Jeff Wiltshire

As some of you know I run a small IT company in Kent.....I'm not a sales/marketing type but I need/want to know what is the most effective way to Market our company.

I've been on the receiving end of Mailshots, E-Mail shots & cold calling and they all just seem to annoy the person they are directed at.....Is there a better way of getting your company name infront of new customers ?

beemerboy

jeff, i'm going for a mailshot campaign myself.

getting a5 flyers printed up for the end of the month and have got a couple of kids, who deliver to local paper, in mind to deliver them.
i've explained the importance of these flyers to them, and offered a small commision on any business gained from it.

then i'll try a follow up call, if that dont work, i will get the relevant contact and mail them directly once a fortnight or so.

i used to work for wildings office equipment years ago in london and we used to adopt, what they called a drip drip effect, which basically meant dripping (hand delivering) small brochures to clients every month and following it up 1to 2 days later (no longer!) with a phone call.
"hi so and so, its me from x, i'm just calling to make sure you got xyz brochure, have you had a chance to take a look" ...etc...

then next month, they would bring out a new brochure and we'd do the same again.

after a period, it does start to work.

i will be dedicating quite a bit of thought into this, so if i get any results, i'll let you know.

If you get any meetings, be sure to re-apponit while you are there.

ie. if you get asked for a quote, dont mail it, take time to revisit the client and build a relationship.

good luck
BB

TopBanana

Networking events? Trade shows?

andrew6321

jeff

depends on 'who' and 'where' you customers are. if you only serve local businesses, then probably display advertising and mail shots will be most effective.

if however, you're looking for national awareness, then maybe something like PR might be just as cost effective - if not more so...

Jeff Wiltshire

What we do is very much Business to Business so getting small children with leaflets is probable not a good idea for us.

We did a local IT exhibition last year and basically didn't get 1 sale out of it...and we tried very hard !

Someone has suggested contacting a Telemarkting agency and basically paying for each qualified appointment that they come up with....Does anyone have experience of this type of marketing ?

I hate cold calling but I'm fine if its a pre-arranged meeting...

I was think something along the lines of giving away 2 Hrs Security Consultancy foc just as an 'in'

Any thoughts would be useful

Scott W

We've done this at our company, with mixed results. We had a chap who performed this role for us and he would just create appointments for the hell of it, obviously his commission. However, upon turning up at these appointments (which aren't local as each salesman covers the whole of the UK for their given product areas), it was a complete waste of time, as they would simply want was something in the post for example. In other words, he wasn't qualifying the call, and when asked to do so properly, he told the agency he didn't want to stay here any longer and promptly left.

We currently have two telesales guys working for us now. One was taken on as purely telesales, with a view to becoming a field sales guy in about a years time. He was set a target of creating 5 appointments a week for one particular salesman. This chap has come in with no real telesales experience at all, and been consistently hitting his target, and to the point where the salesman concerned is complaining about having too many appointments!

The second chap is from an agency, and this is my own personal opinion of him, has taken the pi55. He is creating reports back to the salesman who hired him, stating how many calls he's made, etc... but to cut a long story short, he's making next to no calls whatsoever.

I suppose the moral of the story is, there are some good telesales people out there and some bad, but whatever you do, make sure you set their goals/objectives clearly, and watch them like a hawk!

CarpetCleaner

just take a trip to a few strip joints in London, you are bound to meet loads of IT people in those places

Jeff Wiltshire

OK....so does anyone know of a 'reliable' agency ?

CC.....your input, as always, is valued beyond measure....

CarpetCleaner

cheers Jeff!

seriously most of our customers are in IT and all the business seems to be done in pubs/clubs/strip bars