1. Write Something. Write anything – a new page of content, a news article, a blog, a press release – and add this to your website.  This will not only demonstrate that your website is active, it will also give search engines further insight into the kind of business you are and how to position you in rank.  New content gives the robots and spiders of the search world something new to crawl, it gives your prospects and clients new content to read, and it builds your reputation in the process as being a knowledgeable and reputable information source.
2. Engage. Tweet something, give a status update, respond to a comment someone has left, ask questions to generate blog comments, and if you are in the early stages, ask your colleagues to comment on blog posts you have written.  Such engagement will spike your impact in rank, to search engines it means that you are genuine, you are interacting with other users, and you are not being flagged for spam.  As with anything, make sure to be genuine in your engagement.  Engagement doesn’t count if its keyword stuffing, or if you are just posting links to your website anywhere a link is accepted.
3. Connect. You’ve probably put a lot into your website and online presence already, don’t be afraid to link back to that content through the newer things you put together.  Connect the dots for people, if you’ve written a post about ‘Why you should be on a Content Management System’ and then you reference CMS in a later post, backlink to your post on Content Management Systems – it will not only provide your prospects and clients with a point of reference and good information but it also bodes well in your ranking.  If you have the opportunity to genuinely (there’s that word again!) link to relevant content of your own when reading someone else’s blog – you should do so.  Another quick tip – when you write a blog post, or new content, create a section at the bottom called ‘Recommended Reading’ and list a few of those older posts.  You’ll get more hits on those older pages and it will showcase to the mighty Google powers that you are engaging your users in relevant content. 

Possibly the easiest thing you can do to improve your SEO is to not think about SEO at all.  Getting caught up in keywords, pings, back linking etc can be exhausting – instead focus on creating the kind of content that you would want to read if you were a client or prospect.  By worrying about the user experience first, you are setting yourself up for SEO rewards in the long run – no matter how many algorithm changes the big guys make.

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

The algorithm was not implemented with malicious intent, it is in fact meant to reward high quality sites with good SEO and punish webspam.  To clarify, we’ve listed some of the tactics you should implement in order to avoid being blacklisted by the mighty Google Penguin, and if you were affected negatively be sure to check your site and make sure you are following the best principals for optimization:

1. Avoid duplicate content: Don’t copy and paste someone else’s website content.  It didn’t get you anywhere in high school, and it won’t be any more effective now than it was then.  Instead, focus on creating memorable content that is worth reading.  Create engaging content that encourages user engagement and back linking

2. No ‘Keyword Stuffing’: Use keywords only where they are relevant to the content, don’t overuse them simply to rank higher.  Search engines are now looking at quality of keyword use vs. quantity – so your keywords need to make sense in their context.

3. Practice useful and relevant linking: You are probably aware that being linked to from a variety of sources is good for your ranking, but be mindful about the links that you build.  They should be relevant to your site, and meaningfully placed.

If you are already putting these best practices in to place and are unsure why you experienced a drop, log into your webmaster tools – Google will often flag you and offer you an opportunity to resolve the issue. 

If you’ve avoided the Penguin drop, or experienced it first hand – share your story with us in the comments below.

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

1. Our firm uses a licensed CMS that is proprietary and we pay a monthly fee just to use the software. 
2. Our firm pays a web developer a fee anytime we want to make changes to copy or images on our website.
3. Our website hosting company is also our website company – we’re getting a package rate!
4. Building new pages on our website is time consuming, expensive and more hassle then its worth.
5. I pay a large fee monthly to make changes to our website, even if there was no work done in a given month.

If ANY of the above statements is true, continue reading to learn what steps you can take to alleviate the empty marketing budget you probably have as a result!

Paying a third party to license proprietary software is not always a bad thing, but when it comes to content management systems for your website – it’s completely unnecessary.  There are at least three major contenders which are completely free to use, have great documentation, can be managed by more than 30,000 individual people/web companies worldwide.  The three major players are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.  Of the three, at least one of them will fit your companies’ needs.  Companies like Target, Ebay, Yahoo, Ford, Wallstreet Journal, and People Magazine are all leveraging free CMS! The point it is, these GIANT companies are not spending any money at all on licensing their CMS software – so why should you?   

