Send Out Press Releases

The venerable press release is a staple item in an effective business promotion kit. Despite its history, however, companies often fail to use the press release to their best advantage. Consequently, they miss opportunities for exposure.

A press release is a story sent to the media for possible use. The goal is to catch media attention and get part or all of the release to appear in a publication, or on the TV or radio. Unlike advertising, which carries an inherent bias, media references, commentaries and articles have much higher credibility. Press releases can trigger all sorts of publicity, ranging from modest references to in-depth articles about your company, products and services.

An effective press release has three basic parts: contact information, the headline, and the body copy. Identify your company and put contact information where it can’t be missed. It is essential that editors and program directors know how to reach you quickly.

The headline should briefly explain what the release is about. Its sole purpose is to get the attention of the editors to whom it is sent, and cause them to read the release. Keep it short, but make it potent!

The line or two that often appears just below the headline is the sub-head. Although not essential, you can use it to provide the “next level” of detail about the content.

The release should be less than two pages long. Start the first paragraph with Kipling’s “Six Serving Men” – answer Who What, When, Where, Why and How – and tell the story as quickly as possible. Anything you write after that is supporting detail.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the release is not the release itself, however. Where most press releases fail is that they are not sent to the right media contacts. As a result, adequate exposure is virtually impossible. Keep an up-to-date media list handy at all times. This way, you will be able to move quickly and reach the right people when the time comes that you have a story to tell.

Make Friends With An Editor

News happens fast, and when the media need information to help put together a story, they usually have little time to interview potential subject experts. That’s why it makes sense to build relationships with media editors covering your area of expertise.

Start by identifying the editors that cover areas related to your business. With most publications, editors are assigned to specific coverage areas, known as “beats.” You can usually get a full list of editors and their beats from the publication’s web site. If they are not listed on the Internet, just call the main office number; beat assignment information is no secret, and is freely shared.

Once you have identified the appropriate editors, start a file to keep samples of some of their writing. This will help you get to know each editor’s particular writing style and approach to news coverage.

To stay top of mind when the need for an expert arises, send a media kit containing the following:

§ backgrounder on your business
§ personal biography detailing your areas of expertise, and explaining why you are qualified to answer questions in the area of your expertise
§ two or three recent articles and press releases that exemplify your knowledge of the subject
§ Rolodex-style cards in two formats: one with your area of expertise as the header, followed by your name and contact information, and the other in the “standard” business card format of your name or the name of your company first, followed by the rest of your contact information.

After sending your package to an editor, call to introduce yourself and make sure they received your materials. Ask what sort of articles they are currently working on, and offer any information you can that might be of help.

Hold A Contest

In the mid-1980s, the California Closet Company launched a national campaign to get leads. With masterful execution, the company held a series of contests to find the messiest closets in America. With the promise of a free closet design for all of the winners, homeowners were encouraged to send in pictures of their closets and storage spaces.

The contest was a massive success and generated tremendous publicity for California Closets. But that’s not even the best part of the story. Even more valuable than the publicity were the hundreds of leads that streamed in from coast to coast. The company ended up with an instant mailing list of qualified homeowners who had self-identified themselves as being unhappy with their current storage arrangements. Talk about a great way to get semi-qualified leads!

The beauty of this approach is that the respondents have not only identified themselves as having a particular problem, they have also indicated a desire to fix it. This inherent needs qualification is half the battle. The other half, of course, is making sure they can afford to do something about it.

Although it works best in business-to-consumer environments, this approach can be harnessed effectively by a wide variety of businesses. The key lies in the offer: it has to be perceived to be valuable enough to warrant submitting an entry.

Join A Trade Association

As the old saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together”. Similarly, businesspeople in all industries tend to congregate with those most like them. Trade associations exist to facilitate this, and allow businesses to share information and discuss ways to address the challenges confronting their industries.

