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My Failed Offline Prospecting - Help.

by momo3
20 replies
Hello

I need to get something off my chest.

Let me explain:

I've been doing direct response marketing on the net for a few years now, and I do not mean to brag but.. well... I've been quite successful at it.

I've studied it rigorously and most of my things have failed. However, a few have been successes. I've discovered that if you create a product that fulfills a desperate need or irrational passion, and rank it (or use adwords) it will convert (and be a very low-risk business endeavor.)

It will convert because its fulfilling something someone is ALREADY LOOKING FOR. It works beautifully.


But, one thing I've grown to hate is the tackiness of direct response. I have a few sites that are downright outlandishly cheesy and I am afraid to show them to family and friends.

I wanted to make something really trendy looking and something I was really proud of....So here's what I did:

I created a really clean, trendy looking style site that provide a "SAAS" service to businesses. Its all built in wordpress.

I really do not wish to reveal the niche on this thread, but I will say its NOT a new idea... but its probably something most businesses do not know about.

ANYWAY -- so I had this site with functions custom programmed for the last few months. Its built in wordpress but it can do all these cool things that i had custom designed and programmed. I grew quite proud and emotionally attached to it.

But part of me always had doubt --- because I knew that selling it would require 1.) introducing a new idea to a business 2.) getting them to invest in that idea... it would be the total OPPOSITE of the normal way I'ev sold in the past (via searhc engines and PPC.).. Furthermore, this new site utilized very few direct response tactics...

So anyway, my friend is a hotshot sales guy in Chicago and he said he'd help me sell this. We knew that it would be a much harder sale than I was used to... so we thought we'd contact businesses using these methods:

1.) Email with Call followup
2.) Post Card with Call followup
3.) Pure cold calls

So far I've only sent out the emails. And it has caused me to lose a bit of hope.


Here's why:

Well, I've successfully sent out about 2000 emails. The site has a DOLLAR trial to try it out. So far NO ONE has purchased.

A large part of me thinks -- well, its the copy. Its because I don't have a video... but I think the OFFER and service/product overrides all of that. So now I am thinking.. if I cannot get someone (1 out of 2000+ people) to take a dollar trial, is it even worth continuing trying?


My Questions:

1.) Do you think its worth sending out a postcard campaign? Or abandoning at this point?
2.) Would a postcard campaign far outconvert a cold spammy email campaign?
3.) Is it worth cold calling? I guess a cold call followup might be benefical to get feedback.


I am quite convinced that this may be a failure, as I am selling a form of PREVENTION and introducing a new idea to busy business owners... and its not something they are already looking for. However, on the flip side, it would save them a TON of money if they used it.. so I can
see this product via two lenses.


Anyone have any advice? Are there any products that could help me out?
#failed #offline #prospecting
  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I have a view questions..

    Where did you get the 2000 emails from?
    Did you use a personal approach in the emails?
    Did you follow up?
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  • Profile picture of the author RentItNow
    I highly doubt an email campaign would work. PM me the site and let me have a look to give you some advice.

    Cold calling or cold walking is a much better sales channel. I would not waste the money on postcards till you talk to a few business owners face to face and see what their problems and concerns are first. Then test those as headlines and offers on adwords...THEN send out the postcards. Otherwise, it is just a throw in the dark.

    I know what you mean about the first part of your mail about online making more cash consistently. And it involves less interaction with others but I thrive on talking with people each day as they give me ideas I test all the time. So much business knowledge out there that you would not have access to otherwise.
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    I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    QUALIFY first.

    SELL second, after they qualify In.

    As you say, you want to talk to or communicate with those people who are already looking for what you offer. Design your marketing material to qualify prospects.
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    >> For Agency Founders: The Fast Shortcut To Selling SEO, Leadgen, Webdesign & Other Services
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    • Profile picture of the author momo3
      YellowGreenMedia: I scraped them. No we have not followed up because I do not want to get into spam trouble. Yes I made it personal and didn't make it too spammy.

      Thanks to everyone else for your feedback. I will re-read now. Much appreciated.
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  • Profile picture of the author YellowGreenMedia
    I don't know what your selling but of it is just a regular product, it is like a info product then 2000 emails is nothing, really.

    I't a bit hard to judge as you don't wanna tell us what it is your selling, some services do better with different kind of prospecting, mobile does good with emails and postcards, Google places does well with postcards of direct mailing etc etc.