There are several Content Management Systems (CMS) on market today, a new one comes to market at least once a month, but they pale in comparison to the three largest free solutions that have been around for nearly a decade.  As an aside, the number of bugs and security issues found in proprietary software is far greater than that in free software. This is because the development team for the free CMS is run by the entire user community, whereas a proprietary system may have as few as ONE developer maintaining the software. That is a lot of testing for a single person. The bottom line is a free CMS will save you time, money and headache in the long run.  Wordpress, one of the big three free CMS, has more than 1 million websites built on its platform alone!

If you are paying a web developer for small copy modifications, or rotating out images on your website every time you want to make a change (no matter how simple) then you may not be on a CMS.  If this is the case, find a web company who can put you on a content management system immediately so that you will have the freedom and the ability to make changes to the site without any fee.  Any developer that puts you on straight HTML (not a CMS) is probably looking for residual income from the updates you will want to make after launch. A key income tactic for many web companies is to sell you a low cost website and then make money performing changes and updates to your website for you.  Most modern CMS have an editor that is as easy as writing a word document and saving it – you could save hundreds, even thousands of dollars by having your existing website built on a content management system (that’s right, you don’t even have to get it redesigned – just put the old one on a new system so that YOU can manage it). 

An additional benefit to upgrading to a content management system means that you will also have the freedom to add NEW pages of content to your website, many web companies charge on a per-page or per-word (gasp!) basis.  A CMS will empower you to add new pages EASILY to your website.

As a major bonus, SEO will be easier to implement, and therefore less costly if you decide to hire a professional to perform the service.  Note that just because you have moved to a CMS does not mean you will entirely eliminate the need for a web developer – but it does mean that you will greatly reduce the fees associated with performing simple tasks.

If you are one of thousands of companies who are paying a monthly retainer just to keep a web professional on call – stop now!  If after you are on a CMS and have been shown the basics of updating and you still need professional assistance, pay on a per-task basis – require an estimate of the services, and if the needs aren’t immediate, ask another company to bid on the project too so you have a comparison rate.  Once on a CMS, you may only need help 1-2 times per year and that will greatly reduce your internal costs associated with your website.

Lastly, if your company is paying a single company for software license fees for a proprietary CMS, for monthly hosting, and for monthly website management in the event that something must be changed or updated – break your contract and find a new web company.  Even if you Google hosting fees, you will find them as low as $5.95 per month – and small companies don’t need anything greater than that for their website (In most cases!).  It can go up from there, but if you are only hosting a single website on a server and have moderate traffic you shouldn’t be paying more than $25.00 per month – check your contracts – I bet you pay more then that already!  This greatly exaggerated fee (I’ve seen them higher than $600.00 per month for some businesses) is just money that is, in many cases, being pocketed as profit by the web company.  To avoid being duped into paying unnecessary fees – speak directly to a hosting company, like InMotion hosting, who can help assess your actual hosting needs and put you on a plan that is not.  Try to avoid bundled deals, while convenient, they are often more expensive then going directly to the source.  If your CMS Company requires you to use ONLY their hosting company – this is a red flag and you should look for other options immediately.

The bottom line is this, a CMS is very important, bundled deals are a waste of money, and recurring fees should be avoided wherever possible.  Take your cues from the big companies and don’t pay big money where none should be spent.  Imagine what you could do FOR your business when you have more control… think about SEO, Pay per click campaigns to drive more traffic, lead generation tactics… the possibilities are endless and suddenly your marketing budget has a little more wiggle room!

