If there is one thing that sets OnTarget apart from our competitors, it is our ability to reach and communicate with the executive level.

Executive level telemarketing, or C-level telemarketing as some people may call it, is not easy, but can be very effective.

Many people are reluctant to call on the higher level executives in an organization.  They fear their directness, and may be intimidated by them.

OnTarget prides itself on our ability to reach these executives — CEO, CFO, CIO, President, Division Manager, etc.  They are the true strategic drivers in the business, and because OnTarget typically supports the sales and marketing efforts of solutions providers, these are the decision-makers and buyers of our clients products and services.

So, if you are in the market for executive or c-level telemarketing, you have found the right resource — OnTarget Partners.

Ed Trachier, CEO

Researching prospective clients can have many names.  Some companies call it “account research”.  Some companies call it “account mapping”.  Even others call it “account discovery”.

Whatever it is called, I call it IMPORTANT!

Knowing who you are targeting at a contact level is as important as which companies you are targeting.  The decision-makers, influencers and champions of your solution(s) need to be known in order to develop and express the most powerful value proposition possible. 

Connections that exist, trigger events that have happened, and historical decisioning may all be available with a little research.

So, you have to have the time for these processes in order to maximize success.  If you don’t have this time, call OnTarget.  We can help.

-Ed Trachier

Ed Trachier is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners.  He can be reached at 214-618-4960, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

Ed Trachier, CEO

When it comes to new business prospecting, one important qualifier stands out above all others.

I discuss the primary qualifiers of a prospect with my clients frequently.  They are:

• Need
• Budget
• Time-Frame
• Decision-Making Authority

What may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, is that the decision-maker is always the most important qualification criteria. 

Sometimes, we as salespeople overlook the fact that there is a reason a VITO (Very Important Top Officer) is taking the time to meet with us.  We may not have all the facts.  We may not know the true intent of the decision-makers action of accepting our offer to meet.

One thing is clear, though — Take the meeting!

If you are sitting across from, or on the phone with, the decision-maker, you always have a great opportunity to close business.  Good Luck!

-Ed Trachier

Ed Trachier is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners.  He can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

Ed Trachier, CEO

It is legitamitely hard to create demand in the big-ticket, solution sales world of B2B.

I counsel my clients frequently not to cast a wide net with loose value propositions and generic advertisements.  The “buy now or you may lose out” selling style simply does not work in the markets in which OnTarget operates.  No one buys large solutions on impulse; there is a lot of complex, analytical thought and plenty of budget considerations too.

This is what I call the demand discovery vs demand creation paradox.

OnTarget is in the business of demand discovery, not demand creation.

We look for qualified buyers for our client’s solutions.  We grade these buyers based on several important characteristics:

• They have a real business problem that is solved by the client’s solution(s)
• They are willing to take the time to explore the client’s solution(s)
• They have a discussed budget
• They have a defined time-frame
• They have knowledge of the decision-making process, and share that with us

When all of these characteristics line up, we have discovered demand for our client.

Discovering demand for our clients may be difficult to accomplish, but it is not near as difficult as creating the demand.

-Ed Trachier

Ed Trachier is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners, LLC.  He can be reached at 469-200-4901, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

Jennifer Hanford

It is becoming increasingly obvious in the B2B arena that inbound marketing works well for businesses, even the smaller ones.  A recent study released by the Hinge Research Institute revealed a remarkable correlation between profitability and online lead generation among professional services firms. The study concluded:

“Firms generating 60% or more of their leads online are 2X more profitable than those generating less than 20% of their leads online.”

