Boost your real estate sales and marketing during lockdown

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Cold calling sucks

As a real estate agent, you have probably perfected your marketing funnel. After all, there are plenty of options to promote visibility and get in front of your ideal audience.

There are traditional marketing methods like letterbox flyer drops, sponsoring events in the community, making connections with people at open homes and then following up with them via phone or email… it’s like you are running a well-oiled marketing machine.

But then, pesky old Covid pops up again and spoils all your plans.

Letterbox drops are off the table. Open homes are out of the question. And all of those amazing community events have been cancelled or postponed. What can you do?

Well, you could try and pick up the phone for some cold calling. But the thought of that probably sends you into a downward spiral. Who would you call, what would you say?

What if you could have all the benefits of cold calling leads without actually making any of the calls yourself? That would be pretty amazing right?

Now is the perfect time for telemarketing.

Now, is quite literally the perfect time for gaining visibility through telemarketing. Especially if you are using an expert, professional company. Why?

Well, there are a number of reasons:

  • The property market is booming – despite lockdowns, homes are still selling above CV
  • During lockdown restrictions, people are spending a lot more time in their homes. So,
    • You can get them on the phone easier
    • They are thinking about their life and property circumstances
    • They have plenty of time to consider what their next big life changes will be
    • The weather is starting to get warm and people are making plans
  • New property valuations are just around the corner and people are interested in maximising the return on their investments

But, you need to ensure that your telemarketing campaign takes the right approach. People don’t want to be bombarded with pushy phone calls.

Which is why using the experts can really help you create successful results. Recently, we ran a campaign for a local Franklin agent. The campaign was completed during level 4 lockdown, so we tailored our approach to maximise positivity in a time of uncertainty and ensured the appointment process was pivoted to work within lockdown restrictions.

The end result? In a 40-hour test campaign we generated 18 appraisal appointments, 70 email opt ins, 72 requests for follow ups and 2 requests to discuss the purchase of a property. So, the time is right!

The sun Is shining so make hay!

Franklin is a farming community, so this cliche is very appropriate… You gotta make hay when the sun is shining!

Right now, the sun is shining for a targeted telemarketing campaign. With many other marketing tactics off the table for realtors, telemarketing allows you to stay visible and generate enquiry. While all those other agents are fading into the background, you could be getting yourself out there and generating visibility. Whether people are wanting to sell their homes now or in the new year, you want to be getting in front of them now.

A targeted telemarketing campaign can secure qualified appraisal appointments, build your email database of property decision makers, and keep you active and visible.

Our professional team plant the seeds for a long term relationship of trust. That way, when you contact the warm leads for a follow up, they already feel like they know you a little bit. You start partway down the trust relationship, instead of floundering at the beginning.

It’s true you can’t do open homes and mail drops right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still market your real estate business. If you are interested in chatting more about getting yourself out there, then get in touch with the Hot Leads team today.

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“Our product is way too technical. External lead generation consultants just wouldn’t ‘get’ IT.”

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Yeah, but nah. We understand that you may have had trouble finding the right mix of resource to bring onboard.

But while we agree that it’s hard to find that elusive person who can understand your technology, clearly articulate the business benefits it offers, and talk engagingly to your target market, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They just work for us!

Case in point

Meet ecommbi. They deliver fully integrated ‘best of breed’ omnichannel eCommerce and Online solutions. Their enterprise-scale platforms provide the all-important single customer, single product and single inventory views, with a focus on middleware and data management.

General Manager Glen Moody says their business considered and abandoned several potential sales models, including hiring salespeople to focus on pipeline building. “The people we found who had strong lead generation skills didn’t have the grasp of technology we needed. And the ones with great technical sales skills didn’t have the cold calling experience or initial contact skills. It was a real issue for us.”

Finding the right sales model (and people) was an exercise in frustration. Then ecommbi met us.

We do technology, and we do it well!

Now Hot Leads is not known for shying away from a challenge. Our investment in hiring local businesspeople to do lead generation has paid off time and time again when undertaking campaigns for the technology sector. We not only offered ecommbi the skills and experience to run sophisticated campaigns, but the ability to reach and have intelligent, robust conversations with the people they’d identified as hot prospects.