While this means that there is probably a trade association for your industry, it also means that there are also likely to be trade associations for each of your major customer groups. This presents a much greater opportunity for you in terms of lead generation.

Joining your customers’ trade associations puts you right in the thick of things, when it comes to getting your customers’ attention. There are many benefits. You get to know the main players in your target industries. You get an opportunity to network and bring attention to your business. And you get to learn about the full scope of challenges your customers face.

This last benefit is the most important. It is this deep level of awareness and understanding of customer problems that will set you apart from many of your competitors, equip you to answer customers’ chief concerns, and establish you in your customers’ eyes as someone who really has their interests at heart.

Don’t be surprised to find that some trade association membership rules prohibit non-industry members. Some industry groups have been inundated with imbedded “outsiders” in the past, and are more than a little hesitant to have their members affronted by deal-hungry salespeople at every industry event.

Give It Away

Direct marketers have this one down cold. They know that one of the best ways to develop a pool of qualified prospects is to offer something for free.

We’re not talking about the logo emblazoned coffee mugs or cheesy baseball caps that are forced upon us at trade shows. We’re suggesting that you give away something much more potent, much more powerful: Information.

Providing information benefits the giver in a number of ways. Most notably, it is an easy way to build credibility, and gain trust. The concept is “Show, Don’t Tell”. Prospective clients can assess your capabilities much more readily when you show them what you can do for them than when you simply tell them.

But there's an even more important reason to give away information that can help your prospective clients. When someone downloads a report, registers for a white paper, or writes in for a free book, that's a good clue that the information relates to a present or potential future need. The very act of requesting the information qualifies your prospect as a candidate client.

The best information items to give away are white papers, reports, and practical guides on how to solve common problems. Excel spreadsheets are also popular, if your services have a quantitative element. For example, one DC-area CPA offers a series of spreadsheets that help clients in a range of areas, including estimating corporate valuations, or creating a balanced scorecard model.

You may think it impractical to give away information for which you could charge clients. Though not uncommon, this worry is unfounded. If all of the value you have to provide can be summed up in a 10-page report or spreadsheet, you probably don’t have much worth selling, anyhow. On the other hand, leading prospective clients into an environment of mutual trust is the way to develop a business that bears plentiful fruit, season after season.

Create An E-mail Signature

Faster than any medium before it, e-mail has become a standard for communications of all sorts. As the leading reason that most people use the Internet at all, e-mail is now firmly a part of our culture. And in the business world, it is an absolutely indispensable tool.

Most of us fire off dozens or hundreds of e-mails each day, and receive an equivalent number. And yet, a surprisingly few businesses have established a policy for the content of the e-mail signatures that many users include at the bottom of their messages.

E-mail signatures are the few lines of text that follow our name, at the end of all of our e-mail messages. They are unequalled in their ability to get a message in front of those with whom we communicate regularly. Best of all, it costs nothing to slip a message into an e-mail signature.

Here are a few pointers to help make your e-mail signatures more effective lead generation tools:

• Keep ‘em Short – most people do not want to read through lines and lines of additional text, after they have read the content of your message itself. In addition, long e-mails are very discourteous to the visually impaired, and can also create problems for some e-mail clients.
• Include a Positioning Statement – all e-mail signatures should include a concise, to-the-point statement about the purpose of the business.
• Make an Offer – provide some sort of incentive to engage prospects and encourage them to make contact with you. Many organizations include a link to their web site and an offer of some reward or information.
• Use Consistent Signatures – make sure that all employees use the same e-mail signature format. An eclectic collection of e-mail signatures conveys an attitude of disorganization.

Hire A Lead Generation Firm

For a variety of reasons, it is not always feasible to set up your own telemarketing department. Sometimes there are no staff resources available with the skills or time to manage a telemarketing effort effectively. In other cases, the need is a short-term one, and doesn’t justify establishing a permanent call center. In these situations, it may make sense to hire a lead generation service.

