S2L Blog

Speak Out of the Box!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:45:00 GMT

Speak2Leads is proud to announce that we are now live in the UK, Brazil, and Malta. If you are expanding your business to these areas, contact us and we can help you set up Speak2Leads for your reps. Don't let your hard earned leads go to waste. Make sure your reps in every country are following up at the peak point of receptivity for those leads.

Our enterprise level text-to-speech IVR systems currently speak Portuguese, American English, and British English. Real time reporting allows you manage your teams remotely. And the best part? Installation is as simple as it is here in the states. If you are interested in setting up in a country or language not listed here, contact us! We can help.

*Note: International rates do apply.

How efficient and persistent do you have to be to optimize conversions?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:18:00 GMT

Last week, we talked about our new partner Unbounce, and the benefits of integrating our two systems to get the most out of your landing pages leads. If you missed that post, click here to catch up.

This week, lets talk about what happens after a lead submits their information and how your team is handling the follow up process. Time and again we hear our clients express the same challenges. "We are getting leads but response time is delayed. Leads just sit there until someone can get to them to follow up". All too familiar? Thankfully we have technology that automates our lives, helping us work more efficiently than ever before. Here are a few simple steps you can take to make sure you are converting as many leads as possible:

1. If you already have standard S2L Lead Response set up, you are off to a great start! If you don't, sign up now. Its free for two weeks. This system turns your web form submissions into immediate phone calls to your team so you don't have to sit in front of your computer and watch your inbox for a new email. Try the demo here.

2. Make sure you have a clear process on how to assign these leads. Time spent on trying to figure out who owns which lead after it arrives is a waste. S2L has the capability to intelligently route leads based on office location, skill set, nature of inquiry or any other data point that makes sense for your business.

3. Create the path of least resistance and get creative with call delivery. You want to make sure each call is getting to an available rep as fast as possible. You have call delivery options to choose from:

Simultaneous ringing

Step Ringing

Round Robin

Or, use your own PBX system that knows which representative is "available".

4. Automate after hour leads and reattempts. We know that a contact rate of 100% on your first try is not likely. This is where persistence is key. 72% of leads are reached by the second call…48% of leads never get a second call. Automate this process so you don't have to give it a second thought.

If you have questions on how to set this up or get started, drop us an email. We are happy to help!

Integrate Speak2Leads with your Unbounce Landing Page

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:52:00 GMT

We're very excited about our partnership with Unbounce! If you are looking for a simple, easy to use landing page platform, check them out. Unbounce is a self-serve hosted service that provides marketers doing paid search, banner ads, email or social media marketing the easiest way to create, publish and test promote specific landing pages without the need for IT or developers. What makes this partnership really great is that it seamlessly integrates with our Lead Response platform.

By using the two services together, online marketers benefit from optimized promotion-specific landing pages that yield more Internet leads and the ability to instantly reach those incoming leads on the phone, helping close more sales by connecting companies with their prospects before the competition.

Benefits of using Unbounce

Higher Conversions: By sending traffic to a promotion specific landing page your marketing campaigns will benefit from increased performance.
Build Landing Pages With No HTML Knowledge: Unbounce comes with ready made best practice landing page templates.
No More IT Requests & Bottlenecks: With the Unbounce visual landing page editor you can make the changes yourself and re-publish with a simple click. Empower your marketing team to have complete control.
Real-Time Metrics: The stats engine is simple to understand and communicates in marketing terms (conversions).
Reduced Time to Market: It's possible to create and publish a live landing page in under 1 hour!

Benefits of using Speak2Leads

Speak to More Prospects: By responding to your inquiries within seconds you will speak to more leads
Be the First to Speak to Your Leads: Studies show that 78% of people who buy, do so from the first company to call them back.
Automate Your Persistence: Not all leads are reached on the first attempt no matter how fast you are. S2L automates your reattempts so every lead gets worked right for optimum connectivity and conversion.
Get Visible Lead Response Data: The response and outcome of every lead is tracked by source and by rep in real time on an easy to read dashboard.
Custom Lead Distribution: Whether you track you leads with Post-Its® or a fancy CRM we can automate the call routing and distribution of your leads according to your business rules.
Integration is Easy: Unbounce integration is automatic. You are just a few clicks away from getting your leads by phone.
S2L Works with all Lead Sources: If you purchase leads, generate them organically or through SEM or any combination you can hook up to Speak2Leads with no special programming or code.

Watch the video below to get a behind the scenes view of Unbounce's platform and how to integrate with Speak2Leads in a few simple steps. If you want to give Unbounce a try, sign up for their free tiral.

Post-it® is a trademark of 3M

Introducing S2L Live Agents

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:34:00 GMT

Lets say you've got great SEO under your belt, your running killer PPC campaigns, and driving mega amounts of traffic to your site. Sweet! Mission accomplished. So whats next? When it comes to leads, generating more than you can handle is a great problem to have. Along with that problem comes the challenge of contacting and qualifying those leads as fast as possible.

