About Ira Michael Blonder

Ira Michael Blonder calls on over thirty five years of experience marketing, promoting & selling tangible and intangible products and services within his consulting practice. He has first hand experience with several very early stage businesses targeted to Fortune 100 customers. The common thread between these early stage efforts is that product and/or service offerings incorporated computer technology. He is an excellent choice for a CEO in need of a trusted advisor as products, promotion and sales are planned.

No Magic Elixir for a Failing eMail Marketing Program

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Opt-in mailing list members are a fickle lot, with little brand loyalty. Burn them several times with email campaigns that fail to meet important criteria at your peril. There is slim to no likelihood at all that these readers will retrieve your future messages from spam filters or trash. But what are the most important criteria?

First, it is important for us to note that we are not proponents of habituating on email marketing. At best, we think that this tactic can deliver some useful leads, but the effort/reward ratio will be no better than is the typical proportion of any other type of passive marketing method. Lots of messages will need to be sent out to glean a small number of leads. With that said, we need to note that businesses have exhibited a substantial level of interest in email marketing; therefore, we want to add our two cents to the discussion.

The important criteria, as we see it, is that you send your email campaign messages to a list of contacts that you have assembled yourself and never to a so-called “opt-in” list that you have purchased. We think the members on these paid lists will be largely disinterested in the type of specific, targeted message that we advocate be developed for an audience of readers that promises to give some attention to what is sent to them.

You should carefully sample your audience through your teleprospecting efforts to determine whatever common themes of interest you can unearth. The editorial content of your email campaign should be restricted to these themes. Better to segment the themes, treating them individually over a series of messages within your campaign than to attempt to include them all in one broad covering email message.

You should provide your readers with ample opportunities to voice an opinion about your message; therefore, it is a good idea to spread the campaign over some time period that affords you the ability to collect responses before embarking on subsequent mailings. By no means does it make sense to bombard your audience with lots of messages. In fact such a bombardment can lead to audience insensitivity whereby your future messages will be ignored.

Where possible it makes sense to sample audience reaction via telemarketing calls. Let’s face it, most recipients of unsolicited email messages will have little interest to reply to messages. Better to reach back out to recipients, individually, to determine whatever opinions may be at hand before advancing a campaign to subsequent mailings.

We are interested in working with customers who would like a coordinated campaign of email marketing in conjunction with a telemarketing lead generation program. We welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience, not to mention to learn further about your objectives. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Online Marketing and Sales Complement Direct Marketing, Teleprospecting Campaigns

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

It is essential that innovative technology businesses maintain control over the prominence of a business in all marketing venues including, but not limited to:

Online
Social Media and
Brick and Motor

Naturally the decision may well make sense to limit public visibility in one of these three venues or, for very early stage businesses, even all three. Nevertheless, whatever programs are architected and executed must have components that address all three marketplaces.

In fact, typical characteristics of online marketing and sales interaction complement matching characteristics of brick and motor interaction. We have spent lots of time talking up teleprospecting as an excellent tactical tool for driving lead generation with brick and mortar venues. The facts are that the task of achieving online visibility in very competitive search engine markets can take, literally, months to produce benefits and, most importantly, credible leads to business opportunities.

In contrast, teleprospecting is an “instant on” tool activated simply by picking up the telephone, contacting likely prospects and engaging them in conversation. Of course, it is best not to broadly implement this direct marketing tool prior to verifying that required marketing communications collateral is ready for dissemination to the public either in hard copy form, or at least with carefully crafted references to business success stories, industry affiliations, certifications, etc to substantiate the position of the business as an authority in a market worth contacting and engaging in meaningful conversation.

We must note that the length of the sales cycle for leads produced through teleprospecting is substantially longer than is the case for online sales resulting from online marketing. Once online visibility has been achieved, meaning the right type of visibility that establishes a business in a targeted niche, sales cycles are dramatically shorter. Further, sales are often facilitated without significant demand on sales staff, who remain free to attend to direct marketing efforts.

With regard to social media, we think that social media makes sense as a method of establishing marketplace authority. Groups of industry affiliates and other participants who can be convinced to accept a business as a viable vendor for targeted needs can go a long way to provide the stamp of approval that emerging businesses often need.

