcased our demo plug-in to prospective and current GoldMine customers alike. e-vu is offering a partner programme to enable all our GoldMine partners to offer this product to their own client base. Contact us for more details. 27.11.2009 WHY GENERATING MORE LEADS ISN'T THE ANSWER TO INCREASING REVENUE Today’s economy is tough, with buyers holding onto cash and taking more time to make purchasing decisions. This naturally creates anxiety in businesses that are trying to sell products and services. Most often, their response is to populate the pipeline with more leads in the hope that some will turn into sales. After all, this approach seems logical, since more leads equal more opportunities, right? Unfortunately, the opposite often turns out to be true. Flooding sales reps with more leads — especially low-quality ones — can actually make the problem worse. THE PROBLEM WITH TOO MANY LEADS Today’s leaner-looking sales numbers are fueling a growing interest in high-volume lead generation practices. But this most often just results in a lot of marketing budgets being wasted. In the end, what you get is simply a large pile of poor-quality leads that fail to provide ROI. To this end, a 2009 CSO Insights survey reported that senior sales executives rate just 35 percent of leads as “good” or “excellent,” and 65 percent as “average” or “poor.” And only 26 percent of sales executives surveyed were satisfied with the quality of leads received. It might be disconcerting to know that today sales organizations do not follow up on 79 percent of leads. The reason? Perceived poor quality. TAKING A LESS-IS-MORE APPROACH Conversely, when sales reps are given fewer but better quality leads, they can focus their time more effectively on the most likely buyers. Such a practice makes sense in any economic climate, but in the current market downturn it can be a way to improve efficiency and do more with fewer resources. Experience has shown that by taking a less-is-more approach and working on lead refinement, it becomes possible to funnel only the best prospects to your sales reps. This is also a sure-fire way to renew the value of lead generation programs, since sales reps start receiving leads they can actually use. PRACTICE LEAD NURTURING Businesses naturally want short-term leads, because they feel a need for immediate results. In the search for the quick close, however, some of the most promising leads can get lost. This is unfortunate, since prospects who don’t respond immediately, or respond that they aren’t interested, often represent the largest base of potential new customers. In fact, companies that focus strategically on long-term opportunities realize by far the highest lead conversion rates. By nurturing quality leads over time, companies can forge deeper relationships that ultimately translate to business. Nurturing longer-term leads is especially important now, as prospects are stretching the buy cycle and making purchasing decisions more slowly. Despite the temptation to focus only on the pounds coming in short-term, companies should broaden their outlook to include longer-term prospects. SEGMENT TO FIND HIGHER-VALUE PROSPECTS If you’re going to capitalize on leads with the most sales potential while reducing the time spent on weak leads, properly identifying them through segmentation is key. Because some market segments respond better than others, it makes sense to identify those segments and market to them specifically. Initial segmentation requires basic research to weed out the prospects that really aren’t a match for your offering, and to group others into related categories you’ll want to target in similar ways. Most companies find it helpful to group leads by industry, annual revenue, employee headcount or similar characteristics. You can then test these groups to determine the highest responders. Additional segmentation into short- and long-term prospects should come as you begin making contact. As part of this, it is important to interpret “I’m not interested” to mean “I’m not interested at this time.” Any lead that fits your criteria for a high-value prospect, even those who claim not to be interested, should be kept in the prospecting loop. You never know when changing circumstances may transform “I’m not interested” to “let’s talk.” USE MULTIPLE TOUCHES AND MULTIPLE MEDIA Just as you don’t want to abandon leads that claim not to be interested, you shouldn’t abandon leads that don’t respond to initial contact attempts. In an age of communications overload, it can take 10 to 12 touches to identify whether a prospect is sales-ready. To further increase your chances of reaching promising leads, employ some mixture of media — quality outbound calls, voice mail messages, email and direct mail — to touch prospects repeatedly over time. Multitouch, multimedia campaigns work because they build familiarity with busy decision-makers and increase the potential of impacting them at a time when their need for a solution is high. They also increase the chance of dovetailing into a prospect’s communications preferences, as some are more email oriented, others more voice mail oriented and still others more receptive to traditional direct mail or live conversation. THERE IS BUSINESS OUT THERE The reality is that the business climate has changed, and sales numbers are often harder to hit these days than at the same time just last year. But by focusing on strategic practices that identify and reach the best prospects, it is possible to rise above the sluggish economy. Working leaner and smarter is the key to success. 03.03.2009 E-VU LAUNCHES GOLDMINE AS A HOSTED SOLUTION E-VU announces its new hosted service, enabling SMEs to benefit from a full GoldMine system without the need for an office or server. This new service enables us to provide the acclaimed application but in a 'virtual' world - where you can access your own data, securely, from remote locations. Coupled with the ability to 'go mobile' with your phone's web service, your business can easily cope with a widespread workforce who want the benefit of a centralised CRM system. See our Products page for more information. 30.9.08 FRONTRANGE SOLUTIONS NAMED ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING PRIVATE COMPANIES IN AMERICA BY INC. MAGAZINE FrontRange ranks in largest business category, IT Services FrontRange Solutions announced today that, reflecting three-year sales growth of 60.7 percent, the company has been included on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list. The list ranks the top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country and is the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy - America's independent-minded entrepreneurs. Taken as a whole, these companies represent the backbone of the U.S. economy.  15.08.08 GOLDMINE PREMIUM RELEASE 8.03.80716 FrontRange has notified its customers and partners of the general availability of GoldMine Premium Edition 8.0.3. This is a maintenance release with fixes for many issues reported by customers since the launch of GoldMine Premium Edition last year. Contact us today for a full list of fixes. 12.06.08 YOUR DATABASE SHOULD WORK FOR YOU Arthur Middleton Hughes is old, rich, and famous - the latter two of which he attributes to his success in database marketing. Another contributing factor may be the many books he's written on the topic, the latest of which is entitled, Strategic Database Marketing. In his presentation at the 2008 DM Days Conference and Expo, Hughes - vice president and solutions architect at Texas-based KnowledgeBase Marketing - explained how, even though we've had to sacrifice the intimacy of 1950s-era mom-and-pop grocery stores, technology can help marketers bridge this gap, improve customer loyalty, and, ultimately, increase sales. There are two types of database people, Hughes says: - The constructor: knows the ins and outs of how to build the list and getting it onto the Web; and - The creator: knows how to use the names and build loyalty and repeat sales. Companies will inevitably hit a dead end if they lack either of these, Hughes told the crowd. You need both types of database marketers to make it work. Hughes outlined the nine biggest mistakes marketers fall into when attempting to squeeze some benefit from their customer database:
A database has the power to give marketers insight into the preferences and needs of their customers. With the proliferation of choice, the customer has less incentive to be loyal. A database gives marketers an opportunity to make that personal connection. "You have to touch people's lives," Hughes said. |
 http://www.bforb.com/ Today multi-national companies spend fortunes on advertising and promotion. By pooling contacts and business intelligence through business networking, we are able to produce a 'Business Giant', which brings back some balance. With business networking our resources grow and the referrals we pass to each other are infinitely more likely to produce results than an advert. All members promote each other and build on each other's success. This is the strength of business networking.  http://www.ecademy.com/ Ecademy enables business people to connect through online networking, at business networking events and through business networking groups, Ecademy's ethos is "Winning by Sharing" - being professional and helping others is key to successful business. Ecademy was founded in 1998 and now has over 175,000 member profiles worldwide.  http://dralanrae.wordpress.com/ The blog of Dr Alan Rae, the force behind 1ManBrand and How To Do Business - both designed to help SMEs who need help getting to market or who have hit a plateau. |