Turning Sales Into Science

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Using ExactTarget, Ritter has cut his average customer sales cycle from 40 to 25 days. Sales have gone up by about 55 percent, while the employee head count has remained the same. ExactTarget also allows Ritter to monitor how small changes to offerings can boost sales. For example, he learned that offering discounts around holidays tended to work better, perhaps because potential customers were missing out on things they'd like to eat.

9. Turn new clients into repeat customers

The Products
Vontoo, VoiceShot

How They Work
If you've already won a client's trust, it ought to be relatively easy to sell him or her more stuff. Alas, in practice, the repeat sell can be tricky. How do you reapproach a client who already has written one big check? When is the best time to do so? While timely e-mails might work, a simple phone call is often more effective. Not that you can call all your customers, but now, for the first time, smaller businesses can afford to send automated phone messages to targeted clients. With these products (which cost about 10 cents a call), a salesperson or business owner calls a toll-free number and records a brief message with a sales pitch. The message is uploaded to the Internet and broadcast using a voice over Internet protocol system to anywhere from a dozen to thousands of customers.

Case In Point
Jerry Leath, owner of a Great Frame Up franchise in Douglasville, Georgia, had dozens of customers with unused store credits, credits they appeared to have forgotten about. Leath used Vontoo to turn those credits into a sales opportunity. He logged on to vontoo.com and recorded a single voice message reminding customers about their store credits. Vontoo simultaneously sent Leath's message to 90 customers he had culled from his store database. As a result of the reminder, a dozen customers came in with framing work, plunking down between $2,000 and $3,000 collectively. Although they all had coupons, most of them upgraded to higher-quality frames or molding, allowing Leath to maintain his margins. Total cost out of pocket to Leath was $9, or 10 cents a call, the flat rate that Vontoo charges for all calls under a minute. Says Leath: "If I had sent out a mailing, maybe two or three people would have come in."

Alex Salkever is a freelance writer based in Honolulu. He wrote about peer-to-peer lending in August.

Correction: We incorrectly listed Hoover's as one of the sources Before the Call uses to research sales contacts. Before the Call's partners include Factiva, IDExec, Google, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, and Harte-Hanks.

8. Hold your (potential) customer's hand

The Products
ExactTarget, Silverpop, Epsilon Interactive, Constant Contact

How They Work E-mail marketing often has meant building as big a list as possible and hitting the Send button. However, smart marketers have realized that campaigns work better if you can customize an e-mail pitch to fit a particular customer's needs, rather than cramming a single sales pitch down everyone's throat. These systems also boast sophisticated tracking and analytic capabilities, which help marketers develop a better sense of which triggers will cause potential customers to hit the Buy button.

Case In Point
Andrew Ritter is founder of Lactagen, a 38-day program designed to reduce lactose intolerance through the use of specialized nutritional supplements. It's a big market--an estimated 50 million Americans are moderately to severely lactose intolerant. But potential customers always seemed skeptical.

Last year, Ritter purchased new e-mail marketing from ExactTarget. The Web-based system allowed Lactagen's sales team to craft carefully orchestrated campaigns designed to address potential clients who are interested but want more information. First, the company asks people to fill out an online survey. Depending on the answers, Lactagen will send the appropriate promotional materials. "If it's been eight weeks since the initial contact, we know that it's time to follow up and see if he or she has any more questions," Ritter says. In fact, ExactTarget will send a specifically tailored e-mail automatically. "If they've already purchased the program and are on Day 20, when we know they need encouragement, ExactTarget sends an e-mail offering encouragement," Ritter adds. "It's a gradual program that fits this type of product."

Using ExactTarget, Ritter has cut his average customer sales cycle from 40 to 25 days. Sales have gone up by about 55 percent, while the employee head count has remained the same. ExactTarget also allows Ritter to monitor how small changes to offerings can boost sales. For example, he learned that offering discounts around holidays tended to work better, perhaps because potential customers were missing out on things they'd like to eat.

9. Turn new clients into repeat customers

The Products
Vontoo, VoiceShot

How They Work
If you've already won a client's trust, it ought to be relatively easy to sell him or her more stuff. Alas, in practice, the repeat sell can be tricky. How do you reapproach a client who already has written one big check? When is the best time to do so? While timely e-mails might work, a simple phone call is often more effective. Not that you can call all your customers, but now, for the first time, smaller businesses can afford to send automated phone messages to targeted clients. With these products (which cost about 10 cents a call), a salesperson or business owner calls a toll-free number and records a brief message with a sales pitch. The message is uploaded to the Internet and broadcast using a voice over Internet protocol system to anywhere from a dozen to thousands of customers.

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