In the era of the web searching educated prospect...how can you gain an edge and get the sale?

In this era of the educated prospect that the web facilitates via everyone’s ability to search online, The prospect’s awareness of product, services and competitive offerings is often there before you are. So, how do you, as a sales type, approach making a sale in this era of the educated prospect?

You know, its not a matter of “lack of skills”. Our skills are still there. Its just learning how to adapt them to the "web as the new word of mouth and search" realities of our potential customers.

Their reviews of your businesses and competitors can tell us a lot re how our target audience likes to shop and what’s important to our target audiences. We should Google to find reviews of us and our competitors and really learn from them. In our newsletters we send if we ask about the issues we find, ask what’s important and look for comments, we can surely come to see patterns of what’s important to our prospects. Then, we can use what we learn an now know to have a discussion with a prospect from a basis of understanding them and their needs, not guessing at it.

Its not just price that makes a sale, its perception by the prospect of the value a seller brings into the evaluation as an “expert”.

In our prospecting and selling approach, I think we have to accept that we are starting with a much better prepared "prospect" that has researched online and already has a good feel for what they want.

Asking what research they have done, what they found out as we begin the face to face sales process and hearing it will actually help us hone in on a prospects actual likes and wants. We will look exceeding great then compared to our competition, be perceived as genuinely trying to make a good match for our prospects and the trust that creates should lead to a lot more sales.

What we hear must be shared with "Marketing", our internet sales people and our product development people. They then have real world derived "needs" to focus on and appeal to if we do that for them and our reach outs, ads, messaging will work in a powerful targeted way to help us acquire paying customers.

Regards, Neil Licht, privacy internet investigator, Repuration911 and Hereweare. callhereweare@verizon.net , ndlicht@reputation911.com

How to Remove online Negative Feedback you’ve received

How and when can you remove negative feedback you’ve received online.

This is the big questions that many small business are struggling with today.

In order to remove negative feedback from online reviews you must first identify the source of the feedback.

 

Neil Licht, Privacy Internet Investigator, offers this approach as the most reliable approach.  “Online reputation management firms need investigative teams with experienced forensic investigators that will not only detect negative feedback but track it back to the source”  says Licht. “Most firms only burry them way down the search results order and do not get the comments permanently removed.  If only buried, Inevitably, these negative comments do surface again to influence folks.”

The removal process must be done as follows:.

Once identified it’s grouped into one of the following classifications: competitor, disgruntled employee, misleading or out of date information, fake or spam.

Now that you have identified the source and classification of the negative feedback, you can start tracking the complaint links and remove them from from coming up in search results on the Internet.

A complaint link can appear on a number of websites and usually ranks very well on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Many of the complaint websites like RipOffReport.com , ComplaintsBoard.com and Yelp also rank very well due to the volume of users and feedback links attached to the complaint.

When someone searches for you and you have a complaint on one of these sites, the complaint link will most likely rank in the top Search results on leading search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

The complaint links must be removed from these sites, not just suppress which is only a temporary fix resulting in the negative feedback returning.

Honest and Reliable Online Reputation Management Companies utilize innovative products and technology to remove negative feedback from attacks  for clients but only when it is determined to be competitor driven, disgruntled employees, fake or spam.

Says Licht “A trustworthy one will not remove truthful feedback and or reviews that are the actual current representation of the client and or there business.”

• Their Investigative Team will work to remove not just suppress negative online content.
• They specialize in uncovering the source of the negative feedback.
• They will  contest the review at the source.
• Their experienced forensic investigators can detect and identify the source and remove negative articles and blogs that are determined to be misleading, fake or spam.
• Their legal advisor will send ‘cease and desist’ orders to the perpetrators of out-of- date, false, misleading and fake information. They will demand that the individuals who are responsible for these negative posts to immediately remove this information.

There’s more to it however since keeping your reputation solid is a full time job. “After they finish restoring your online image, as a trustworthy company they will protect it with 24/7 monitoring using automatic tools for alerts of what is being said about your firm from every review site, blog post, news article, forum & social media outlet on the Internet.” says Licht

To learn more about how to remove negative feedback and protect your online business reputation ask for a free consultation or call today for a confidential consultation at 1- 508-481-8567. Neil Licht

Technorati Tags: online reputation,reputation management

How Often Should You Email Customers?

Well...it depends.

Email is still a popular means by which to advertise to customers, even with other avenues available. Coupled with the fact that it's inexpensive, it's almost a no-brainer to make it part of any marketing campaign.  A good campaign generates sales and builds customer loyalty. The trick is to determine how often to send notices. If you send them too much, you wind up in the delete folder more often than not. Don't send them enough, and you could miss out on possible leads, sales, or find yourself emailing addresses that are no longer in use.

To ensure an effective email campaign, follow these guidelines:

• Make sure your content is short and sweet. Anywhere from 350-500 words per email should do it, and if you can get your point across with less words, even better.

• Use your campaign to alert customers to specials, send them coupons, or forward valuable information that will help them solve problems. It shouldn't just be about selling your services.

• Include a call to action. Tell them the expiration date and how to redeem the coupon. If you're solving a problem for them, tell them how to get in touch with you.

In general, you should not email customers more than once per week. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. They should look forward to opening your emails to read what you have to say. To determine how frequently to email them, test frequency levels. Try once per week, once per month, and twice per month. Ask yourself the following questions during the test period.

1. How many unsubscribes did I get at each level?
2. How many click-throughs?
3. How many customers opened the email?

By reviewing the numbers, you'll have a better idea of how often you should send messages to your customers. There's no magic number for all businesses, but you can get as close as possible to what's ideal for your product or service.

Freelance Assistance, LLC can help you create an email campaign that fits your customers' needs. We'll take over the weekly or monthly task of sending out notices. Send us an email to find out how we can create original content so you can stay in touch with your customers.