There are thousands of firms in the U.S. alone that will make cold calls for you. These companies are known by a variety of names, including telemarketing or lead generation firms, outbound call centers, and rainmakers.

The best telemarketing services have a structured system in place to learn about your business, products and services before they start making calls. While you may be hesitant to invest in this level of preparation before you see what the results could be, the results will clearly be less than they could be, with a well-prepared telemarketer on the end of the phone. Like anything else in life, preparation pays.

You also want to make sure that you engage a firm that has adequate experience in your industry. It is important that those people making the calls are familiar with your industry, its products and competitors, and that they are comfortable calling on the decision-makers that they will need to call. Ask about the ages and professional experience of the people hired as telemarketers for any business you consider working with.

Insist on weekly or semi-monthly reporting. Some agencies will provide monthly status reports, but this is usually too infrequent for you to be able to make changes to the pitch, or focus in on a different audience.

As mentioned previously, there is no shortage of lead generation companies to call. Here are a few for starters:

• Corporate Rain (corporaterain.com)
• Technology Sales Leads (tsleads.com)
• BuyerZone (buyerzone.com)

Hand Out Bookmarks

A freelance writer in Toronto, Canada once wanted to build a business consulting to aspiring writers. He reasoned that most writers are also avid readers and, therefore, they were likely frequent patrons of that city’s public libraries.

To reach them, he developed a simple yet elegant device that readers and potential writers would want to pick up and take with them; a bookmark.

The pieces were about 1-3/4” wide and 8” long, and printed on both sides. The “front” side made a clear pitch for the seven-week e-mail course, while the backside provided supporting testimonials, along with a brief bio of the writer.

The results were astounding! In just a couple of months, the writer grew a very large mailing list of qualified prospects, sold several subscriptions to his e-mail course, and even landed a few personal consulting engagements. The success of this simple and cost-effective device was well beyond the writer’s expectations.

How can you use this in your business? Maybe you can’t. That really doesn’t matter. The point is that there are as many communications options as you choose to imagine, and put in place. If bookmarks don’t fit your image or can’t reach your intended audience, think of something that does.

Trying to reach school-age children? Create and hand out textbook covers. Do you serve a particular religious community? Sponsor a church bulletin. Need to get to computer users? Everyone needs mouse pads.

The key attribute of a good communications media is that it gets the attention of your target audience. After that, it all comes down to the message.

Hire a Telemarketer

If you know how to get prospects to react over the telephone, consider teaching someone else how to do it, too. There’s a lot to be said for tried and true. With the right tools and a little organization, a telemarketer can deliver as many as 10,000 4-minute presentations each year. That’s why leading companies in a wide range of industries including financial services, home alarm-monitoring services, and long distance telecommunications continue to employ in-house telemarketing staff. We may not like to get cold called, but the simple truth is that it works! Take care to stay on the right side of the law, however. In the U.S., recent changes to federal legislation let consumers add their names to a Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov). Calling on people who have opted out can result in steep fines.

Hiring and training a telemarketer to make calls for you can free up time for you to work on other tasks. Also, once you’ve developed a model for teaching people how to develop leads, it is a relatively easy next step to scale the model up to produce a greater volume.

Make it as easy as possible for telemarketers to succeed. If you’ve found a pitch that works for you over the phone, write it down and make telemarketing staff study it and learn it word for word. Track their results, note their stumbling points and any common objections they encounter, and refine the script until it sells consistently.

Don’t underestimate the commitment it takes to supervise telemarketers. Running a good telemarketing operation is not a simple matter of showing telemarketers the ropes and letting them do their thing. They need constant motivation and encouragement, and regular performance check-ups to make sure that they stay on target.

When you get to the stage of having three full-time telemarketing staff, you may want to consider hiring a dedicated telemarketing manager. Hiring, training, motivating, evaluating, and rewarding a telemarketing team takes a lot of work, and doing it effectively can easily consume more time than you had anticipated.

