About a month ago I got a cold call from a guy selling Web servers. He ... got my name from the WhoIs ... of Internet domain names. As an Internet ... ... with several Web si
About a month ago I got a cold call from a guy selling Web servers. He apparently got my name from the WhoIs directory of Internet domain names.
As an Internet marketing consultant with several Web sites, I'm always interested in knowing what the current market pricing is for hosting, so I let the guy give me his pitch.
He asked me what kind of server configuration I needed, then told me he would send me a quote and some information about his company.
He made no attempt to qualify me at all -- other than knowing I had some Web sites. He eagerly offered to "send me something" without any idea of whether I was interested in changing hosts, what my budget was, or how soon I could make a decision, etc.
Then I received the following email message from him about a month after he had called me:
(Name changed to protect the guilty.)
Harsh? Maybe. Amusing? Possibly. Instructional? I hope so! Email follow-up is no different than telephone follow-up in that it must be relevant, it must provide some kind of new information, and it must have a strong call to action! This is crucial!
One final rant: Aren't you getting tired of hearing about "enterprise solutions?" The concept is so broadly applied and overused it really has no meaning anymore.
I urge you to review your email messages and other marketing communications and be mercilessly brutal in excising any and all meaningless jargon.
Replace it with customer-focused, benefit-oriented statements, and I'll bet your sales get an immediate bump upward.
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Why an ... offer is critical to your online ... a ... that may shock you:If you don't make a ... offer to your Web site visitors the first time they visit, they will