We have substantial recent experience, gained over the last year, coordinating teleprospecting with online marketing and social media. We welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience, not to mention to learn further about your objectives. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Build Your eMail Marketing Program on leads generated by TeleProspecting

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

If we extrapolate from individual experiences it’s safe to say the 95% or more of email messages are ignored by recipients. Few people (and none that we have spoken with recently) have the time to read each of the emails received on a daily basis, let alone email messages that have no other purpose than to promote products or services. Nevertheless, there persists, to this day, a very high level of mass market interest in products that purport to deliver captivating email messages that will get the attention of buyers. Perhaps this interest is the result of observing that the low level of effort required to send email messages en masse, together with the availability of opt in email lists spells profit dollars for advertisers. The catch, as we see it and, in fact, the key to transforming the spam can into the inbox for recipients is to build an opt in list for an email marketing program with leads collected from teleprospecting and other direct marketing efforts.

eMail addresses collected during teleprospecting conversations, or even telemarketing calls have an inherently higher value than email addresses included in so-called opt-in email lists available for purchase. On the one hand, contacts have already exhibited interest in products or services; simply consider the commitment implicit to 20 minutes spent with a teleprospector on an unsolicited telephone call as an example of interest on the part of the prospect. Further, email addresses collected during teleprospecting conversations are usually offered, specifically, to receive additional information after the telephone conversation has concluded; therefore prospects will be waiting for messages that can be sent during an email marketing program.

We recommend that an email marketing program be run at the same time that teleprospecting and other direct marketing efforts are under activity. There is no need to wait to accumulate a “useful” number of email addresses. Further we think it impedes the effectiveness of an overall product marketing effort to focus too tightly on any one tactic. Rather, it is essential that marketing communications efforts encompass interactive and traditional media. We have worked directly with clients who attempted to ignore interactive. We were not pleased with the results of these efforts. Better to be present on all available media from the very start of marketing communications campaigns.

We are interested in your plans for an email marketing program and welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience, not to mention to learn further about your objectives. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion.

Sales is still a numbers game and the phone is a great way to get those numbers

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Talk to enough people and you will find someone with an interest in what you’ve got to sell. This adage has been true for ages and is still true today. Telemarketing provides a terrific method of reaching enough people to achieve sales objectives. When properly orchestrated and staffed with experienced practitioners, the telemarketing method is methodical, akin to a contact-friendly variant on carpet bombing. The turf upturned as the result of conversation upon conversation will ultimately prove fertile enough to feed even innovative emerging technology businesses with precious revenue.

It all comes down to a question of timing. Given enough time (together with an ongoing analysis of documented conversations and a complete dedication to changing whatever may turn up as needing change) presentations can be refined and focused to deliver objectives. We’ve written extensively in this blog about the present-day phenomenon of a broken down purchasing system for some types of technology, largely with regards to larger businesses (often referred to here as global businesses) and/or larger public sector groups. No matter. Focus telemarketing efforts on information gathering rather than persuading or pushing a market that is obstinately unwilling to be pushed to get positive, progressively healthier results.

A two pronged approach that combines persistent, flexible direct marketing over the telephone with interactive marketing that exploits online search portals and social media can produce very effective results with comparatively few personnel and leaner facilities. For products sufficiently branded as commodities in a marketplace inbound leads are generally more promising. Look to interactive marketing techniques to stimulate such inbound lead activity. At the same time, a constant rumble from telemarketing can and does motivate less mature aspects of markets to move forward, over time, to generally bigger deals that usually incorporate a combination of products and services.

Coordinating both efforts is a mandatory requirement. By no means does it make sense to entirely focus on simply one approach. We have recent experience with such efforts and can say, conclusively, that clients would have done much better had they availed of interactive and direct simultaneously. There is absolutely no reason that we can find why one approach necessarily precludes the other. Further, we have more recent evidence of the success of just this type of combination.

We have excellent recent experience working extensively with interactive and direct marketing media for software technology innovators committed to global business markets. We welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your product and your near term market plans.

Peculiarities of marketing software to large groups in the public and private sectors

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

A radically different computing era was ushered in around 1985 with the advent of the so-called personal computer. Pertinent to this post is the observation that the personal computing era was characterized by a shift from cloud computing resources (in the form of distributed mainframe computing and share computing via mini computers marketed by Digital Equipment Corporation, Tandem, etc) to the desk top where increasingly more powerful computing devices were brought to market, the use of which proliferated throughout Fortune 1000 and large public sector business workspaces.