Our immersion approach to learning about their business and solutions paid off. “Our Hot Leads’ consultant now probably knows more about sales in our business than 90% of the people who work here, which is a powerful thing,” says Glen.

That’s a win in anyone’s books. But even better, we delivered ecommbi real business value. “Using Hot Leads has been extremely cost-effective because of the high value of each sale. Our ROI is much better than if we’d had to find, hire, and train an in-house lead generation resource.”

(Glen also said lots of other really nice things about us which you can read here).

We’re not a one-hit IT wonder

Glen and ecommbi aren’t the only ones to appreciate our expertise in the technology space. For example, Lisa Nicks, GM of Sales (NZ) for Australian business solutions company, Fusion5, also gave us the big thumbs up.

“Fusion5 provides ERP, CRM and HCM business applications into SMB and Enterprise organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Recently, Fusion5 hired Hot Leads to execute a telesales campaign in order to generate and drive new business leads specific to the ERP space. We found Lisa and her team extremely professional in their approach in understanding our requirements before the campaign kicked off, as well as the execution and follow-up. At all times, we were in sync with Hot Leads on the expectations and co-ordination of next steps, as there was constant communication. The campaign has been a success to Fusion5.”

So, if you’ve always thought that you’d never find the IT sales skills you need in a lead generation company, think again!

lisa@hotleads.co.nz.

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ecommbi

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ecommbi delivers fully integrated ‘best of breed’ omnichannel eCommerce and Online solutions, leveraging decades of experience with customer-centric user journeys. Their enterprise scale platforms provide the all-important single customer, single product and single inventory views, with a focus on middleware and data management.

Lead generation blues

Because of the size and highly technical nature of their projects, ecommbi traditionally has a long sales cycle – it can take years to go from initial engagement to delivery. However, their adoption of emerging technologies has generated a new market and a shorter sales cycle. “We are now taking on more mid-tier projects,” says Glen Moody, ecommbi General Manager. “The projects are smaller but faster, so we need to keep our sales pipeline well populated.”

Glen says the business considered and abandoned several potential sales models, including hiring salespeople to focus on pipeline building. “The people we found who had strong lead generation skills didn’t have the grasp of technology we needed. And the ones with great technical sales skills didn’t have the cold calling experience or initial contact skills. It was a real issue for us.”

Here’s Hot Leads!

To fill the gap in their lead generation process, Glen engaged Hot Leads. “We had worked with them before, and knew they had the skills and experience to set up and manage campaigns, segment and mine the data, and critically, have robust conversations with the targets that we had identified as hot prospects.”

“We had 170 specific businesses that we wanted to target with two solutions using a technical sales approach. After going through our marketing strategy and collateral with Hot Leads’ consultant, she quickly understood what we wanted to achieve. So when we kicked off the initial programme, we got good results from the outset. And as our solutions are reasonably technical, every conversation with us or one of our prospects enabled her to refine her approach further and generate even more leads.

“Our Hot Leads’ consultant now probably knows more about sales in our business than 90% of the people who work here, which is a powerful thing. Using Hot Leads has been extremely cost effective because of the high value of each sale. Our ROI is much better than if we’d had to find, hire, and train an in-house lead generation resource.”

Smooth operator

ecommbi has two business units so frequently runs multiple and simultaneous campaigns, often with sub-campaigns inside of longer-term ones.

“There is some complexity in what we do, and we often pivot from one campaign to another,” says Glen, “but Hot Leads are very responsive, and manage our requirements smoothly. For one campaign, we only wanted to reach six senior IT executives at some of New Zealand’s largest enterprises. Our Hot Leads’ consultant contacted and talked to all of them on the same day – so a 100% success rate.

“The other thing we appreciate is the ability to turn our lead generation activities on and off at any time. Using Hot Leads’ services gives us real flexibility in being able to control our sales. We are careful never to over-commit our ability to deliver, as that can damage our reputation.”