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

You’ve probably seen an ad for a $1.00 website, or a ‘Have your website in less an hour’ call to action – these websites are most often built using standard HTML.  HTML, short for Hypertext Markup Language is the main programming language used to build web pages – basic building blocks.  Using tags, it can embed scripts, and CSS. Lots of website have been created using this most basic language. HTML is very basic however, and to make a website look like something your ten year old nephew didn’t build overnight, a more advanced coder will be necessary.  As an expert, he/she will be able to implement more complex scripts, and write more advanced programming to accomplish your goals – perhaps you want a styled contact form, and an image rotator on your homepage – both of these things would need to be accomplished by your programmer.  Working with a programmer using straight HTML, it shouldn’t take more than a week or so to accomplish these items and launch your website!

Now imagine that you pay your coder, wish them well, and go out and promote your website – you tell all your clients, co-workers, competing firms and then someone suggests that you add another field to your contact form that says ‘How did you find us?’ so that you can track your lead sources, and someone else suggests that you add another image to your homepage in the rotator that highlights your EBP Audit services because Winter is just around the corner and it makes sense.  Both are exceptional ideas, so you call your programmer – he happens to be traveling out of the country and won’t be able to make the changes until he returns in 3 months. What do you do?

As far-fetched as the above might sound, it’s not as uncommon as you think.  There are plenty of website providers who will give you a beautiful website and take their paycheck and go on their way.  This is completely acceptable – except when you need something and suddenly nobody can help you.  Even if your coder was still in the country, there would be a steep cost to making HTML changes to the website after launching, and for every single change – big or small – there WILL be a cost.  Soon the things you never realized you needed on your website will start adding up.

In today’s constantly evolving digital world, you will be hard-pressed to find any company who launches a website and never modifies it, plus the repercussions to your organic search results for SEO alone will be horrible. All of these changes will be costly, there will always be something that you are waiting on your programmer to do for you – maybe even something as small as fixing a glaring typo on the homepage.  So sure, your .99 cent website looked GREAT when all you needed was a quick website – but now that you want to grow your business through online marketing, you’re finding that the increasing costs have actually surpassed your original website budget.  What’s the better solution?

CMS, or Content Management System.  CMS is a PHP based application that lets you create and manage your website using an administrative access point.  Editing or adding a webpage in a CMS is as easy as creating a new Word document, it is specifically made with the non-coding person in mind.  Below are just a couple of other advantages to using a CMS:

•  Google Friendly: Install Google Analytics easily, no need to venture into the code.
• SEO Friendly: You can have control over the URL, title, meta tags and all aspects of content without having to learn any programming languages. Most systems will create a dynamic sitemap output simple code making it friendly to the web crawling, content indexing robots and spiders.
• Organization: Once logged it, your pages are clearly laid out in a pages section, and blog posts are separated.  There are no ‘directories’ or hidden technical languages, everything is very simply and intuitively labeled so you can find what you need immediately.
• Multiple Templates: One of the most awesome features is that you can easily assign a template design to a specific page, in other words if you have a two column layout and a three column layout for your interior pages – you can easily choose one or the other for every page that you create.
   

The biggest advantage is the financial reward; making changes to your own website will cost you nothing.  Your web company has put you on a CMS to empower you to take care of the little things yourself.  This doesn’t mean you won’t need to call them on occasion if you need something serious added – like a second home page rotator, or a new content section on your home page – but all the minor things you were being nickled and dimed for will be eliminated.  You’ll also find that with this greater control you can easily spend more time developing content and strategizing better SEO and lead generation.

As I said before, a CMS is going to cost you more up front – they can range in cost from $3000.00 at the low end and go up depending on complexity and number of templates needed.  They are more difficult to install and initially put a design into (for the programmer) – but the cost is easily recovered when you are empowered to make changes and upgrades to your website independently for its lifetime. And, if you are wise enough to avoid proprietary CMS systems, there won’t be any licensing fees, so your long-term costs will only be for hosting. Flashpoint strongly suggests the use of WordPress CMS for its many advantages specific to CPA and accounting firms.  You can read more about that here.