    I don't do cold calling as i 110% belief it is a waste of time when it comes to selling to small businesses, i am not going to debate this, this is my point of view on cold calling, i know how to do it, i have done it and the results are poor at best, it sucks, period.

    So try different ways of prospecting and always always always do follow up calls or emails, that is where the real money hides
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    • Profile picture of the author coops223
      I agree. If you know how to market something, you will never need to cold call. If you have no money then it may be more viable, but if you're down now, imagine having to call 100 people to get a few dollar trials. It's just not an efficient use of time. PM me, I would be happy to help.

      FYI: Email is not a great channel for catching a business owner's attention and many of them are on exchange servers with harsh mail filters.


      Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia View Post

      I don't know what your selling but of it is just a regular product, it is like a info product then 2000 emails is nothing, really.

      I't a bit hard to judge as you don't wanna tell us what it is your selling, some services do better with different kind of prospecting, mobile does good with emails and postcards, Google places does well with postcards of direct mailing etc etc.

      I don't do cold calling as i 110% belief it is a waste of time when it comes to selling to small businesses, i am not going to debate this, this is my point of view on cold calling, i know how to do it, i have done it and the results are poor at best, it sucks, period.

      So try different ways of prospecting and always always always do follow up calls or emails, that is where the real money hides
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  • Profile picture of the author beeswarn
    I can't understand what you're offering in your 500-word original post. What makes you think what you can fit on a postcard will convey it?
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    • Profile picture of the author John Durham
      Originally Posted by beeswarn View Post

      I can't understand what you're offering in your 500-word original post. What makes you think what you can fit on a postcard will convey it?
      Good point. Its better to be concise and generate some curiosity. Enough that will compell them to the action of calling in for a pitch or going to a web page with a pitch.

      It could be as simple as "Call in to claim your free mobile site...". It just has to get them to call in thats all, not be an encyclopedia.
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  • Profile picture of the author ttrfanatic
    My thoughts are that just sending out emails won't give you a good indication of whether your product is useful to these businesses or not. Mainly because emails are so overlooked and the open rate on them is so low. You should definitely do some follow ups to see if they even received your emails. It also gives you a good opener - just to see if they received your offer. If not, (or if they just hit the "delete" button on their spam folder) you can then go into the offer that you originally intended them to get. At the very least you can get a dialog going that will tell you if what you are offering is something that would interest them.
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  • Profile picture of the author biggoogle
    Try sending a FedEx with a personal letter that details ALL the profit leaks that they currently have in their business. Show them everything.

    I used to send 3-4 pages of detailed content (that were basically me dissecting their business and their marketing activities) and I'd get a VERY high response rate. Well over 50%. Of course, I focused on people who were currently advertising/marketing. VERY important.

    Cold calling is disrespectful. E-mail gives a bad first impression because it is cheap and everyone else is doing it. FedEx will get delivered, opened and read. Shock and awe. No other salesmen FedEx's stuff to their prospects. You have to stand out from the get-go. Present yourself well and not only will your closing rate increase, but they will expect to PAY MORE for your services. I almost closed a 23K deal, and I closed a 25K deal with this letter. Out of three FedEx's sent.

    If you want my letter (I'm talking to momo3), send me a PM and I'll send it to you when I have a minute.

    BigG
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  • Profile picture of the author momo3
    @beeswarn: You were confused by my post because I dind't reveal my service in this thread. Sorry it was lengthy. The actual service can be summed up in a 3 words.
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  • Profile picture of the author localvseo
    I have experience with marketing B2B SaaS solutions. I suggest ditching the $1, give a free trial with no credit card needed to signup. You are instantly creating a barrier to converting. On top of it, people may get suspicious and leave, (e.g. why are you charging $1 for a trial, are you doing something funny with my credit card?) Once they are using the free trial and interested in your solution, contact them and then get the credit card info.
    In terms of registrations, you need to build some critical mass. PPC is a good place to start. Since we don't know what your software does, I don't know if you already have a built-in targeted market. If not analyze the data of the company's that sign up from your ppc campaign. See if you can find some niches based on our customer signups and/or traffic reports from the data and then have a very targeted market campaign starting with the people you converted, then expand out. If it's a competitive SaaS market is not easy. Without having a better idea of what you are doing, it's a little hard to give any more pointed advice.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Durham
      Originally Posted by localvseo View Post