Completing the sales cycle

“Using Hot Leads has completed the last piece of our sales process puzzle,” says Glen. “We struggled for eight years to get it right, and their lead generation services have ticked all the boxes. Hot Leads perform consistently and effectively and have become an ongoing part of our business strategy.”

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Like night and day. The Hot Leads’ difference.

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Sadly, it often takes a bad experience with a telemarketing service to appreciate a good one.

One of the most constant pieces of feedback we get from new clients is the difference they experience working with us compared with their previous lead generation partners.

In our latest case study, Brendan Drury, Orbit World Travel’s Managing Director said: “From my perspective, the difference between using Hot Leads and our results from the previous two to three years is like comparing night and day.”

Here comes the sun again.

After outsourcing their lead generation services to a local company for several years, Brendan wasn’t happy with the results. A lack of quality information combined with a disappointing volume of appointments led them to pull the plug on their investment. Dark days, indeed!

And he’s not alone. We’ve won the hearts of many clients who have been just about ready to give up on finding a telemarketing company they can trust to deliver results.

So what makes us shine so bright?

1. We keep a tight focus on the quality of the data we collect – making sure it’s accurate, current and appropriate. As far as we’re concerned, near enough is never good enough.
2. We find the people you need to connect with – we’re great at tracking down those hard-to-find-and-even-harder-to-reach decision-makers. Yes, we’re rottweilers of the telemarketing world, smart, strong, tenacious and well-trained!
3. We make you look good – we’re professional, local, friendly, approachable and take pride in representing your brand and explaining your value proposition. We think on our feet and don’t use scripts, so the people we call won’t even realise that we aren’t your employees. Our consultants get rave reviews!
4. We help you break into new markets – we’ve delivered significant, high-value opportunities to our customers in industry sectors they’ve only dreamed of penetrating. We’ve literally seen jaws drop when our clients see who we’ve arranged for them to meet.
5. We generate detailed reporting – we collect a wealth of valuable information, so you always know what’s in the pipeline.
6. We give valuable advice – we can help you improve outcomes through our knowledge and experience.
7. And we do it all with a smile. Because we’re doing what we love.

Ready to walk into the light? Call us.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

 

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Unplug the potential of your prospect list with care!

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I know. It seems a bit odd for me to be warning you about getting the most out of your prospect list, especially as that’s what I’m always telling you to do!

However, that’s exactly the problem one of our clients recently had after engaging us to generate leads for their sales team. Keen to increase membership numbers, but lacking the internal resources to run a telemarketing campaign, Master Plumbers asked us to work through their contact list to identify hot prospects.

So, we did. Except we did the job a bit too well – if there can be such an outcome!

Overachieved and over-committed!

It was a hugely successful campaign. Of the 1033 calls we made, we talked to 400 decision makers and made 125 prequalified sales appointments. The only issue was that we generated so many meetings that the (very happy) Master Plumbers sales team had to reschedule some of them just to keep up with demand!

That’s what happens when you have a good list, the right message and offer, and a professional approach. Having too many sales appointments is a greatproblem to have, but we all know that following through in a timely fashion is critical to the end success of any campaign.

The uptake test

If you’re unsure about what volume of leads to expect or feeling under-prepared for a heavy uptake of the offer you’re asking us to promote, then we recommend you consider either a trial run or a staggered approach to your campaign.

Undertaking a trial campaign to a sample of your contact list will give you a good indication of how many prospects we can generate for you – and how much activity you need to allow for at your end to follow through. And it also gives you the opportunity to tweak (a technical term) your offer and potentially improve overall results.

Alternatively, a staggered or drip-feed approach divides the campaign into manageable stages. This strategy gives your sales team time to draw breath, regroup and refocus before we drop more leads in your lap. It also ensures that you don’t drop the ball, or have to perform triage on the prospect list and potentially miss opportunities that just need a little nudge to turn from warm to hot.

Tap into great results

We loved working with Master Plumbers and were delighted to be behind boosting their membership numbers, even if we stretched the capacity of their sales team. Sorry – not sorry!