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

First, let’s address the most important things to consider when choosing a CMS for your site, then we can dig deep into which of these two systems meet those needs best. Consider the following: 

1. Does your CMS platform include support and documentation outside of what your current web developer is providing you?
2. Is the administrative side of the website intuitive and well organized?
3. Is there  WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor?
4. If you aren’t a coder, could you still create web pages easily?
5. Does it do what you want? What is the main function of your website? Does the system perform that function?

WordPress was started in 2003 as a self-hosted blogging tool and it is considered open-source because it was a community of users that generated all of the code and tools that you see in the system today. Since 2003, WordPress has evolved from a blogging platform into a full fledged content management system with thousands of plugins, widgets and themes.  In WordPress, as long as you have a coder or developer who is savvy, you can let your imagination run wild, because this system can do anything that you can imagine.

Since we have functionality covered, let’s address the user interface.  When choosing a CMS is should be less about what you want your site to look like, and more about how well you will be able to manage your site after your developer gives you a username and password. The backend of a WordPress site is intuitive, you don’t need to worry about accidentally deleting important code, and functionality is titled in a very straight-forward manner.  The WYSIWYG editor mimics a word document, and makes it extremely easy to add video, mp3s, PDF’s or any other media to any page.  The ease of use also lets you create a new webpage for your site with the click of a button.

On top of great functionality, the pages that it creates load quickly, and the system is completely standards-compliant. One thing to look out for are javascript files – which can be found in some of the community created plugins and may be cumbersome to page load time in some instances.

WordPress CMS cannot be beat when it comes to documentation and community.  What this means is that if for any reason your main coder or developer or web company shuts down, or becomes part of the witness protection program – there will always be someone else who understands the guts of your website.  With their codex that handles basic instruction, to bug forums, and even step by step plugin creation instructions, WordPress has really covered documentation to the fullest. 

All-in-all WordPress meets 5/5 criteria, and does so in a beautiful and intuitive way for both the developer and the end user.  The platform offers unlimited freedoms in design and is well documented and well respected in the digital community.

Drupal was started in 1999, originally as a simple internal news message board – the project became open source a year later as interest grew. Much like WordPress, it was the community of users that first began using Drupal which helped propel it to becoming one of the top-pick open source CMS.  Drupal has been used for a variety of sites including e-commerce, corporate sites, and even the White House website is on the system!

Drupal has some very interesting administrative user functions – such as the ability to group pages of like content, however it lacks a built-in WYSIWYG editor (one can be added as a plug-in).  Much like WordPress, the plugin library of user generated add-on’s is enormous, and you can create virtually any kind of website that you want.  One thing to consider is that this was not a blogging platform – so if having a blog built directly into your site (or partially into your site) – WordPress is a simpler option.

In terms of being standards compliant, Drupal ranks highly! Beware that their code output is more complex then WordPress as well, but still within the realms of compliance.  When it comes to documentation – Drupal also ranks highly.  They have both online forums on their dedicated site, as well as a strong user community and documentation all across the internet! Overall, I’m giving Drupal a 3/5 – it does not have a WYSIWYG editor built in by default, and since Drupal plugins can be finicky (ie they may not always work TOGETHER on the same site), this may not be easily remedied by a beginner, I also docked a point for the non-simplistic code output – the simpler the better when it comes to code!

There is always somebody rooting for one side or another.  Drupal and WordPress are both extremely powerful CMS, and both of them have their advantages and disadvantages.  In terms of what system is the best fit for a CPA and Accounting firm – I would strongly lean toward WordPress.  Aside from having the advantage of a ridiculously intuitive administrative system, the ability to run a blog and a website, with or without e-commerce, from the same system and manage it from the same administration area is a serious advantage.  Because we already know that content development is key to the marketing of any website – the ability to manage two different areas of content (ie. Blog & Web pages) allows the CPA firm an additional advantage.  Drupal is a great CMS, but for what a typical CPA and Accounting firm will need their website to do for them – its just more cumbersome, and added complexity.