      I have experience with marketing B2B SaaS solutions. I suggest ditching the $1, give a free trial with no credit card needed to signup. You are instantly creating a barrier to converting. On top of it, people may get suspicious and leave, (e.g. why are you charging $1 for a trial, are you doing something funny with my credit card?) Once they are using the free trial and interested in your solution, contact them and then get the credit card info.
      Okay, forget the one dollar then, you need to get a credit card though and somehow justify it if you are offering a free web page up front with recurring billing... As they say in outside sales "There is no be back bus". Close while the iron is hot or you will spend one month building free sites and the next chasing down people for credit cards, and most will not cough one up at that point, once the fire has cooled, if they even take your call again.

      Now, even the same people who took your free offer will not take your call a month later when you try to collect, 90 percent of them wont cancel when you start billing every month "if" you got the credit at the point of sale.

      Again, theory VS reality.

      Strike while the iron is hot. Thats my two cents.
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      • Profile picture of the author localvseo
        Don't want to start a long thread on the CC subject with regards to SaaS, but I have to disagree about when to capture the card info. SaaS is different than other recurring revenue models for the sales process in my opinion. Compared to say a monthly SEO service and trying to collect money after the fact, software is something that you can turn off access to, and if you are giving a free trial then should be seen as part of your marketing costs. It's a simple pay for service model.

        The software should sell itself (possibly with support and contact during the trial period to make sure everything is going well). Requiring a credit card will most likely lose a lot of potential registrations for a number of reasons including trust, hassle, unknown if it will even meet your needs etc. For software people need to be able to play with it and see if it solves their problem. While there are some SaaS companies that do require a credit for the trial, I have probably seen more that don't off the top of my head; they understand the sale is made during the trial period.

        A great example of this is Adobe (even though it's not SaaS, the concept is similar). You can download their software (at least some, don't know about all) for 30 days with no CC required. If you still want it after 30 days you have to buy a license and you are locked out until you do. SaaS is very similar in my experience. If after your 15 or 30 day trial they don't want to give you a credit card, then
        a) You turn off their access
        b) You failed to convince them that spending money on your software is worth it




        Originally Posted by John Durham View Post

        Okay, forget the one dollar then, you need to get a credit card though and somehow justify it if you are offering a free web page up front with recurring billing... As they say in outside sales "There is no be back bus". Close while the iron is hot or you will spend one month building free sites and the next chasing down people for credit cards, and most will not cough one up at that point, once the fire has cooled, if they even take your call again.

        Now, even the same people who took your free offer will not take your call a month later when you try to collect, 90 percent of them wont cancel when you start billing every month "if" you got the credit at the point of sale.

        Again, theory VS reality.

        Strike while the iron is hot. Thats my two cents.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Durham
    I believe in what you are saying about turning off access... But on that point, I have bought at least 20 WSO's in my time that I never even read or downloaded after the purchase... Just felt like it in the moment and never asked for a refund because I accept that I made the decision to purchase...and its not the writers fault that I took his product and didnt read it or use it.

    The point here is that most of the people who buy at the POS , wont even notice when you turn off their services or care, they bought in the moment, and even if thats the case, its still business for you... if they cancel or not is on them, but most will be billed for months on end or years and never even look at their website more than once.

    Thats not bad on you for taking the payment, and providing the product.

    In another example, I have recurring bills of $8.99 here and $12.99 there that hit my paypal account every month, and I never cancel, nor do I use the products probably, but for a year now I have told myself "I have to look into that," and I never do get around to it. I dont cancel because:

    A: It takes to much red tape and trouble.
    B: I might actually need whatever it is and Im just not aware of all the accounts I have at this stage because I have so much going on, and dont want to risk potentially shutting down something my system uses and Im just not thinking of it.

    Not saying be dishonest, but if a person takes your product, and they pay for it, and they dont cancel the forced billing... its on them for buying something they didnt need in the first place, not bad on you.

    I dont blame the people who hit me every month just because I cant remember what I bought, and I dont cancel...

    Although one of these days Im going to look through all this stuff coming in and out.

    Chances are that if I hadnt already paid, and they caught me a week later asking for a credit card, the moment would have passed and I would say "No thanks".