“It would be fair to say that we were very surprised by the level of engagement,” said Margaret Dawson, Operations Manager for Master Plumbers, “and probably a bit under-prepared for it!”

If you’d like to read more about the Master Plumbers campaign, then check out the case study.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

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Sales and marketing pro? Or absolute beginner? Here’s our FREE 7-step guide to using telemarketing to run a brilliant lead generation campaign.

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We’ve just published our first Hot Leads ‘Essential Guide’ to Lead Generation. It’s packed full of practical, step-by-step ‘need to know’ stuff that you well…need to know, to run a telemarketing campaign that will seriously boost your sales pipeline. As written by the experts (that’s us).

Why do you need to read up on telemarketing? Isn’t it all pretty straightforward?

Telemarketing is one of the most effective methods of lead generation. But its success isn’t random, and it doesn’t come without planning.

Great marketers and sales professionals apply best practice to deciding on, setting up, running and measuring a campaign that delivers value – and, importantly, a return on investment. They understand how to amplify a campaign’s impact and to present their brand professionally and consistently.

Become a lead generation know-it-all – for FREE

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced sales or marketing manager looking for new tips to boost your campaign outcomes, or you’re just exploring the possibilities for your business and want to understand the process.

Either way, we’ve got you covered. Because one thing is for certain – when you download and read our FREE eBook you’ll improve your know-how, starting with:

  1. Know your objectives and define what constitutes success
  2. Know your target market
  3. Know how to get a great prospect list
  4. Know how to design and test a compelling campaign
  5. Know how to work your CRM
  6. Know how to put together the perfect lead gen team
  7. Know your next steps! (Your campaign checklist).

Get your FREE DOWNLOAD here! Happy reading!

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

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Helping the not-for-profit sector keep their ROI in the pink!

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We do a lot of work in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector. And while all our clients are important to us, I must admit that helping others ‘do good’ gives us a big case of the warm fuzzies.

There are countless businesses and organisations doing wonderful work in New Zealand, so trying to catch the attention of the people who can help make the difference to their critical and ongoing fundraising efforts is critical.

That’s where we come in. You see, we know that a friendly chat goes a long way towards reminding people that their help is genuinely needed and appreciated.

In the Pink

We recently had a chance to help New Zealand’s Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation. Like most NFPs, they need to be sure every marketing initiative is targeted and cost effective.

Nicky Sinclair-Perkins, the Foundation’s Campaigns Manager, called us as they were looking for a way to get new businesses to support their work – in particular their Pink for a Day campaign.

With a limited budget she said it was super important to know that the Foundation’s brand was in safe hands.

Her confidence in us was well placed. We’re passionate about everything we do but this one really struck a chord, as almost everyone in our team knew someone affected by breast cancer. Shockingly, one in nine Kiwi women are diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.

Here are some far more positive figures. We made 2030 calls and signed up 158 new businesses that wanted to be involved in the Foundation’s work.

We also followed up all those calls with a personalised email, so they really felt they were getting involved and were part of the team. That made a huge difference.

Great results

In the end, one in every four organisations that registered for Pink for a Day came from the people we called.

That meant the Foundation was able to speak to thousands more people about breast cancer awareness. Better still that helped raise over $150,000 for breast cancer education, research and support.

Not only that, but we were also able to give Nicky and her team a list of new businesses that were keen to be involved in the future.

“The results were great,” says Nicky. “It was a successful campaign and we are very happy with the outcome.”

If you’d like to read more about the Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation NZ campaign, then check out the case study.

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So, how’s that real estate pipeline looking? Hot, or not?

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Having a great pipeline of properties is the lifeblood of any successful real estate business. Of any business, really.

I repeatedly hear of property agents taking a passive approach to building their sales pipelines and wondering why they aren’t doing as well as others. They try everything (including passive tactics like social media, Google AdWords campaigns and paying search engine optimisation specialists) exceptpicking up the phone and putting in the hard yards.

The real estate industry is highly competitive and it’s all about building one-to-one relationships. And like it or not, that requires human contact. Lots of it.

