Stephen D. Gross

While it is very common for online businesses to neglect the opportunity for additional revenue by simply providing an 800# on their website, these same companies further neglect to understand the real power in this simple but sometime difficult to implement strategy.

Our experiences have proven that a visible telephone number shown on the header of a website can not only increase revenue by as much as 100%, it can also provide a tremendous positive effect on authority and trust values.  Many online researchers and consumers alike believe that an 800# provides a sense of security with their decision to purchase.

Obviously providing an 800# alone will not reach the intended goals of doing so.  A business must then implement a system to answer and take the appropriate action as requested and shown in the eyes of the caller. Developing proper telephany expertise in sales and customer service is a must.

Telephone Systems must be researched and implemented.   The following questions must, at a bare minimum, be addressed:

- Does the system provide ACD, Multiple Voicemail, Transfer, Groups, multiple methods of Call Distribution, and DID numbers?

- Does the system have CRM capabilities and what systems will it integrate with?

- Does the system provide variable methods of reporting; by employee, phone number, time and day, group, area code, and department?

- Does the system provide import/export and data support to integrate with outside reporting systems?

Finally, it is wise to understand what type of business you are involved in.  Do you sell a need based product or service?  Or, maybe you sell a more emotional or decision based product or service?  The payback and profitability for purchasing a system and hiring a staff for support may well rest on the answer to these questions.

Do you have a telephone sales story?  Leave a comment.

Provided on behalf of Brookstone Marketing Group

What makes it so powerful?

Aside from the obvious need for online copywriting and years of Internet marketing expertise, the real power in social marketing comes from the ability to combine and compound many online marketing channels.  Even greater is the ability to cross pollinate or further compound many accounts within each of Twitter, Facebook and other marketing channels to reach thousands if not millions of users within a single campaign.

The ability to have two-way communications is tremendous.  Being able to listen to your customers and discuss your business offers and needs at the same time is unmatched by any other media channel.

The coup de gras is the add-on capability to acquire, collect and nurture new and existing customers.  Keeping customers is almost as hard as getting new ones with today’s real-time search environment.  Many up to date business practices include a dedicated email marketing staff to talk, listen, relay, and offer advice to and with their customers 24/7.

Provided by Brookstone Marketing Group

The questions surrounding how to apply and what to say when using Social Media Marketing are growing exponentially. Many would see this as a signal of failure for people to understand in general the whole concept of community participation, branding and Internet sales.  However, I see it as a very strong indication of how the new phenomena of social marketing is gathering its well-deserved attention.

It has been recorded in history that any major change in society and/or business may take as long as 7-10 years to fully be understood and mature.  Over 50% of the US population continued to ride horses for an estimated 15 years after the first car was deemed road worthy — not to mention the fact that the roads weren’t fully modernized for over 30 years.

Social Media Marketing has only been in real world existence for roughly 1-2 years and we are already experiencing a tidal wave of small business interest.

The idea of having a real-time method to brand your business and at the same time promote a special event or product launch is not an easy concept to mentally digest. We are all accustomed to traditional means of separating sales from marketing and marketing from advertising.

A branding or marketing campaign will take at least 3 months to get any meaningful data right? Wrong!  The Internet allows a business the opportunity to bundle Sales, Marketing and Advertising in a cohesive fashion.  This cohesion tremendously advances the time element of the campaign and permits almost real-time feedback.  The best advantage is the low cost of entry into the marketplace.

The single biggest issue, for this new way of marketing and advertising, going forward is trying to tear down the linear thinking process involved with traditional marketing.  Thinking outside the box will provide the small business owner the opportunity to vastly broaden their scope of potential customer base.  Instead of thinking of directly targeting people who ride bicycles, if you sell bicycles, a business owner might begin a social media campaign centered on low impact ways of exercising or maybe even how to get to work without spending money on gas.

The real advantages with using Social Media Marketing aren’t found with identifying one target market and hammering on it until its dead.  The answer is to apply both horizontal and vertical approaches to marketing penetration and use the information gained to further advance the growth of your business.

Visit our website for more information: Brookstone Marketing Group

Success starts with a beginning!

One of the most common questions we receive from prospects is how to use the Internet to get new customer leads flowing without exhausting their valuable time. The answer is very simple; let the Internet perform the heavy lifting by setting up an online automated lead capture campaign.

A lot of the prospect hesitancy apparent with this approach is the “need for greed” or “control everything” old style of sales tactics. The need to have ones hands in everything worked a lot better when the Internet wasn’t yet mature and money was flowing like a fire hoes.

In today’s competitive environment the ultimate goal is make every possible use of your available time.  Outsourcing the common daily and weekly tasks associated with lead nurturing not only frees up valuable time but actually increases closing ratios by as much as 4-10 times.

An automated lead capture campaign is the beginning of this valuable sales funnel tool.  Our email drip marketing campaigns are designed to use the leads obtained from online marketing and nurture them into a future customer buying decision.  No muss, no fuss.  You are free to run your business or take some vacation time…

It really is as simple as it sounds.  Devote as little as 1 hour per month with the Brookstone team and let our system do the rest. The best part comes when your website jingles, your phone rings, and your door swings with new customers.

Our online campaigns are designed to combine the tremendous powers of the Internet with your existing or new website, online sales page, telephone, and many other forms of traditional advertising.  Our sales representatives are ready to assist you today to determine the right campaign to rapidly increase your sales leads.

Visit Brookstone Marketing Group for help today!