Ultimately its your choice, but your web design and marketing company will usually have a preference and can help guide you on the reasons a specific CMS will perform better for you in your situation.

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. In the accounting profession there are very few firms that deployed mobile marketing as part of their broader marketing approach.

Benefits of Mobile Marketing

 There are several benefits to mobile marketing including:

The ability to create unique and cost effective promotion campaigns in reaction to breaking news, events or legislature.

• Access to a wider audience and chance expand market share
• The opportunity to build stronger customer relationships through the distribution of timely and trusted content
• The ability to retain existing customers while enticing new customers
• The ability to penetrate the Smartphone market and build brand awareness
• The opportunity to reach out to customers ‘on the go’
• Forum to integrate new, innovative forms of advertising and promotion with existing strategies.” 

A key question many accounting marketers and partners want to know is the Return on Investment. How do you measure this and what has been your ROI? 

ROI can be measured in a number of different ways including utilizing QR Code stats, Google analytics for the mobile sites, social media measurement tools, tracking the growth of web and mobile leads and quantifying marketing tactics. Click through response rates are helpful to see what calls to action are working.

Advice for CPA Firms

Be deliberate about the utility of the mobile initiative. What value and role will it play? Don’t do it just because everyone else is. Use mobile websites wisely and offer some value, not just for the sake of using them. Find a way to integrate it into your existing successful marketing plans, and if possible, find a topic that really speaks to a particular audience.”

Consider these other tips when adding a mobile site to your portfolio:

• Limit the menu options for ‘on-the-go visitors’. 
  These items might include your contact information, link to Google maps with driving directions, a prominent phone number, contact form, and a page on key services offered or industries served.  Don’t get bogged down in the details – remember that these are mobile phone visitors, so they are on the move.  Offer information that is most important to the site visitor.
• Simple Design.
  Keep the design simple, it must be consistent with the firm’s current branding standards.  That is part of your brand promise and you won’t want to doubly confuse visitors coming to your website that looks like something completely different from your existing brand.
• You are Re-directing.
  Consider the idea that a mobile website is simply a condensed version of the most important items on your existing website and that a special code being implemented into your existing site is shuffling all mobile users to the mobile website – try to avoid treating this mobile website like it’s something completely new.  Keep it familiar or risk losing prospects and clients.
• “But I want to do something different”
  You aren’t the first business to want to make your mobile website stand out, but remember that unless your industry is arts or entertainment, people are coming to your site primarily for information – so make it easy!
• Avoid images/video
  We love images and video on desktop websites, but think of your phone as the dinosaur computer you had in the 90’s – the  Internet and processing speeds may be slower that your home computer (this varies on the network the mobile device uses) – so to be safe avoid lengthy download times by excluding video and images.
•  Provide a link to your standard website.
  In our research, you have no idea how many frustrated people we have spoken with that just wanted to get back to the main website – perhaps they were seeking a specific article, or they needed to login to their accounts to pay an invoice (something that needs to be done from a secure access point).  Whatever the reason, give your visitors a way to the traditional site if they want it.

If your firm has gone through the process of designing a mobile website, please share your experiences with us!

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

Develop your list of targets – scan it for existing clients (twice), make sure all of the prospects fit properly into your target model, and don’t use a pre-defined list from a online list generation service – find a qualified professional to develop your list, or do your own research.  This is a marketing investment, and this is not the place to be lazy.  This list can be used for many different campaigns so make it worth the initial cost.   Send this piece out to your prospect list seven days before you begin your calling.

*Tip: Put yourself on the mail list and when you get your direct mail piece back in the mail, you can begin the calling process.

First and foremost, you have to set your expectations appropriately – remember that you have spent at least a month developing this piece and you are in LOVE with your results – you can’t expect everyone else to be though.  You have approximately 7 seconds to create that first impression with the mail piece (which is where beautiful, clever, creative components play a big role), and let’s face facts – despite your best filtering effort with your list, some businesses just aren’t ready or willing to make the change to you.  With that being said, expect to hear many ‘Not interested, but thanks”, and a few ‘Tell me more, please!” peppered into the response. 

