You may have heard of Permission Marketing, a phrase used for when marketers ask the client for permission before they continue with the sales process. The phrase is mainly used in online marketing and email marketing. However, Permission Marketing is incredibly powerful and it also works in telesales and face to face sales. Here’s how to apply it.
The power of information
When you are cold calling, it can take a lot of time to find someone who is interested in your offer. What’s more, it is difficult to discover which of products fit your prospect’s needs, especially if you have a very wide range of products. After all, when you’re cold calling, you have a few minutes at most and if your prospect doesn’t like your first offer it is likely he won’t like the others either. It is very difficult to make a great offer without the right information.
Permission Marketing allows you to overcome this quite easily. Someone who has given you permission to call regarding a certain product or topic has an interest in that topic. So in its most simplistic form, Permission Marketing allows you to build a list of people who are interested in your offer; or in other words, hot leads.
However, you can take Permission Marketing much further. The trick is to offer an incentive for the information. Give someone a prize and they will give you all the information you need. So while you are at it, why not build a complete customer profile? Find out everything you need to know about your prospect, and you will know exactly what products to offer, and how to sell them.
Split the call
There are many ways to get someone’s permission. You can ask for it in an email, you can ask for it on a website or you can ask for it through a letter or a leaflet.
However, if you have the resources, the best way is by asking over the phone. Simply split your sales call into a market research call and a sales call and you will see your results increase drastically.
As an example, you can first call someone to ask for all the information you need to make a customer profile. Simply tell them you are doing marketing research, and offer them a chance to win something nice, such as a holiday. I recommend honesty at this stage; if you offer a holiday to all participants, make sure you actually offer it! Remember to ask the participants for permission to call back about the research at a later stage.
Once you have enough participants and at least a week or so has passed, it is time for the sales call. Simply call all the participants back, and tailor your offer to the information with the customer profile you built earlier.
Interested in permission marketing? Contact us about our sales consultancy services.
