KMB | For seamless Marketing it’s got to be Multi-Channel!

For seamless Marketing it’s got to be Multi-Channel!

Multi-Channel marketing is now a mature concept. Regarded as a common sense approach to marketing. Multi-Channel now gives clients a seamless approach to marketing. 

As digital grows, organisations need to pursue strategies that make it easier to integrate communication channels and own the experience to then plan and execute marketing initiatives to  take  advantage of  the  huge benefits Multi-Channel brings to  businesses.

We look at the top 6 communication channel choices and what is happening at the moment.

These are the results of a survey of 120 marketers working in some of the leading organisations across the UK. 

Digital communication channels lead over traditional channels

Not surprisingly, websites are the most widely used communications channel for UK businesses and non-profits; 100% of organisations surveyed have a website, with email used by 95% of organisations. Events are the most popular ‘traditional’ communication channel, used by 91% of respondents, followed by face-to-face communications by 88% of respondents.

The popularity of  telemarketing, direct mail  and press advertising does not  have the same complete ubiquity as the leading digital channels; press and magazine advertising is used by 86% of respondents with 84% using telemarketing and 82% using direct mail.TV and radio advertising was not  widely used by  survey respondents, with 27%  using TV advertising and 30% using radio advertising. 

Fastest growing channels

Mobile

Organisations are waking up to the fact that they need to include mobile as an integral part of an organisation’s digital marketing, with 47% already using mobile as a communications channel and 28% of respondents saying it is on their ‘to do’ list for the next 12 months. Worryingly, 26% state they do not use the mobile channel for the communications and have no immediate plans to do so.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)/Search engine advertising

If the website is now the primary communications channel, then it is obviously more important to ensure that an organisation’s website is achieving its full potential  with regards to optimising the opportunities for relevant traffic from search engines, mixed with search engine advertising. 79% of survey respondents are using SEO/Search advertising, with a further 12% planning to use SEO/Search in the next 12 months.

Social media

Social media is confirmed as a mainstream communication channel and continues to grow and further mature as a communications channel, with 88% of respondents already using social media and 8% planning to include social media in their channel mix.

Most important communications channels

Survey respondents rated thirteen communications channels in terms of importance to their organisation with a scale from one to five, with one being the most important.81% of survey respondents rated their website as ‘one’, as their most important communications channel, taking into account respondents who marked both one and two, this figure rises to 96%.

Focusing on respondents’ ratings for the most important channels only, websites were well ahead of face-to-face communications (63%) and email (60%). 

Telemarketing was rated most important channel for just over half of the survey (51%)

The telephone is something that everybody takes for granted, yet it is one of the most important inventions in the world. Let us utilise it to its full capacity to increase your brand awareness and create new customers using telemarketing campaigns.

Call the team now on 01527 518373or visit www.kmb.org.uk

(Statistics from Sitecore Corporation, Whitepaper www.sitecore.net)

Social Media Statistics: Adults vs Teens

Its been over a month now since LinkedIn became available to teenagers. The age limit has lowered from 18 to 13 in the UK and 14 in the USA. Will this move really give business men and women of the future a kick start to their career?

The Question is - Will this have a Positive or Negative impact on LinkedIn?

Here are the statistics so far . . .

Percentage using social media

72% of adults and 81% of teens

Who’s leading in social media usage

Ages 18-29 topped social media use at 89%
 
Ages 13-18 year olds comes in second at 81%

Ages 30-49 are third at 78%
 
Ages 50-64 at 60%

Ages 65 and over at 43%

Google+ is the second largest social networking site (between Facebook and Twitter), but only 3% of teens use it.

Pinterest & Instagram

15% of adults are on Pinterest compared to a mere 1% of teens

13% of adults are on Instagram compared to 11% of teens

6% are on Tumblr compared to 5% of teens

67% of adults are on Facebook

18% of adults are on Twitter

While teens top Facebook and Twitter, adults have overtaken both Pinterest and Instagram.

Linsey Knight is a Creative Digital Specialist for KMB Multichannel, where she writes blogs, creates infographics and manages content and graphic design for the KMB website. Her passions are her family and great design. To follow Linsey please click here and she’s on Twitter too. Click here to follow her latest and greatest.

Happy Staff! - Tips for Telemarketing Motivation

KMB Multichannel offer quality Telemarketing training to both external clients and internal staff and management.

Keeping the contact centre staff happy is a key driver to the success of the company.

Dawn Holdstock, Teamleader at KMB, has been with the company for over 15 years and she runs one of the most successful teams, making appointments and generating leads for our clients.
In this blog post she has revealed a few of the secrets that she uses at KMB to keep our staff happy!
It is very important to give recognition to Agents throughout the day to keep their morale up and performance going.