Most of your prospects are lazy, they aren’t going to pick up the phone and call you, they might go look at your website but get distracted by an incoming email, they may even have good intentions of calling you but never make the time for it – which is why it is especially important for you to make the first move. 

Follow up. 

Did you hear me?!

I said….. FOLLOW UP!

This means you are going to have to work the phones, or pay a professional to do this for you [AHEM] shameless plug here for Flashpoint (but we do get results, so just trying to be helpful). Also – note here that calling once is not enough, at minimum call three times and leave a message after each call.  This sounds absolutely ridiculous I know – in fact you are probably thinking “If I left a message, they would call me back if they cared!”, no… in fact today I made some calls on behalf of one of our clients and called one prospect for the third and final time – lo and behold he is extremely interested in making an immediate change from his current CPA to our clients firm.  Again, this was my third call to the prospect, so I promise that this process works.

All in all – direct mail is extremely effective when all of the proper components are pulled together; to recap these are the things you should be doing;

-Pick a single service with a clear message and call to action

-Work with a creative team to develop a direct mail piece that is outstanding in every way and clearly illustrates your message with an easy to find call to action

-Mail the piece out to your well-researched, pre-screened list of prospects 7 days before you begin your follow up.

-FOLLOW UP – perform at least 3 rounds of follow-up calls to all the names on your list.

Remember – in most cases, deriving a single lead from this type of service can often result in covering your entire initial marketing investment – and by following through on your service promises, this lead could be a viable client for years to come.

What has been your experience in direct mail marketing? Have you seen success? Does your process differ from this one? I look forward to hearing from everyone in the comments.

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

One of the most basic pieces in any campaign is a direct mail marketing piece.  It has a proven track record for generating a surplus of impressions, and creates more leads than any digital banner ad campaign.  Something about physical collateral that people respond over digital messaging.

There is a lot more to direct mail marketing than just developing a mail piece, sending it to a list and crossing your fingers.  In fact, if you are hoping to generate any response whatsoever, you should to follow some basic rules:

1. Make Your Piece Interesting. 
   Seriously, if you look at it and think of it as just another boring piece of junk mail – what do you think your audience is going to think? When was the last time you picked up a piece of corporate collateral material and said to yourself “This is awesome – I want to show it to my __________.” My guess is that it’s either been awhile, or you have never felt that way.  Work with a creative team – tell them to push the envelope – express to them that you want results and you want to generate a buzz and an interest.  Be open to guerilla marketing tactics (a post for another day – or just look here for the definition [LINK]), try something new for your call to action, or open yourself up to something other than boring business stock photography.  Be funny, be sad, be angry, give your piece an emotional promise. 
2. Promote a Single Service and Understand the Emotions Behind A Need for that Service.
   Do you want to gain new book keeping clients? Think of all the reasons someone might need an accountant to handle their bookkeeping, are they scared to do it themselves, seeking knowledge from a professional, looking for someone who deals specifically in their industry, they are too busy? Too disorganized? Whatever the reason – you need to appeal to that in your direct mail campaign – play on that emotional response because your target audience will naturally respond to the message.  Think about using a metaphor – perhaps an illustration of a monster under the office desk and a line like ‘Are taxes catching you by surprise?’ – be concise, creative and direct.
3. Stop Saying You Are Friendly and Professional. EVERYBODY says this. It makes you sound boring, like there is nothing else that makes your firm outstanding – what is your value proposition? What is the one thing that really, really makes you stand above your competitors? How much has your firm saved its clients over the course of a year? How many years of combined experience does your firm have? Is your approach different than other firms? How? How is that a benefit to your potential clients? Oh, P.S. if you insist on being ‘friendly and professional’ – do it, don’t say it.  Your follow-up calls should demonstrate both of these qualities. 