Enter Contests

Everyone loves a winner. And in the competitive world of business, it is not uncommon for prospects to lend winners a sort of “expert” status, simply on the ground that their product, service or organization has won some sort of award.

Expert status implies credibility. And credibility supports sales. That’s why it pays for you to enter industry-related competitions. The best ones are those that you know are held in high esteem by your current and prospective customers.

You don’t even need to take first place in order for this tactic to produce benefits. Even an honorable mention can draw the right kind of attention.

To get started, look for appropriate competitions in industry-related journals and web sites. Don’t forget to check out your competitors’ sites, as those who have won awards previously will probably be promoting their success on their home pages.

Although procedures will vary widely from contest to contest, entering is usually pretty straightforward. Simply familiarize yourself with the entry requirements, and submit your entry.

Caution is in order, mind you. Not every competition will be worth your while. And some can be downright dangerous. It is not unheard of for unscrupulous competitors to run their own contests, simply so that they can trick unsuspecting rivals into sending them what would ordinarily be confidential information.
Remember to promote any award you receive to your current and prospective customers. Some competitions provide a crest or seal that winners may display on their web site and marketing materials. If you win, make sure you find out if some form of recognition logo is available for you, and wear your badge proudly!

Get Customer Referrals

Many people have difficulty asking existing customers for referrals. And yet, as no one knows our value better than those that have already bought from us, there isn’t a better source of leads! Learning to ask for referrals effectively and consistently is an essential part of building a business.

When customers refer others to your business, your business benefits from an instant credibility boost. Like a newspaper editorial about your business, this is far more valuable than any advertising you could do for yourself.

To get referral business, start with providing excellent service. The first step is to make sure that the person you are going to ask for a referral truly believes in what you have to offer.

Once you’ve got an advocate, the next step is to “ground them” on the specific value you provide. Ask two questions. First, “How did everything go with the work I did for you?” Follow this with, “What were the best parts?” Suppose that the referrer says that what they really liked are A, B, and C. At this point, you’ve created a common basis of positive experience. Now simply ask, “Would you give me the names of three people who might also benefit from A, B, and C?” It couldn’t be easier than that.

If you still can’t make the ask, there are a few impersonal ways to generate customer referrals. They can range from simple “Tell-A-Friend” appeals to more sophisticated programs that track customer referrals and reward those that consistently introduce new customers to the business.

On the Internet, organized customer referral programs are also known as “viral” marketing. Like the organisms that inspired them, these campaigns proliferate very quickly, and can easily reach many times more people than might be reached with a company-directed campaign.

Get on the Radio

We’ve all heard professionals and business owners on the radio discussing some aspect of their work. Doctors get air discussing new techniques in coronary surgery. Attorneys are asked to discuss the importance of wills and estate planning. And business owners are given the chance to discuss the impact of new tax rules. But have you ever stopped to wonder how they got there?

Like print media, radio stations exist to provide content for their audiences. To get high ratings, they must provide a steady stream of information of interest to those who tune in to them. One way to do this is to bring in guest “experts” to discuss topics of interest. With the right approach, you can be that expert.

The best thing about getting on the radio is instant credibility for you and your business. Most people don’t understand how the broadcast media works, and automatically think that the station sought you out as a well-known expert in the field. While that can and does happen, that’s not the only way to get on the air.

The truth is that it’s not that difficult to get invited in to do a talk segment on the radio. One of the main reasons many people do not pursue radio programs is that they are simply afraid to try! In many cases, just the thought of being broadcast to many thousands of listeners petrifies people.

There are several types of programs on which you might appear, including general interview shows, interview/call-in shows, panel shows, and specialized programming. Topics you can address include trends, how-to information, or what’s new in your industry.