There should be a visible board for all Agents to see, congratulating top performing ones for being either:
1. The Top Dialler
2. The Top Percentage Achiever
3. The Top Talk time

The board should show Recognition for Agents that have done over and above what their targets are. These skills should be personally thanked from their Team Leader as part of team building and respect.
'A Team leader support is fuel that enables normal human beings to do the impossible!'

Dawn Holdstock is a busy Mum of 3 children. When at KMB Dawn motivates, supervises and leads a telemarketing team on a day to day basis. She helps to develop a working environment where team members are encouraged to exert themselves to meet and exceed both their personal and team goals.
To follow Dawn please click here uk.linkedin.com/in/dawnaholdstock 

Happy Clients! – 3 Tips for Building Relationships

Vicki Lingwood of KMB Multi-Channel knows a thing or two about keeping customers happy. She has been a Business Development Manager for 14 years. Her advice is:

To grow any business successfully you need customer interaction thus ensuring the speed of closing new business opportunities. Customers buy on trust as they are often outsourcing to ensure that the work is commenced efficiently and frees their time to concentrate on their main job function rather than just part of it.
People Buy People

1. Listen

Identification with and understanding of another's situation and acknowledging their needs. This is achieved by listening well.

2. Trust

You must be believable so your customers have confidence in your business and your ability. You need to follow through on all expectations set.

3. Integrity

Deliver on all actions requested each day your client will have other responsibilities. Actions should be delivered in a timely manner therefore building integrity.


Vicki Lingwood is a Business Development Manager at KMB. She is interested in meeting business owners, company executives, sales managers, sales directors that want to fast forward their appointment setting strategy and integrate LinkedIn for their business development plans. Vicki enjoys Socialisng, Motorbikes/Cycling, Eating Out and DIY.

To follow Vicki please click: uk.linkedin.com/in/vickilingwood/

Getting Your Business the Right Business to Business Data (B2B Data)

The financial state of the UK economy over the last few years has undoubtedly affected the quality of your prospect data. Businesses have closed, redundancies and restructuring has made it increasing difficult to keep track of the correct contact details of the decision makers you need to get in touch with to promote your products and services.

The quickest way to get up to date business to business data (B2B Data) is to purchase it and there are lots of cheap bulk data deals on the market, but are they really great value?

From my experience as a key account manager with KMB, when dealing with data on behalf of my clients I find that unfortunately, it may not necessarily be always relevant to their business, meaning a lot of the data could be wasted or never contacted due to the sheer volume.

Know Your Customers

5 Top Tips for Purchasing B2B Data

So here are my 5 top tips to think about ahead of purchasing data;

1. Are all of the industries, locations, size of businesses relevant to my business?
   
2. Do I need the head offices, single sites of businesses only or every division, branch?
   
3. It is not quantity you need, it’s quality data that gets positive campaign results
   
4. Do you have personal email addresses or general sales@ or info@?
   
5. Have you measured past results and refined your target criteria?

Keep Ahead of the Competition

To keep ahead of your competitors and to be confident you are not wasting money on mail shots or telemarketing campaigns that are still not hitting the sweet spot, you will need to invest more time to refine your data further. Taking this time and attention to detail may seem tedious but ensures a more targeted way to market the prospects you want as your customer and a greater return on your marketing investment. As the old adage says;

“If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”

Research Your Data

Another way to update your data is to undertake your own research via the telephone, email survey, or even internet searching for company news and updates via newsletters, case studies and social media. This is an excellent way to obtain valuable business intelligence such as

• Contract renewal dates
• Latest projects and clients won
• Competitors used

Keep Your Data Clean!

Whichever approach you choose, the evidence is clear - Ultimately will you not only waste valuable marketing budget on the wrong prospects but you will also generate less sales, so keep your data clean and up to date!

Lindsey Goodger is an Account Manager for KMB Multichannel. Lindsey is passionate about managing her customer accounts and uses her personal experiences at KMB to ensure that her clients receive the best possible customer service and return of investment.

Outside of work, Lindsey likes to spend time with her friends and family, typically eating out, cinema, live music and comedy.

Lindsey is a main influencer in the overall performance and success of multichannel marketing campaigns.

To follow Lindsey please click here uk.linkedin.com/in/lindseygoodger/

5 Steps to Help You Hit Your Sales Targets for 2013!

So you’re back to work after your holidays and wherever you look, Autumn is being pushed upon us. Nights are drawing in, your contacts too busy to talk to you about sales. The main thing you are worrying about now is hitting those end of year sales targets. What ideas can we bring to the table?

See below Linsey's 5 Tips to Ensure Sales Success for 2013.