You can read the blog for more information:  http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28777/Companies-Relying-on-Online-Lead-Generation-Are-2X-More-Profitable-Data.aspx#ixzz1f2Du1iVs

You may be wondering how inbound online marketing can work for your small B2B business.  Here are 3 ways it is working for our company:

Inbound Marketing Works By Targeting Those Who Are Seeking Your Services

Outbound marketing involves directly contacting potential clients to tell them about you and your solutions. To use a fishing analogy, your company is expected to cast a wide enough net in order to capture at least a few interested members from a huge audience.  Conversely, inbound strategies let potential clients who are specifically interested in your offerings find and come to you. This concentration on being found by interested parties rather than going after them is certainly an efficient and effective use of the fewer resources available in a smaller business.  This efficiency can also be appreciated for B2B companies with limited marketing budgets and multiple time constraints.

Inbound Marketing Fits Small Business Budgets

When you are looking for services where do you go first?  I know I personally rely on the internet and specific search engines to find everything these days. I believe almost anyone can create an effective Boolean search on the internet that will allow them to locate what they need within a few seconds.  Small businesses, even those with a focus on B2B marketing, should be using inbound marketing tools like social media, SEO, and internet advertising, to help them be easily found via search engines.  Many of these tools are free (or inexpensive), efficient, and very user-friendly.  Even the smallest of B2B business will find that inbound strategies are affordable and viable, especially with their high levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

Inbound Marketing Maximizes Integral Exposure

Inbound strategies provide an additional and beneficial component as a cost-effective advertising tool for small businesses with a B2B focus.  This is done by borrowing the credibility and genuine interest of your leads, both actual and potential.  When interested parties have located your company via SEO and social media, they are more likely to share your information with their friends and followers.  Then those friends and followers will share with their friends and followers — and so on and so on. Many of these B2B companies have their own online followings through their websites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or blogs. Their names and/or reputations may even be more recognizable than your own.  This association will be beneficial for all parties who are involved.

In summary, OnTarget Partners is now able to connect with many more potential leads in cost-effective ways and at a fraction of the cost of our direct marketing campaigns.  One of the best parts is that the leads have found us and were interested in what we have to offer.  No cold-calling or hard-selling.  What’s not to like about that?

Jennifer Hanford is Director of Social Media for OnTarget Partners.  She can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

Ed Trachier, CEO

I am sometimes asked my opinion of marketing during the Holidays.

You know, that time between Thanksgiving and New Years, when everything seems to slow to a crawl.

My answer is surprising to some…

Prospecting during the Holidays tends to work, over the long term.

Our clients are unlikely to close net new business during this time, if initiation has not taken place earlier in the year.

However, for building a pipeline for Q1, prospecting during the Holidays just makes sense.

I think there are two main reasons for this:

1. People generally are just in a better mood during the Holidays
2. Gatekeepers tend to take time off during the Holidays, which enables more conversations and better qualifications with decision-makers

Jennifer Hanford

One of the most important – and basic – steps for social media lead generation is to increase your company’s reach.  You may have the best content ever, but what good is it if there is no one to see it?  For most companies the ultimate goal of creating and maintaining a web presence is to attract visitors and prospective leads.

There are many proven ways to dazzle potential fans and followers.  The following are methods we are using with success at OnTarget Partners:

Generously promoting your social presence

Buttons for our social media platforms are embedded within each of our employees’ Outlook signatures.  This allows for the emails’ recipients to click on the buttons and be instantly connected to our Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn sites.  The more the email is forwarded, the more potential viewers, visitors, and leads.  These links are also visible and easily accessible on our company’s website, making it easy to “Follow,” “Like,” and “Connect.”

Gladly sharing your content – as well as the content of others

We enjoy blogging and hope our visitors enjoy reading our blogs as much as we do writing them.  We will ensure new blogs are pushed out into the social media world fairly quickly – we get excited about sharing our messages.  The beauty of sharing is that it is often a reciprocated process.  I find that when we share pertinent links from others within our industry then they often will return the favor.  It’s a win-win situation since our content is gaining even more exposure to a greater number of followers.  It has also helped us to gain more followers – and our reach – as a result.

Creating and maintain social media relationships

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn make it extremely easy to find people within your industry and those who have interests that are similar to your own.  Getting the hang of finding and following people within each platform then allows you to interact and engage with them.  The more activity you have, the higher the probability of increasing your company’s reach and exposure.