To get your “fifteen minutes of fame”, prepare a pitch letter to sell the producer on your idea for a radio show. Pitch letters should be as brief as possible; never more than two pages. E-mail your letter to radio station program managers and call to follow through a couple of days later. When you call focus on the story, not on the pitch letter. With a good story idea and a little tenacity, you’ll get the chance to make it on the air.

Go to Your Customers’ Trade Shows

When you set up an exhibit at trade shows for your industry, you face the challenge of differentiating yourself from your competition. As your customers walk past row after row of vendors, differentiation tends to blur, and customers come away with a sense that there are several options that might meet their needs.

If your company sells to other businesses, try attending your customers’ trade shows. There are several benefits to doing this. First, as few companies put forth the effort to do this, you can easily differentiate yourself by being one of the only firms to make the effort to go to meet at these venues.

You can also observe how your customers interact with their customers. Depending on what you sell, this can be valuable information indeed. And your customers will certainly recognize and appreciate your interest in helping them achieve their sales goals.

Keep in mind the reason why your customers are there in the first place. This is their opportunity to reach their own customers, and sell their own products. Therefore, it is essential to make your entry in a respectful and non-intrusive way.

The best way to do this is to make the rounds late on the opening day of the show. Your objective at this time is simply to introduce yourself and “press the flesh”. Let them know why you are there, tell them that you will drop back in to see them at the end of the show, and wish them a successful show. Then get lost for a few days.

When you go back to visit the customer at the end or the show, spend the first few minutes discussing the show itself. Find out if your prospect met their objectives, and how this event compared to events at which they have exhibited in the past. This will help get you in alignment, and make your actual sales call much more productive.

Play Tennis or Golf

There’s something to be said for sweating it out together.

Despite golf’s overwhelming popularity as the businessman or woman’s game of choice, there are alternatives that can work just as well, for those who don’t favor the Scottish national pastime. Tennis is a good substitute, as are squash and racquetball. The key is that you’re out of the office, away from distractions, and spending time with your prospect in a friendly yet competitive environment.

What is it about these activities that make them valuable in the game of business? Some advocates say that you can tell a lot abut a person’s business style by observing them at play. Others hold a more practical contention, claiming that interaction in sport brings people closer together, and makes a productive working relationship easier to attain.

Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that an investment of time on the links or on the court can pay off handsomely in business.

Look for a club that matches the style of the people with whom you would like to meet. If your potential customers are upscale, check out upscale clubs. At the same time, it is important that you are comfortable meeting and competing with your prospects, so make sure the club you choose feels right to you, too.

Advertise in a Card Deck

A card deck is a package of advertisements enclosed in an envelope, and sent out to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of businesses or consumers. Most decks are sent out on a monthly basis, but some are sent less frequently.

Perhaps the most well known of all consumer card decks, Val-Pak has been serving American marketers since 1968. There are more than 220 franchises serving regional markets in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, and most people have received their blue envelopes filled with advertisements and coupons for dozens of local and national businesses.

Do these really work? Yes! If not, the whole card deck system would have shut down long ago. But they do work better for some businesses than others.

The most important thing to remember when planning a campaign is to zero in on your target market. Many decks offer opportunities to target your promotion to the neighborhood level. This gives you more control over who receives your offer, and lets you attract customers from outside your trading area, without the cost of providing discounts to your existing customer base.

Another key to using card decks effectively is to provide a strong enough incentive for prospects to take some sort of action. Don’t try to sell your product or service directly, however. The objective is to get potential customers to identify their interest in what you have to offer. If you offer a “free” report on how to do something or other, and people register to receive it, you know they’re a good candidate for products and services related to the subject of the report.

One last thing. People like to respond to offers in different ways, and people have different means to contact you. Therefore, your card should include as many ways as possible for prospects to contact you. Don’t assume that simply providing a toll-free number is enough. List your physical address, web site and an e-mail address, too.