1.      Empty your drawer of old business cards

Your desk drawer is bursting full of business cards that you never get around to adding to your database. You just don’t have time for it! Well here’s some good news . . . get your iPhone and download Cardmuch This app lets you take a picture of the business card and it will convert it to a contact automatically.
For android use the Google Goggles app, although not as good it is still much quicker than typing it in yourself!

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it”  
Jayne Crook

2.      Motivating Staff

It’s time to liven up the team and give sales incentives to accelerate business results. Competitive spirit in the work place is healthy and productive. Small incentives to invigorate sales can be inspiring for your sales team. It is important to offer competitions in a fair and constructive way. Think about how different members of the team respond to different incentives and optimise their performance by tailoring the promotion to their style.

"Stop selling. Start helping" Zig Ziglar

3. LinkedIn Pages

Did you know you can create an entirely new website to promote your products and services for free? Yes, you are reading this right it won’t cost you a penny! LinkedIn company pages are a great way to generate new business leads, plus you can check out the competition. Have you added in banners? Have you completed all the product or service sections? Change them occasionally to promote offers and events. Do something different to make people take notice!

"LinkedIn 277% more effective at lead generation than any other social network" Hubspot

4.      Emails to shout about

Shout about your latest offers!! Use a free email software such as MailChimp where you can send out emails. Send them to your customers to let them know of your current offers on products and services.

• A free marketing tool to use
• Track your responses
• Email campaigns  are targeted 

5.      What do your customers think of you

Find out what your customers are saying about you. Send out a survey such as SurveyMonkey to your customers. For example feedback on recent projects. You can establish quickly where you need to improve and if there are any issues that need to be addressed.

If you want it can be anonymous to get honest replies. Use this as a benchmarking tool.

‘It's not what you've got, it's what you use that makes a difference.’ Zig Ziglar

Linsey Knight is a Creative Digital Specialist for KMB Multichannel, where she writes blogs, creates infographics and manages content and graphic design for the KMB website. Her passions are her family and great design. To follow Linsey please click here and she’s on Twitter too. Click here to follow her latest and greatest.

Don't . . . Throw Away The Script!

The telephone is a powerful tool; good appointment setting campaigns can be done to get your sales team in front of the right decision maker at the right time, but how do telemarketing companies do it?

The latest buzz words in B2B telemarketing are all about ‘Throwing away the script’. Call it what you want script/call flow or call structure to name but a few, but quality leads and appointments are still booked by real people who are fully trained and understand what they are talking about by following a strategically prepared guide allowing them to anticipate all possible outcomes of the call. “If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”

‘Use a strategic call structure, to book face to face or telephone appointments with a prospective customer who is in the market place for your product or service offering.’

It is business critical to use call structures. They are essential so you are empowered to maximise the opportunities whilst on the telephone giving you the best chance of success.  It provides you with a clearly defined path to follow – whether that is moving on or even better ensuring that you are getting through to that correct decision maker.

Used correctly, a call structure should be an invaluable tool for any agent, sales person or business owner making business calls and acts as a guide for all of them as well as being a confidence builder.  If you feel confident then you sound confident.  And when you sound confident you are more likely to succeed. The key to telemarketing success and sounding unscripted is the confidence that the call structure has been put together in such a way that it matches your individual style whilst providing the essential key messages and follows a proven psychological approach to obtaining that all important YES.

More often than not, if you are told you sound scripted it is because the call has not been put together with you in mind, resulting in low confidence levels.  As a result you will try to change the call to adapt to your style and then you will find yourself missing out essential linking phrases and the opportunity to stack the appropriate benefits in favour of what you are offering.

5 Essential Telemarketing Tips, You Need to Be Practising

Be Prepared To Adapt - think about the agents that will be calling and use the appropriate vocabulary for them.  If an agent struggles to say certain phrases adapt the phrases to suit.

Ensure Fluidity – it is essential that there is a proper flow in place, if the call sounds disjointed the agent will not follow it and opportunities will be missed.

Open/Probing Questions – this provides a conversation rather than a prospect feeling they are being talked at.  It also provides the agent opportunity to have thinking time whilst the prospect is talking to prepare themselves to get ready to stack appropriate benefits.

‘A common misbelief is that when reading off a script, staff sound like robots – wrong. It means staff have a flow, sound professional and constantly match needs with benefits.’

Listen To The Agents – if agents or your sales people are telling you that something is not working – Listen!  They are the people having the conversations and there is nothing more sole destroying than being forced to continue with something that is not working and therefore discourages calling.

Role Play – Role Play, Role Play, Role Play.  This is essential practice in building confidence and it will provide you with early opportunities to ensure that the flow really does flow and helps to hone their telemarketing skills.  Often call flows sound great when you are reading them in your head but you will often find them very different when spoken out loud. If it doesn't sound right when you are practising it then the agent has no chance when calling on the telephone.

Find out how we use call structures to create customers for our clients info@kmb.org.uk