Today, as Forrester Research has recently pointed out, market interest in computing resources appears to be shifting back to cloud based offerings, or at least the hype would have one think so. Regardless, software technology innovators marketing software to large computing workspaces need to speak to

present day realities
public message topics of discussion
and, finally, assumptions as to where markets are headed

Our bet at IMB Enterprises, Inc. is that the safest assumption is that enterprise class business and public sector buyers will very carefully scrutinize any purchase requests that pop up over the next 3 years as the result of pervasively unsuccessful efforts to capture value from software purchased and already implemented.

This dearth of success on the trail of value does not necessarily spell terminal bad news for software technology innovators looking to establish a toe hold in large workplaces. Rather, the lack of success compels businesses committed to marketing software to frame marketing communications around the best obtainable set of financial information about specific, verifiable, cost savings to be realized from the implementation of specific pieces of software by enterprise business customers. The more specific the better. In all cases the bottom line needs to be, clearly, specific amounts of money that will be saved as the result of purchasing and implementing software. Hype just won’t do. If a year or two is required to genuinely collaborate with the marketplace to determine the specific costs that can be saved, then so be it. Make sure that the resources are at hand to support the business through the fact finding period without pushing the market to accelerate the pace.

We have excellent recent experience working with software technology innovators committed to global business markets. We welcome opportunities to elaborate on our experience. Please call Ira Michael Blonder, IMB Enterprises, Inc at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your product and your near term market plans.

Influencers play a valuable lead generation role for business to business sales

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Your teleprospecting campaign offers a recurring potential to fast track your sales cycle for your complex product or service targeted to business customers. How to get there? Ensure that your teleprospectors multi task their objectives. While they keep their eyes on the product sales cycle ball by working on the identification of purchase decision makers within realistic prospect companies, make sure they also keep their head hunting hats on. Fact is that you need to build your list of market influencers. Your teleprospectors can do your recruitment for you, if they know what they are after. Identifying influential individuals who can help your selling efforts is right up there as regards optimum lead generation for innovative technology businesses with products and/or services targeted to global business and other large customers.

Therefore, it follows that the best people to use for your very early stage teleprospecting effort are mentally ambidextrous individuals who can operate independently with a high level of entrepeneurial enthusiasm. Punch clock mavens are not going to take the step back that is required to evaluate lead quality to determine whether or not the person on the other end of the telephone call can serve a different role as a contributor to your selling effort, rather than as the target of the selling effort for a specific prospect.

The kind of teleprospector who maintains the type of vigilance that I am describing is plugged into your overall business perspective, much like a partner. At a very early stage it is quite valuable to attract these types of individuals. Nevertheless, as your business matures several important junctures will be reached where you will have an opportunity to determine whether it makes sense to keep these folks on long enough to reach the next station. It is not my purpose in this post to venture further into a description of the personality type of the teleprospecting personnel that I am describing here. Let it suffice to say that some of the characteristics of the type of multi tasking teleprospector that I am describing may, at some point, prove less attractive. But at an early stage when an innovative technology business must have a great lead generation program at the ready, these folks produce terrific results.

Returning to the opportunity to unearth influencers from your prospect pool, the fact is that influencers, specifically individuals with lots of experience in the markets that you wish to enter, and experience gained at the level of a decision maker represents a very valuable lead for your business. This type of individual can quickly instill the trust that other prospect will require as a preliminary to any serious discussion about your product for a possible need.

Obviously I have lots of experience on this topic having spent almost a decade in the executive search and contract consulting business for technology targeted to global business. I would be enthusiastic about opportunities to partner with emerging businesses looking to recruit the right type of teleprospectors. Further I would welcome opportunities to train teams to identify influencers. Call me to discuss your business and your needs at +1 631-673-2929.