Join a Leads Group

How many times have you heard someone ask, “Do you know a good attorney? Dentist? Accountant? Chiropractor?” It happens all the time. For just this reason, a number of groups have emerged to keep professionals and business owners in contact with one another, and stimulate the exchange of leads.

Most professional leads groups will only accept one member from each industry or professional group. For example, an optometrist who belongs to a leads group can be assured that he/she is the only optometrist in that particular chapter or club. This prevents conflicts from occurring when a member brings a lead to a group where two or more people provide the same product or service.

The format of most leads group meetings is similar. There is typically a welcome by the club president or other executive officer, followed by 30-second or 1-minute “mini-commercials” given by each member. Then there is a slightly longer “program”, during which one member does a more detailed introduction to their business, and explains the type of lead that would be best for him/her. Sometime during the meeting, leads are formally passed to members using pre-printed lead sheets.

There are several leads groups that have grown to international proportion, and boast hundreds of chapters with thousands of members. Some of the more popular leads groups include Business Network International (bni.com) and LeTip (letip.com).
A benefit of joining a well-organized group like this is that, if you travel for business, you can often contact chapter presidents for the cities you are visiting, and arrange to attend as a guest. Provided that what you offer can be sold to people in this new area, this lets you extend your trading area into new regions.

Run a Classified Ad

You may never have bought anything after reading a classified business ad, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work. Somebody buys from them, or they wouldn’t have enjoyed the success that they do, and been able to command so much space in major daily newspapers, year after year after year.

Classified advertising is commonly divided into four categories: real estate, automotive, recruitment, and general public advertising.

There is a self-qualifying aspect to classified advertising. Specifically, most people who take the time to read through the listings are in the mood to buy, and are looking for a way to satisfy a current need or want. Therefore, most people who respond to your classified ad will have a genuine interest in what you have to offer.

The key to making classifieds work for you is testing. Test everything about your ads; publications, category placement, headlines, the offer, and your call to action.

The headline is by far the most important aspect, and is estimated to account for as much as 70% of the success of any ad. Make sure your headline is bold and that it relates to your prospects’ most pressing need or problem. Remember that most people who read classifieds do so in the hopes that they will be able to satisfy a current need or problem. What matters most to them? What do you have to say to get their attention, and lead them to read your ad instead of the ones before or after it?

People who read classified ads tend to screen out ads they have seen more than two or three times in a period of time. To offset this, you should adopt a practice of devising a few different ads for each offer, and rotating them every couple of days. You will stand a better chance of getting through to ad skimmers with your message.

Help Their Fingers Do the Walking

For some businesses, there’s simply no better way to get in front of prospective buyers than through that time-tested shoppers guide, the Yellow Pages. If yours is the type of business that consumers typically search for in this grand-daddy of all business directories, it would be a horrific mistake not to be there.

There are few other media that offer the pre-qualification afforded by the Yellow Pages. People do not usually look through these huge volumes unless they are looking for providers of a specific product or service. Therefore, you can be reasonably well assured that callers have at least a superficial interest in what you have to offer.

But being there and being the first one that prospective buyers call are two different things. It takes more than a good page position to be the one that breaks through the cacophony of ads and compels buyers to call you.

If you’ve got to be in the book, follow these key tips:

Choose size over color – As larger ads usually out-pull smaller, colorful ones, spend any extra money on the increasing the size of your ad

Hit hot buttons – Use a bold headline in your ad that focuses on your customers’ key benefit

Sell everything, and be thorough – List all products and services you have to offer, referencing brand names, where possible. Also, make it easy to contact you by providing your full address, phone numbers, and web site.

Finally, never reference your Yellow Page ad in your advertising. In driving potential customers to your Yellow Pages ad, you put them directly in front of your competitors’ ads, as well, making it easy and virtually encouraging customers to shop around.

Plan a Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg is the German word for “Lightning Strike”. This is a concentrated period of intense and continued attack directed toward a specific objective. In business, that objective is usually a burst of sales resulting from an extraordinary number of customer contacts made in a short time period.

