http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html The debate isn&rsquo;t whether the cold call is dead or alive, rather, how the cold call is evolving as the industry adopts the sales 2.0 mentality. en Chris Heggem Wed, 20 May 2009 23:16:35 GMT Pebble (http://pebble.sourceforge.net) http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comment1242861395898 be entertained cat http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comments http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comment1242861395898 Wed, 20 May 2009 23:16:35 GMT http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comment1241654302342 Good, post, there are many holes in inbound marketing.&nbsp; Selling is about people, process and technology, the correct balance is determine by the buyer, not the seller.&nbsp; Most &quot;inbound marketers&quot; zealots don't mention;<br /> <br /> <p>Issue 1. UX, you have 3-7 seconds to impress a visitor- if your site is not engaging and if you don&rsquo;t have a the right look and feel, no one will trust it. UX Guru, Jakob Nielsen says,&nbsp; for some, you may only have eleven characters, or about two words in your headline to make a first impression.</p> <p>Issue 2.&nbsp; OK you passed the sniff test, with a good UX and SEO, that&nbsp; is not enough.&nbsp; You can attract all the visitors to your website you want but if your content does not educate or engage them, click, clients have their finger on the mouse button and are ready to move on.</p> <p>Issue 3.&nbsp; To this day, most enterprises work in silos, content strategy, marketing, sales and IT, each with their own agenda, goals and time frames. In most cases,&nbsp; a sea-change has to happen to get an integrated go-to-market strategy.&nbsp; Forrester research recently came out with a statistic, up to 19% of SG&amp;A expense is hidden costs associated with supporting sales.&nbsp; Reducing those costs should be the number one goal and process optimization and integration is the only way to address it.</p> <p>Issue 4.&nbsp; Generic content does not work anymore, you need to address each stakeholder, if you are selling to a CIO, CFO, HR, you need specific content to address their business requirements.</p> <p>Issue 5.&nbsp; People come to you at different stages in their buying life cycle, they could buy in one week, one month, one quarter or&nbsp; one year, you need specific content that editorializes and educates them on your business value and unique differentiation on their time frame not yours.</p> <p>Issue 6.&nbsp; Marketing alone does not build intimate relationships, merely pushing emails back and forth does not show an investment in a relationship. Companies need to invest in building trusted advisor relationships.</p> <p>&nbsp;Direct sales, which includes the use of the dreaded cold call, can bridge those those gaps.<br /> </p> Seamus Walsh http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comments http://www.mywayinteractive.com:80/blog/2009/04/30/1241115660000.html#comment1241654302342 Wed, 06 May 2009 23:58:22 GMT