Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Marketing is a vital part of any business operation; while customer service helps ensure that customers stay customers, or that potential customers become the actual kind, marketing is how new potential customers find a business, and how former customers get an interest in coming back. There are a host of marketing tools out there, and Business 2 Community took a closer look at how to get the most out of the field available by using the currently available platforms in marketing.

One of the key points recommended in terms of getting more out of current marketing is to start making it a point to ask for the referral, and to interpret the idea of asking for a referral in more ways. Don't just ask customers to tell friends about the business; encourage likes on Facebook, followers on Twitter (News - Alert), connections on LinkedIn. These things have just as much — potentially more — value than the referral thanks to the sheer longevity involved. Yet the basic referral still holds value as a means to generate the simplest and often most effective of advertising: unsolicited word-of-mouth.

Next, when it comes to search engine marketing — which is itself something of a staple given how many turn to search engines to find what's desired or needed at the time — consider content. It's not often easy to create, but having content to explain why certain things are worth buying or how certain things are made is often helpful to those making buying decisions. Buyers, at last report, review an average of nine pieces of content as part of a research process before buying, so having content in on the process is a great way to get access to customers' thought processes.

Also, consider some more traditional marketing measures as well. Some might think that telemarketing is dead, for example, but earlier reports have proven that’s not the case at all. Telemarketing has changed, of course, and so too must our use of same, but it's still an active, useful marketing tool. Even direct mail and trade shows have some clear possibilities, but the impact of online marketing has forced these time-tested tools to change as well. Even the simple practice of paying for leads applies, but so too must this change, with a newfound focus on pay-for-performance.

Even email is part of the picture; though no longer useful as a cold prospecting measure thanks to the catastrophic rise in spam, email is still regarded as “...the perfect vehicle for lead qualification and nurturing, as well as for staying in touch with current customers.” Yet even here, there's a potential for using email as a marketing tool; the median unique open rate for email is, reportedly, at 17.1 percent, while the mean is around 20.2 percent, and this just from last year. Those who turn to a combination of best practices and regular quality testing, meanwhile, reportedly see median open rates around 38.5 percent.

Essentially, there are a great many tools available to marketers, and those that engage in marketing should be prepared to put the lot of these to use. Even tools that some might have previously discounted as no longer useful given the current environment have a place, and passing up on any one tool may be leaving money on the table, so to speak. With the economy still somewhat fragile from its recent downturns, few marketers can afford to miss an opportunity, and with the sheer array of tools on hand, opportunity is most anywhere one looks.