So now you have your perfect direct mail piece, you have included the basics; call to action, website URL, return address, logo, and a phone number – did you develop a special landing page to track your website hits based on this piece? That’s a good idea too! You also made sure to include a targeted message for a single service, and you had a professional put the entire thing together.  You are thrilled with the entire campaign, from concept to process to execution, now it’s time to send it out.  

Be sure to check back next week for how to properly send out a well developed direct mail campaign, perform proper follow up and more importantly – generate those leads!  

See you then!

© 2012, Flashpoint Marketing. All rights reserved. The material presented here is copyright by Flashpoint Marketing. Reprinting or reproduction is prohibited without the express written consent of Flashpoint Marketing.

1. Choosing your prospects.
Perhaps the #1 most important thing you can do for yourself.  Make sure you know your target, it’s Marketing 101.  Pick a single service to offer, and then choose businesses that make sense for your firm.  If your firm specializes in businesses with 1-50 employees, targeting Wal-Mart on your prospect list doesn’t make any sense.  First of all, you probably aren’t set up to handle a business that large, and your portfolio of existing clients doesn’t back up any of your claims for being qualified to handle such an enormous company.  On the other hand, if you are a firm who targets fortune 500 companies, you should not set up your call list to include start up businesses – they won’t be worth your time, money and labor based on the structure of your own firm.

Your prospect list needs to fit nicely in with your existing client base – stick with the industries you are familiar with and know the service you are offering.  You SHOULD include 5-10 ‘dream’ clients on your list, again not the entire list, but a few businesses that you would like to have in your portfolio, these dream clients should fit in with the overall model of your business and also be within the industry of your expertise – you never know when an opportunity to work with one of these companies will arise.

2. Check your list – twice!
At least! Nothing is more embarrassing then having a current client contacted by your telemarketing company asking if they would like to switch firms.  I cannot stress enough that when you outsource your work to another company, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that this doesn’t happen.  Have two sets of eyes look at the list before it gets approved – and make sure you note any merger or business acquisitions that your client has undergone to ensure that those merger names are not being contacted on the list.

3. Proper Follow Up
If your telemarketing company is any good, they are going to come back to you with a decent amount of leads.  Leads that range from simple information requests, to the typical “We’d like to keep your name on file”, or a really big ‘What are your prices?’ lead.  Each lead needs to be handled with care, and promptly followed up on.  Do not leave any leads to chance! If you are selling professionalism and customer service with great relationships as a part of your sales pitch, you need to follow through.  Contact all leads, big or small.  If information is requested, send a warm letter or email with that collateral within 24 hours of the request, then follow up in 7 days to confirm receipt and offer another opportunity to discuss a change to your firm.  As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot! After all you have paid a third party to go out and find these people – in order to get what you paid for you are going to need to close the deal.

4. Professional Collateral
Key word is professional.  Have beautiful PDF’s that are informative at the ready to send to leads.  Have at least two PDF’s.  One PDF should discuss your firm’s areas of expertise, level of experience, the history of your firm, and your value proposition.  The second PDF should be specific to the service which you are selling to this new company.  In the beginning we discussed the importance of focusing on one key service, this collateral piece should match the key service you are selling.  It should highlight your areas of expertise, name a few satisfied and recognizable clients within the document, and more importantly discuss how your firm is qualified to work with their business. If you  think it is acceptable to create these collateral materials in Microsoft Word, or if you think that your daughter can write the copy for the piece – hire a marketing professional immediately.  Remember that these materials are going to set the tone for the brand of your firm and will be impacting the prospects first visual impression so take them very seriously.  In addition these materials can be used after the telemarketing campaign to further e-blast campaigns, direct mail campaigns and additional marketing efforts, so it’s wise to invest in them.

Telemarketing can be extremely effective and very lucrative for your firm, but it’s important that you take the time to set yourself up for success – getting the leads is only half the battle.  It will be up to you and your team to follow up and demonstrate the promise made in the pitch.

Does your firm have experience with telemarketing? Are there any additional tips that you would offer to someone getting ready to start their first campaign?  Share them in the comments!

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