The smart sales team

Steve and Miriam Davis, aka the formidable Team Davis from Harcourts Real Estate, tried all the passive sales methods (see above) on top of their normal strategies, but weren’t getting an ROI on their time, effort or investment.

They knew that their success was based on building strong pipelines using Miriam’s personal touch. Now, she’s a real go-getter when it comes to finding new listings, but the time making calls took her away from doing what she loved – helping people buy and sell properties. While other agents were calling it a day and putting their feet up with a G&T, she was typically back on the phone driving that pipeline.

Great attitude and great for business, but not quite so positive in terms of work/life balance! Team Davis really needed to clone Miriam and her formidable lead generation skills!

Hot Leads to the rescue

Steve checked out our website and was impressed by what our clients had to say about us. And when he discovered we had real estate experience – he was sold.

“Their consultant proved to be extremely good,” said Steve. “She knew the right questions to ask and the right information to gather. She added valuable information to our database and encouraged 50 additional people on our list to sign up for our marketing emails. We’d been struggling to grow our email reach, so what she achieved was superb.”

We ran two 40-hour Team Davis campaigns, generated 27 qualified appointments, and identified a significant number of ‘warm’ leads for Team Davis to nurture. And as Steve said, we grew their marketing list.

Top tips for building pipelines

  • Just do it. It’s an active, one-to-one process. Yes, the passive lead generation tactics all help, but nothing is better than personal contact!
  • Think smart. Pre-empt a telemarketing campaign with a marketing promo (think letterbox drops with a special deal) to significantly raise response rates.
  • Don’t sit on your laurels and admire your pipeline. What’s next? What leads (no matter how distant in the future) should you be keeping ‘warm’ with emails and calls?
  • Get a life. Let us do the prospecting and nurturing calls for you, so you can do what you do well. Sell!
  • Last, check out the full Team Davis case study here.
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Dishing the dirt on unclean data.

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Let’s face it, as a business owner you probably don’t place as much value on your data as you think. Just take a look at your accounting system, vs. your sales system, vs. your marketing system.

Yep, your sales team want to make sales. But they aren’t worried about updating the bill payer.

Your accountant just wants the books to balance, they don’t care who the decision maker is.

Your marketing team are focused on correct email addresses and the number of times some transient or external telemarketer has used extra.co.nz instead of Xtra. Fixing those sorts of mistakes can be time consuming and annoying.

As for you, the business owner, you just want growth and a return on investment from your inbound and outbound sales teams or your external marketing partnerships. And of course, you want your client’s billing details to be accurate, so the bills get paid on time.

So, what’s the problem if a few contact names are wrong? Why should an incorrectly populated address field worry you? If telephone numbers are in multiple different formats, who cares? if email addresses are missing a letter, a full stop, or the correct service provider address – is that such a big deal?

The short answer is ‘yes’.

Here’s why you should care about the accuracy of your data (the long answer)

If a phone number is missing a digit when you need to chase a debtor, your accountant has to check online, or elsewhere, for the correct number. Sure, only a 60 second job. That’s unless the same record has a missing letter in the company name, or part of that name is incorrectly spelled, or maybe the branch address is listed instead of the head office. Okay so now it’s a couple of minutes to sort out. All good. But then again at the rates accountants charge, aren’t you paying over the odds for data cleansing when they do it five times a day?

Or perhaps you think it’s sustainable at that level. But if you looked at every minute your accountant, sales team, marketing team etc. spends each day researching the right contact name, number, job role, phone number, mobile number, DDI, email address, street address, postal address and multiply that by their hourly rate over 12 months – we’re not talking peanuts (as we’re sure you don’t employ monkeys).

And it’s stealing productive time that should be going towards growing your business and making it more profitable.

Another reason why you should love your data

As a professional lead generation business, we utilise a sophisticated, intuitive cloud-based system to run your lead generation campaigns. This maximises the opportunity to generate qualified leads for your business.