A word on the role of persuasion in sales

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Ever since Xerox Corporation spun off its excellent internal sales group into a separate business peddling “needs satisfaction” sales training, it has been entirely de rigueur to talk up sales that somehow, magically, sell themselves. In fact I’ve written up this approach in this very blog, for example, with reference to what I take to be “broken down” purchase decision making in global businesses that can’t move on seemingly important acquisitions. I have advocated heavy use of information gathering and collaboration with prospects on crafting decisions when and how they “make sense” in an evolutionary manner. In other words, I’ve preached selling without a close, a prescription entirely consistent with my own selling roots in the above mentioned Xerox sales approach.

HOWEVER, there is today, nevertheless, an excellent role to be played by persuasion in sales. But where and how to implement persuasion in the sales process? Look to rhetorical argumentation for useful guidelines as to where and how to commence an effort to persuade sales prospects to move forward on a purchase. Any student of the English language and literature is familiar with rhetoric, rhetorical argument, and how to frame a position in an essay. For this reason, personnel with a background in the humanities and English, in particular, make very good candidates for sales roles. The caveat is that these individuals must also enjoy interacting with prospects–introverts just won’t cut it.

Specifically, it is the “argument from authority” that provides a very useful foundation for persuading prospects to move forware. This argument from authority can be summed up simply as “Well don’t you recognize that everyone else is doing it? therefore might it not be too presumptuous to go against the tide in this area” etc.
I have used this approach successfully to open conversations with prospects and, also, to facilitate successful closure on purchases by prospects. Fact is that some slow progress is disingenuous on the part of prospects, a purposeful retarding of the natural progression of discussion and inquiry into products or services. When I catch wind that things are slowing down without reason, I then put the petal to the metal, bringing an argument from authority to the attention of a prospect to keep the normal progress of discussion on track. Nothing whatsoever wrong about hastening sales along in this manner. In fact, this type of “wake up call” can do wonders for prospects who just can’t seem to move forward despite a rationale to buy that would otherwise be inescapable.

Call us for further information on the above points. IMB Enterprises, Inc. has considerable recent experience selling complex sales of IT products and services to global business. Please telephone us at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your products and needs. We are particularly interested in technology products–software or hardware–as most of our experience has been garnered from working with software and computer hardware manufacturers.

Sometimes Ready Fire Aim makes sense

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Sometimes it makes sense to implement a ready, fire, aim product development strategy. For example, to test out market interest in various product types, or to gauge the readiness of a market to purchase products and solutions for otherwise unqualified needs.

Maintaining product direction in an entirely pliable state, capable of moving any which way to meet market needs, while engaging with prospects on ostensibly clear sales discussions is a great posture to gather lots of useful information about product perception, first hand. This stage should be incorporated within any product marketing plan as it makes little if any sense to finalize product performance without some reliance on the perception and interest of representatives in the marketplace. Usually this type of information is gathered through prospect and customer interviews, but with ready, fire, aim it is possible to go even deeper with prospects and, thereby, gather the most credible response from the market. The fire stage, after all, is actually mustering selling efforts around products. A go to market strategy on the fly.

Notice that I stressed maintain products in an entirely pliable condition. If, on the other hand, products are rigid, then engaging with prospects in this fire stage prior to aiming sales efforts can provide little more than an excuse to either race into product development, or to abandon the business plan altogether. Therefore, but have your funding in place before entering into this type of marketing strategy to ensure that you realize the most benefit from this exercise.

With regard to using the fire stage to determine present buying interest in products and services, this technique can jump start revenue building–no doubt about it. Even more compelling, this stage does not require the support of a full complement of marketing communications tools, etc; therefore saving cash strapped technology innovators precious cash. Further, marketing communications materials can be assembled and published entirely on an as needed basis, which may make the most sense from a funding perspective.

Despite these advantages, I counsel caution with regard to implementing this approach. By no means should your firm look half baked as the result of proceeding in this direction. Be sure, as ever, to stay under the radar while you navigate these turbulent waters.

Call us for further information on the above points. IMB Enterprises, Inc. has considerable recent experience implementing lead generation programs for complex sales of IT products and services to global business. Please telephone us at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your products and needs. We are particularly interested in technology products–software or hardware–as most of our experience has been garnered from working with software and computer hardware manufacturers.

On the unique promise of global business customers for IT sales

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

Global business prospects can deliver substantial revenue opportunities to innovative businesses marketing IT products and solutions. Two of may favorite opportunities are to be found in the role of IT computing standards within global businesses and the mission of Information Technology (IT/MIS) within some businesses. For reasons like these two, the amount of work required to come up with meaningful, leads to IT sales for global business prospects is worth the effort.

