How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
How many touchpoints does it take to close a sale?
At Dunlap Marketing, we believe in the power of tactful persistence. In fact, over the course of multiple years, it’s not uncommon for us to have dozens and dozens of touchpoints with one prospect.
While we specialize in 1:1 phone-based touchpoints, we encourage our clients to nurture their leads through various avenues.
Blending personalized and broad-reaching touchpoints gives you the opportunity to stay front of mind with your prospects, while meeting them where they are (in their inbox, at industry events, etc.)
Here are 9 examples of personalized touchpoints you can use in your own sales cycle.
9 Examples of Personalized Sales Touchpoints
Hosting and attending company events
Participating in networking events
Leveraging client referrals
Scheduling face-to-face meetings
Making one-on-one phone calls
Sending tailored emails
Sending personalized video messages
Engaging in direct website chats
Creating custom, interactive proposals
The most successful sales cycles combine both personalized and broad-reaching touchpoints. This balanced approach ensures your prospects receive the right level of information and attention while keeping your workload manageable.
Come back next week for ideas on broad-reaching touchpoints to add into the mix!
Starting a new telemarketing campaign requires careful planning and execution to ensure success. While there are dozens of steps that need to be taken to set your campaign up to be as successful as possible, we have narrowed the list to the three most important.
Define Your Target Audience: Before making any calls, it’s crucial to identify your target market. Who are you going to call? Who do you need to speak with? We suggest getting very specific with your target audience. Some examples of specific criteria to use are geography, size of business, and industry/niche.
Develop a Script: Craft a well-thought-out script that outlines the key messages you want to convey during your calls. Your script should be clear and concise. It’s important to capture attention from the start, as you’ll only have a few seconds to deliver your message.
Note: while having a script is important, at Dunlap Marketing we like to call it a “road map” – this approach allows for natural, human-to-human conversation and engagement.
Train Your Team: Properly train your team to ensure they are equipped with the knowledge and resources to make successful calls.
While providing thorough training on the product or service being offered is important, don’t get bogged down in the nitty gritty details. A general overview is sufficient.
Finally, practice, practice, practice before launching the first live call.
By following these tips, you can lay a solid foundation for your telemarketing campaign and increase the likelihood of achieving successful outcomes. To learn even more about starting a new telemarketing campaign, download our free “6 Steps to Implementing a Successful Telemarketing Campaign” ebook.
For more information on launching telemarketing campaigns, contact Mike Dunlap at miked@dunlapmarketing.com or 281.833.3000 #14.
Some sources will tell you it takes 8 touchpoints to make a sale in the B2B world. Others will tell you it takes 8 touchpoints just to book an initial sales call. No matter the actual statistic, the truth is that it takes multiple touchpoints to convert a lead to a customer.
Before we dive even deeper into this topic, let’s first get clear on what exactly a touchpoint is.
A touchpoint is a form of interaction between you and your potential buyer.
In marketing and sales, touchpoints can range from highly personalized to generic and broad-reaching.
Examples of personalized touchpoints are face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or 1:1 emails tailored specifically to your prospect. As a rule of thumb, these forms of personalization require more of a time commitment on your part, as the seller, but will typically yield a higher conversion rate.
On the other hand, examples of broad-reaching touchpoints are social media posts and mass emails. These touchpoints have the capability of reaching more people with less of a time investment on the seller. However, because of the lack of personalization, they yield a lower conversion rate.
At Dunlap Marketing, we believe that a combination of both highly personalized plus broad-reaching touchpoints leads to a sales cycle that feels good to both you and your prospects.
Below are 12 examples of various business-to-business touchpoints you can start incorporating into your own sales cycle.
Personalized Touch Points:
Company events
Networking events
Referrals
Face-to-face interactions
1:1 phone calls
1:1 emails
1:1 chat on your website
Broad Reaching Touch Points:
Organic social media
Paid social media
Blog posts and other website content
Emails to your entire email list
Mailouts
By marrying together personalized and board-reaching interactions with your potential buyer, you will find a rhythm where your prospects feel like they are getting the information and attention they need in order to make a buying decision, but doesn’t necessarily require you to be everywhere all of the time.
Last week both of these emails were sent to me by Dunlap Marketing customers.
“I just wanted to give your team a quick shout out. I just got off a call with the TMRS and they are a perfect fit for our platform, the appointment was set by your team. I know your guys are working hard and I want them to know how much we appreciate the help. Keep up the good work and thanks for everything!” J W Account Executive – Texas
“Great one Mike! Thank you. We looking forward to connecting with this prospect. They are exactly the type of company we want to call on.” M R Global Manager
Both messages were the result of properly planning call campaigns in advance of implementation.
While there are many elements of properly planning a call campaign, there are three worth reflecting on:
1st – Knowing Who To Call
To have a successful call campaign, we have to know who the best companies are that need to be called. This is the only way for there to be a “perfect fit”. With a 15-minute Q&A session between you and us, we can typically determine this answer. If we can’t, we will model companies that you say are great customers, and we will build a profile of like-minded companies. As part of this process, we usually factor in annual revenue ranges, employee count ranges, geography, and industry classifications.
2nd – Knowing What To Say
After we identify who to call, we hone in on what to say. This looks like crafting a call message that efficiently communicates your services. This often is a “to the point” approach, using as few words as possible. It includes knowing who the decision maker is, or identifying who this person is.
A common strategy is writing a message where we ask high-quality probing questions, and when favorable answers are given, we do not try to be the expert with follow-up responses. Rather, we ask to schedule a meeting so the prospects can talk to you, the expert.
3rd – Proper Training
Once we have a list and a call message, we train and prepare our staff to professionally represent you while making prospecting phone calls. These are employees who work inside our West Houston office and who have experience making B2B phone calls. A unique skill we foster within our team is the ability to be tactfully persistent, while calling with a smile.
Summary
The second half of 2023 seems to be taking shape as challenging for business development. With high interest rates, inflation, global conflict, and political parties that have difficulty working tighter, this might become a time when going back to the basics is healthy.
Maintaining or growing our businesses is necessary, going back to the basics and fundamentals of adding new customers might be the best game plan for the balance of this year.
We are happy to brainstorm ways to do this with your sales team. Feel free to let us know if you have an interest in talking.