We use a streamlined, cost-effective and efficient call making and recording process. We can’t do that off a spreadsheet which has been printed out or has to be kept open on their screens. That’s just downright nasty and cumbersome (and old-fashioned).

Why does this matter? We aim to deliver accuracy, clarity, and brevity in all our reporting, and minimise the time spent in project management and set up. We can’t do this if we are diverting time to repairing unloved and neglected data.

The dirty data list of shame

Lead generation is our business, so we see a lot of data. And sadly, we spend a disproportionate amount of our time correcting that data before we can get on with contacting with your prospects.

Here are some of the issues we most frequently encounter:

  • Incorrectly or inconsistently formatted phone numbers – e.g. – 091234567, 6491234567, +64091234567, +6491234567 and more.
  • Mobile numbers added to the Main Phone field, or vice versa.
  • Multiple phone numbers added in one field.
  • Email addresses in the incorrect field.
  • Incorrectly spelled first and/or last names resulting in incorrectly addressed emails.
  • Inconsistent naming conventions for company names – e.g. ABC Company LTD, A.B.C Company LTD, ABC Limited, and other variations. This often results in duplicate records or multiple calls being placed to the same company unnecessarily – and annoyed prospects.
  • Various business address details, especially in data systems running NZ formats versus US formats. Most CRM, ERP and SAP systems use the US format for addresses.

Who you gonna call?

So, what’s the fastest way to verify address details and update the correct contacts? Picking up the phone is always the quickest option – but your team don’t have time for that, it is Christmas rush after all!

That’s where our Dirty Data Hit Squad comes in. Let us start the big clean up now, so you and your team can start the New Year with clean, green data.

Imagine:

  • Your sales team will have the latest decision maker details for renewing contracts or upselling.
  • Your accountant will have a clear contact to deal with, potentially minimising slow payers.
  • Your marketing team will get minimal to no email bounces.
  • And as the business owner, you’ll have clean, current data so you can hit 2019 hard!

Give me a call. Send me an email. Let’s talk.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

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Unplug the potential of your prospect list with care!

,
I know. It seems a bit odd for me to be warning you about getting the most out of your prospect list, especially as that’s what I’m always telling you to do!

However, that’s exactly the problem one of our clients recently had after engaging us to generate leads for their sales team. Keen to increase membership numbers, but lacking the internal resources to run a telemarketing campaign, Master Plumbers asked us to work through their contact list to identify hot prospects.

So, we did. Except we did the job a bit too well – if there can be such an outcome!

Overachieved and over-committed!

It was a hugely successful campaign. Of the 1033 calls we made, we talked to 400 decision makers and made 125 prequalified sales appointments. The only issue was that we generated so many meetings that the (very happy) Master Plumbers sales team had to reschedule some of them just to keep up with demand!

That’s what happens when you have a good list, the right message and offer, and a professional approach. Having too many sales appointments is a greatproblem to have, but we all know that following through in a timely fashion is critical to the end success of any campaign.

The uptake test

If you’re unsure about what volume of leads to expect or feeling under-prepared for a heavy uptake of the offer you’re asking us to promote, then we recommend you consider either a trial run or a staggered approach to your campaign.

Undertaking a trial campaign to a sample of your contact list will give you a good indication of how many prospects we can generate for you – and how much activity you need to allow for at your end to follow through. And it also gives you the opportunity to tweak (a technical term) your offer and potentially improve overall results.

Alternatively, a staggered or drip-feed approach divides the campaign into manageable stages. This strategy gives your sales team time to draw breath, regroup and refocus before we drop more leads in your lap. It also ensures that you don’t drop the ball, or have to perform triage on the prospect list and potentially miss opportunities that just need a little nudge to turn from warm to hot.

Tap into great results

We loved working with Master Plumbers and were delighted to be behind boosting their membership numbers, even if we stretched the capacity of their sales team. Sorry – not sorry!

“It would be fair to say that we were very surprised by the level of engagement,” said Margaret Dawson, Operations Manager for Master Plumbers, “and probably a bit under-prepared for it!”

If you’d like to read more about the Master Plumbers campaign, then check out the case study.

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