One of the most important things to remember is that successfully increasing your reach doesn’t happen overnight — nor will you become a social media superstar in 24 hours.  With time, patience, and perseverance you should see your social media reach and lead generation grow over time.

What tactics has your company been using to increase its social media reach?  I would enjoy hearing your success stories.

-Jennifer

Jennifer Hanford is Social Media Director for OnTarget Partners.  She can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

Jennifer Hanford

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to recently attend a fabulous webinar that was hosted by HubSpot.  The speaker was Kipp Bodnar, an Inbound Marketing Manager for HubSpot and someone who is very knowledgeable and passionate about this subject.  The webinar flew by and I was intrigued by the information I gathered.

I wanted to pass along a few key points that I picked up from Kipp in regards to creating awesome social media lead generation.  These are 5 takeaways that I especially liked:

1)      One of the most important – and basic – steps is to increase your company’s reach.  You can have the best content ever, but what good is it if there is no one to see it?  Follow.  Friend/Like.  Connect.

2)      The average “shelf life” of a social media link is 3 hours.  It is important to share content frequently in order for your company to be a presence in the social media world.

3)      Email marketing can help in building your company’s social media reach.  Your company probably already has a core group of vendors and clients.  Who better to start with to request their support?  It creates a simple, efficient way to get your presence out there.

4)      Calls to Action (CTAs) on your website are extremely important.  They are the key foundation of social media success.  The more ubiquitous and well-placed the CTAs, the higher the chances are of converting your website visitors into viable leads.

5)      “Failing” is always a terrible thing in social media.  It is important to test various methodologies and strategies to really determine which social media works best for your company in creating lead generation.  Testing and failing allows you to know what you can stop doing – this allows for more time and energy to do what is working.

Kipp brought up an interesting statistic that 73% of CEO’s still don’t believe that marketers drive revenue.  That is incredibly hard to believe.  With social media having a high visitor to lead conversion rate wouldn’t you agree that social media lead generation can be a catalyst for growth for within your company?

Has your company been using social media?  I would enjoy hearing your success stories.

-Jennifer

Jennifer Hanford is Social Media Director for OnTarget Partners.  She can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

As stated by Brian Carroll, Executive Director of Applied Research at MECLABS, lead generation is a “continuous, congruent conversation carried through a multitude of mediums.” Here is the article.   Mr. Carroll seems to describe lead generation as an art, which is a very nice analogy.  Online marketing is a world filled with numbers, metrics, and algorithms.  It helps to take a step back and remember that people – and conversations with people –will always be the core of lead generation.

ROI (Return on Investment) is achieved when marketers convert leads into closes.  I venture to guess that marketing professionals prefer to drive introductory conversations with their leads into successful closes as efficiently as possible.  “Sooner rather than later” is a common motto that I hear.  The good news is that blending offline and online marketing campaigns is creating a more efficient process that is apparently producing the higher ROI results that all marketers desire.

There are various ways of accomplishing the blending of offline and online marketing campaigns.  An example is one we have used at OnTarget Partners.  Members of our staff designed and created a marketing brochure with eye-catching graphics and verbiage.  The material comes in the form of a folder containing marketing slicks which provide information about our company and the services we officer.  The pages detailing our service offerings also include our website information.  We are blending this offline marketing campaign with an online component by affixing a QR (Quick Response) code sticker to the front of these packets.  Scanning this QR code with a smart phone will take the viewer directly to our company website’s homepage.  The information provided in the printed materials is identical to our website’s landing page, creating the opportunity to drive conversations with potential leads no matter where they originate.  Since starting this process we have noticed an increase in traffic to our website as well subsequent inbound online lead generation.

What is your company doing to blend its online and offline marketing campaigns?  We would be interested in hearing how this is working for you.

-Jennifer Hanford

Jennifer is Social Media Director for OnTarget Partners.  She can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.