An effective blitzkrieg can develop as many leads as would normally take months to develop. Not only can this add a much-welcomed shot of revenue, but it serves as a tremendous motivating force to recharge and realign discouraged sales team members.

Good planning is essential for a sales blitzkrieg. Determine exactly what is to be accomplished by the attack, who is to be contacted, what interested prospects need to do next, and how long the blitz will last. Measure your success, and compare results of everyone making blitzkrieg sales calls. Also be sure to track results from campaign to campaign, and create a benchmark that you can use to estimate the value of future blitzkrieg campaigns.

The best way to ensure a successful campaign is to build your blitzkrieg around a strong hook or message. Tie your call in with a new product or service offering, store opening, sale, or other special event. If there are more people than just you calling, motivate your team by providing incentives for developing certain numbers of leads or reaching pre-determined sales volumes.

Strategize for Organic Search

If you’ve got a presence on the Internet, you’re missing the boat if you haven’t geared up for organic search. Although there are more “sophisticated” ways to divert search traffic to your site, the vast majority of search-initiated leads come from this more pedestrian approach.

The terms “organic” or “natural” search refer to the traditional practice of search engines “spidering” pages and returning to fill their indexes with data. Regardless of how well you’re doing with your other traffic driving activities, it’s worth your time to prepare for these arachnid visitors. Here are some reasons why:

“Online shoppers are nearly three times more likely to find what they want on the Web by using search engines versus responding to advertisements.” -- WorldPay - Feb-2002

“According to Google, more than 55 billion searches were conducted on their search engine alone during 2002 and nearly 80 million searches ‘of a commercial nature’ are being conducted each day.”

It would be much too ambitious to try and lay out all of the details of how to prepare for organic search here. However, the following are some “Do’s” and “Dont’s” that will help you take care of the basics and steer clear of some of the common trouble areas.

• Use Meta Tags: Both Description and Keyword tags
• Use Page Titles
• Use IMG ALT Tags
• Use Flash Pages Sparingly
• Include Keywords in Site Content
• Avoid Frames
• Get Listed in the Open Directory
• Get Other Sites to Link to You
• Don’t Use Redirects
• Don’t Hide Keyword Text

Give ‘Em An Earful

Despite the Internet and advances in telephony, we all spend time in voice mail holding patterns every now and then. Sometimes we hear nothing but a periodic “please stay on the line” message. Sometimes we get the radio. And sometimes – just sometimes – we get offers for additional products and services for the company we are calling. Although it does nothing for prospects that aren’t already calling you for one reason or another, an on-hold marketing program can dramatically lift sales of add-ons or ancillary products or services.

When developing your on-hold program, it is helpful to refer to the following simple process. Start by creating an overall outline for your program. Decide how long the entire audio loop will be, and determine how many segments will fit in that time. Keep in mind that each segment should be no longer than 30 seconds. This helps ensure that you keep listeners’ interest all the way through each segment, and also increases the chance that listeners will make it through at least one entire message before the party for whom they are waiting picks up the phone.

After you have mapped out the overall program, decide what subject categories will be explored in the various segments. There are several categories you might wish to test, including:

• Product or service benefits and recommendations
• New product introductions
• Sale and promotion announcements
• Information regarding upcoming holidays or hours

Finally, count the number of words you can comfortably say in 30 seconds, and then pencil out a draft script for each segment.

The field is getting crowded with companies providing on-hold marketing services, but the leader is still Muzak (muzak.com). Best known for the adapted tracks playing in elevators everywhere, Muzak provides turnkey on-hold marketing solutions that fit nearly any budget.

Create a Hotline

“Free” is a powerful motivator. Almost since the telephone first appeared, savvy marketers have been using it to offer information to prospects in expedient and cost-effective ways. One way to do this is to set up a free telephone hotline. Some hotlines play pre-recorded messages, while others use live call center operators.