On the role of IT Computing Standards
Establishing and exercising governance, meaning the power ceded to an “authority silo” within a global business, is essential to profitable day to day business operation. Governance is regularly applied with specific regard to operating methods. Case in point, how “thou shalt” embark on remote communications with computing resources at business headquarters. Allowing ad hoc remote computing methods, unauthorized and untested is not only inefficient, but very dangerous in the current climate of public data communication networks and the plethora of services undertaken upon them.

Generally speaking governance over computing is “bequeathed” to IT or MIS. With governance at the ready, IT and MIS within global business have the authority to require compliance with specific computing standards. In that authority lies a tremendously attractive opportunity for the companies with the winning products chosen for specific computing methods, whether the just mentioned remote computing requirement or any other enterprise wide set of procedures. Simply reflect on the number of employees at specific global businesses. Some employ in excess of 100K people, of which 10K, 20K or more may be required to engage with a specific computing method. The revenue impact of landing an account with an “instant on” button for 20K seats can be great indeed.

On the mission of IT/MIS for some global businesses
For some global businesses, IT/MIS departments function as an internal systems integration resource. Literally, IT/MIS within these organizations takes on very similar characteristics to reseller businesses. Therefore, it is imperative that these IT or MIS internal resources be approached properly. For example, and conversations with parties within the same business who have expressed interest in offered products and solutions should be referred back to IT or MIS, much as the case would be where reseller or channel relationships are in place. By no means should reseller partners be “stacked” upon an internal IT or MIS organization already playing the same role for a business.

Producing Valuable Leads for IT Sales to Global Business Is Challenging but ROI is Very High

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Ira Michael Blonder

The process of selling IT products and services to global businesses and other large organizations, with overwhelming frequency, devolves at an alarming rate into highly competitive situations where factors are clearly at the disadvantage of IT marketers. These factors include:

Important roles within opportunities to engage with prospects change. Prospects assume a dominant position, changing direction as they see fit. IT marketers may be left high and dry at will
Telling signs of commodity purchasing scenarios rear their heads. For example, prospects cut back on engagement opportunities with IT marketers. Pricing discussions proliferate. The task of researching needs as well as methods of satisfying these needs becomes entirely relegated to prospects. IT marketers have little to no opportunity to speak up.

It is imperative for IT marketers, even those with products and services offerings entirely relegated to specific product platforms that lie out of their control (I include in this category offerings from Microsoft Managed Partners, Oracle Partners, SAP Partners, etc) to build fine tuned lead generation programs to ensure as completely as possible that precious scant face time and ear time be spent with the right prospects. IT marketers must be sufficiently capitalized to ensure that these opportunities to engage include no unnatural imperative for prospects to move forward, prematurely, at all. Better to take two years with the right prospect to land a lucrative order than to utilize artificial means to hasten the purchasing process. In fact, it may be necessary to authentically partner with decision-makers within prospect businesses who have a useful view of realities while incorrect decisions, already on the table for purchasing discussions, are dismantled.

Broadly speaking, in order to produce useful, promising sales leads for complex IT products and services to global business prospects, it is imperative that methods emphasize telephone contact to ensure that a meaningful set of potential advocates, information-gathering resources, decision-makers, etc within prospect businesses can be gathered in an efficient manner over manageable time frames. It is quite simply not possible to “touch” enough contacts within prospect businesses, neither via opportunities for face to face meetings, nor from conference attendee lists, or even email marketing outreach programs. Further, the mode of this telephone contact method must be firmly limited to teleprospecting activities, at least at the outset of campaigns, prior to identification of useful decision-makers, etc.

IMB Enterprises, Inc. has considerable recent experience implementing lead generation programs for complex sales of IT products and services to global business. Please telephone us at +1 631-673-2929 to discuss your products and needs. We are particularly interested in technology products–software or hardware–as most of our experience has been garnered from working with software and computer hardware manufacturers.

Marketing, Promotion & Sales Consulting for Business

IMB Enterprises, Inc., Huntington, NY 11746 +1 (631) 673-2929, imblonder@imbenterprises.com

Author Archives: Ira Michael Blonder