    On the other side of the coin, if the person hadnt caught me on recurring at the point of my initial interest, they would have missed over 100 dollars that year, because , again, if they called me back for a card after my moment had passed I'd probably say thanks but no thanks.

    Impulse sales.

    On another note, if its real important to me I will remember, but most of what we buy, even though it has value, isnt really that important to us.

    Ps. Do I want your money if you pay for six months and havent even used the service since the first one?

    Hell yes I do. I have a business to support. If you cancel I understand but if you keep paying even though you dont use it, I'll take the payment.

    Im not going to call and say "You arent using my service but you keep paying, I was thinking you might want to cancel".

    Thats on you, just like its on me when I make an impulse purchase.
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  • Profile picture of the author localvseo
    I understand what you are saying, different way to approach the sale. I think in the IM world we are accustomed to paying that way (subscription based upfront), but for many industries it seems like it may be less common. I am thinking about all the shareware that is trial based for instance. Anyway, interesting conversation, appreciate your perspective.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Durham
      Originally Posted by localvseo View Post

      Anyway, interesting conversation, appreciate your perspective.
      Yours too. Thanks. BTW I think Software is the best thing in the world to sell, wish I had more software ideas.
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    • Profile picture of the author RentItNow
      Originally Posted by localvseo View Post

      I understand what you are saying, different way to approach the sale. I think in the IM world we are accustomed to paying that way (subscription based upfront), but for many industries it seems like it may be less common. I am thinking about all the shareware that is trial based for instance. Anyway, interesting conversation, appreciate your perspective.
      A majority of owners I speak to are leery of recurring payments and usually ask me if they can just pay a year at once with a company cheque. Bonus for me.

      What I am trying to do is get them to pay 1/2 the setup fee online right away to begin work and 1/2 due before going live and send paypal monthly billings for hosting or maintenance. May try other models once I get rolling on that service tho.

      I know our internet service is like that. We pay a year at a shot and get a HUGE discount because of it, yet my sister has the same provider and is getting killed each month with a bill that is DOUBLE the cost. Best to offer both to people I guess.
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      I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.
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  • Profile picture of the author reactiontm
    Four major errors here...

    Originally Posted by momo3 View Post

    I have a few sites that are downright outlandishly cheesy and I am afraid to show them to family and friends.

    I wanted to make something really trendy looking and something I was really proud of....


    Do you want to be proud, or do you want to make money? Bad choice.
    Originally Posted by momo3 View Post

    I really do not wish to reveal the niche on this thread, but I will say its NOT a new idea... but its probably something most businesses do not know about.


    So you're selling a "product" as opposed to a "brand."
    This requires more work, as you have to educate more... and, is this something that the prospects are ACTIVELY thinking about right now? If not, tough sale.
    Originally Posted by momo3 View Post

    I grew quite proud and emotionally attached to it.


    The Field of Dreams fallacy.

    How much did you test this concept before working so hard to add bells and whistles?

    Now that you're emotionally invested, it's going to be much harder to avoid the sunk costs trap.
    Originally Posted by momo3 View Post

    But part of me always had doubt --- because I knew that selling it would require 1.) introducing a new idea to a business 2.) getting them to invest in that idea... it would be the total OPPOSITE of the normal way I'ev sold in the past (via searhc engines and PPC.).. Furthermore, this new site utilized very few direct response tactics...


    So you've essentially gotten away from everything you know, tossing your years of hard-earned, well-implemented knowledge to chase a dream.
    Maybe this can be fixed, but let's apply some zero-based thinking here:
    Knowing what you know now, would you get involved with this today?

    Starting at square one- which is where you appear to be right now- is this the BEST use of your time and energy?

    While I can appreciate the appeal of a challenge- a puzzle to solve- is this better seen as a business or a hobby?

    If you're not proud enough of your business acumen and accomplishments to this point, then find another means to fill the void. Make a bunch of money and give it away, set up a charitable foundation, build a monument to your greatness... figure out what it will take to fill that void. And then find another vehicle to get you there.
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    • Profile picture of the author momo3
      Thanks for all of the feedback, ReactionTM

      I have also thought all those things ... but it cost me a few thousand and 3 months of my time. And my other ventures are doing better than ever, so i was able to take the risk.

      As far as testing.. little testing was done but the same idea is already done. Its not a totally new idea. There are also many advertisers for it in adwords.

      I will type more later. Hard to type this on this horrible laptop
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