There are countless examples: horoscopes, lottery numbers, weather reports, and traffic delays are just a few. Some businesses encourage prospects to call and ask questions about how to use their products, or suggest a product or service they'd like to see offered. Others allow prospects to ask questions about problems they have encountered, and offer solutions on the spot.

The main advantage of hotlines is that they let you keep in touch with your customers. Aside from staying top-of-mind, each contact gives you the chance to sell something. Because the hotline is free, the media will be more inclined to give you free publicity because of it. You can also tell reporters you'd be willing to share with them from time to time the top five questions people are asking. Information such as this is valuable to the media, because it can be a good tip off to emerging trends.

One example is the Butterball hotline. This service is designed to help even the most inept cook prepare a perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Butterball gets fabulous publicity by telling reporters about the most outlandish questions it receives such as "How do I turn on the oven?"

Implementing a lead generation program doesn’t get much easier than this. Of course, the first thing you have to do is set up your hotline. Once you’ve got your message recorded, send a few press releases out to key influencers at radio and newspapers in the geographic areas that you target. The novelty of this idea almost always compels the media to call. If your hotline is set up to provide valuable information, the media will get the word out for you.

Set Up a Fishbowl

The “fishbowl” technique is hardly new. For decades – maybe longer – retailers have put out a bowl with a sign attached asking customers to leave their business card in return for an opportunity to win some sort of prize. Why do they do this? The offer is not entirely altruistic.

The real idea is to collect patrons’ names and addresses. Aside from building a mailing list (known in direct mail circles as a “house” list), fishbowl card collections help retailers determine and map their trading areas. This insight provides many benefits, including the ability to refine promotional targeting when using “blind” mail drops or buying outdoor ad space.

There’s nothing difficult about setting up a fishbowl, and the technique doesn’t need to be costly. To drive response, you will need to offer a desirable incentive. Although some “fishbowl anglers” choose items completely out of the blue, the best incentives are something related to your business. This way, the pool of prospects you develop is more likely to be semi-qualified. Typically, only those with some level of interest in what you have offered will leave their cards. Once you’ve decided on your offer, simply set out a container for collecting the cards, and put up a sign asking visitors to leave their card in return for a chance to win the item you’ve promised.

To get things started, you may wish to drop in a couple of dozen “starter” cards. Mark these cards on the back with a distinguishing mark, so that you will know to remove them as you sort through the cards you have collected at the end of your collection period.

Fishbowls are often seen in non-retailing environments as well. For example, they can be used at public events or club functions such as trade shows, Chamber of Commerce events, or civic club meetings. While fishbowls used in this way tend not to be as useful for trade area mapping, they can still serve to generate a tidy mailing list of prospects.

Pay ‘em Off

How much are you willing to pay to get a new customer? For low-value, low frequency items or services in industries where there is a little loyalty and no switching costs, likely not very much. If your business doesn’t match that profile, however, there is a seldom-used tactic that might be just the thing to sway some business your way.

When it comes right down to it, the root cause of most hesitation to try a new vendor is some sort of risk. Something – often risk of financial loss – holds prospects back. Instead of spending your money on sales or marketing campaigns, why not give the money you would have spent to generate leads and make sales calls directly to your key prospects, so that they can try your products or services at no cost? Eliminate the risk and you often remove the most significant barriers to trial.

To make this work, the first thing you will need to do is to calculate the lifetime value of a customer. How much does one customer spend with you over time? Next, figure out how much you can afford to spend to acquire a new prospect. With this knowledge in mind, all there is left to do is let your potential customers know what you’re planning to do, and then just let them try your products or services. Send each prospect a personal letter telling them they already have an account with you, and that it contains some amount of money that they can use at any time this year.

This tactic is not common, but it is done. Some of the most popular online trading services around today use this very same tactic. They send you a letter telling you they have opened an account for you with $75 or so in it. You get the money when you do your first trade.