Question

Topic: Strategy

Suggest Alternate Channel For Sales For Outbound

Posted by vasudev_kamath on 4/2/2013 at 7:09 AM ET 50 Points
Are there any innovative ideas on alternate Channels for sales for outbound post paid business ?

Today all operators are targeting the same old channel types for customer acquisitions which adopt similar methods for adopting similar methods for adopting customers. This results in stagnant numbers with low growth in sales numbers.

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  • Posted by Moriarty on 4/2/2013 at 7:15 AM Member
    Most businesses advertise their wares and then sit down to wait for the customer to come along. Put any keyword into Google search and you will immediately see what I mean.

    So instead ask the questions that your customers ask - for which your product is the ideal answer. Because people don't put answers into the search box until they have done some serious study, and online that can be extremely frustrating. Why? Because everybody is advertising the answers and nobody is asking the questions - and an algorithm can't answer questions unless someone has been kind enough to put it online for the Googlebot to find.

    That, sir, is your job. If you don't know what your customers are asking, then just pose them the question. Just ask what brought them to you and why they chose you. Those two things should allow you to ask the questions that they put into the search box. It will save them - and you - a lot of trouble.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/2/2013 at 8:41 AM Member
    What industry are you in? Who specifically are you customers? What other niches could benefit from what you sell? Can you serve B2C? B2G? Can you place your goods on trusted channels (such as Amazon)?
  • Posted by vasudev_kamath on 4/3/2013 at 5:55 AM Author
    We are in into telecom business. Primarily GSM/CDMA/2G/3G services. We provide activated sim cards - Postpaid & prepaid to our customers & these are retail customers like you & me who watch advertisemenst on internet, googlesearch, you tube, newspapers all sorts of feeds word of mouth & then decide which service provider to go with for their service provider for Mobile/Cell phone not handset but service provider. Who walk up to our store all call up sales executives.
  • Posted by Moriarty on 4/3/2013 at 6:59 AM Accepted
    You have customers and you are using PPC - both of which are as good a start as any I know of. Now if you want to go further you have to get clever. Where are your *best* customers coming from? Which searches, what do they like and what don't they like - all of which is pretty easy to do with PPC. Because getting clever means reverse-engineering some PPC.

    If you have ever used the Google's display network you'll know that it's about 100x bigger than search and comes with a hidden extra. That is the people you're targeting don't have to be looking for what you're selling. Which is where PPC comes in (to a degree). Because from this you can find out their likes and dislikes. It's easier with a Facebook page because you can check a few of your customers who liked you and see what else they liked. Do that a few times and bingo! you have a few patterns emerging. Those OTHER likes are the ones to target.


    Huh??

    My point is that if they like that other thing, they might just be in the market for your services. So advertise to them before they even think of it. The CTRs on the display network are abysmal - so don't go worrying about that end. Look at the ROI, which should compare to PPC fairly well as long as you're doing it properly. The point is that these customers AREN'T EVEN LOOKING for the things you're selling.

    Everybody else is advertising to those who are - and once the market has been saturated, that's when it gets stagnant.

    The other side to the display network is that you can also tailor yourself some new PPC campaigns for people who are in the "asking questions" phase. You can use the metrics gained from the display network (and Facebook and so on) to make an effective campaign that cuts in ahead of the standard marketing techniques of "buyer keywords" and the like.

    The other thing is that this is tailored to YOUR business. Nobody else can pinch these guys because their best customers will like different things - plus of course, their marketing agencies will be using the standard nail+hammer techniques rather than the more refined electric screwdrivers.

    Any questions, post them here.
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