So if speed is the name of the game, you don't have a second to lose. Because if you don't speak to your leads they are essentially worthless and you lose. And seconds count when it comes to response and connectivity.

But what if you don't have the resources to respond within seconds to the high volume of leads? Then you are missing the opportunity speak with prospective buyers and capitalize on the opportunity you created and the investment you made. Your team is working as hard as they can but because they can't keep up with all the leads in the queue, by the time they do get to them they are ice cold.

If your swimming in leads, congratulations! And if you need some help, let S2L handle the overflow. If you are using Speak2Leads to automatically call your reps when a lead is submitted but you don't answer the phone within a few rings we can roll it over to our live call center agents. They will contact every lead the instant it is received, and engage the lead on your behalf. Or if you are doing it the old fashioned way and manually calling the leads that pop up in your CRM or lead management system, you can assign them to our agents. Either way, we can set appointments for you, pre-qualify them, or whatever you need to us to do to move them down the funnel.

Competition is tough and time is money. Don't waste precious leads because you can't get to them fast enough. We invite you to send us an email or call us at 619-770-1993 Ext 102 to find out if S2L Live Agents is a good fit for your business.

Introducing Lead Revival

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:23:00 GMT

Its always refreshing to start a new year and continue to bring you even more ways to connect with your prospective customers. Do you have an old database of leads just sitting there, collecting dust? Our new Lead Revival Service allows you to tap into those dead leads and bring them back to life.

Statistically, we know that at least 2-3% of any existing databases has the potential for conversion. Our Lead Revival Service sends a call out to your entire database with a custom message of your choice and invites the prospective customer to speak with one of your representatives. As soon as they opt in, they are connected with your representative and your team can take it from there.

Interested in learning more? Send us an email and someone from our team will give you all the information you need.

Happy New Year!

We're In With the Cloud Crowd

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:11:00 GMT

Have you noticed the term "In the cloud" popping up everywhere lately?

Cloud computing has been a definition in search of a term, you could say.

At a conference back in 2006, Eric Schmidt of Google described their approach to software as a service (SaaS) as "cloud computing". Although he didn't invent the term, his statement, coupled with Amazon's inclusion of the word "cloud" in its EC2 launch a few weeks later, instantly made the term mainstream.

People still could not define "in the cloud" exactly, but they had a rough idea that it meant delivering "Software as a Service (SaaS)" over the internet through your browser like Gmail, Salesforce, and Amazon. This eliminates the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computers.

Running applications "in the cloud", gives users better mobility, productivity, and access to the data they need anytime, anywhere and with infinite scalability and no capital expenditures for hardware and hosting, maintenance, etc. This is also why Gartner predicts that by 2012, 20% of businesses will own no IT assets.

And yes, S2L by Phone is "in the cloud."

What You Need To Know About Internet Leads

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:32:00 GMT

- The Leads you purchase are worthless…unless you speak to them
- 74% of leads that convert will do so with the first business to call them back
- The odds of contacting a lead increases 100 X if attempted in 5 minutes or less
- 72% of leads are reached after 2 calls… 48% of leads never receive a 2nd call

You can solve all of these problems with one simple solution:
S2L by Phone™

Are Your Windows Broken?

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:48:00 GMT

Several years ago, a landmark criminology study explored the impact that a few broken windows make in a neighborhood. On the surface, one broken window may seem insignificant. But to criminals, a broken window is a signal that the building's owner doesn't care, or worse, isn't paying attention to the condition of the neighborhood. The study showed that in the presence of a few broken windows, vandals started breaking more windows, leaving graffiti on the building walls, and throwing trash around the entrances. That in turn lead to more serious crimes like theft and violent crimes. The remedy? Repair that first broken window, and do it quickly.

The "broken window theory" can and should be applied to your business. What are the broken windows in your business? Allowing something as innocent as the lightbulbs to go out in your business sends a message to your customers that you don't care about the details. This will open the door to a flood of negative perceptions.*

Not responding to your online leads with the same urgency as your other leads is another broken window. If you are waiting one hour, one day, or even several days to respond to an online inquiry, you are signaling that you do not care about their business. Take a look at our suite of Lead Response tools and learn how to fix the broken windows in your business' lead response scheme.

*For further reading, take a look at Michael Levine's book on the subject.

7 Ways You Can Fix Your Website Forms to Get More Leads

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:43:00 GMT

In a recent contribution to MarketingProfs, Bob DeStefano, online marketing strategist and speaker offered some simple and effective tips to make your forms perform better:

Put a call to action on every webpage. Do not rely on using navigation links to direct prospects to your Contact page.

Tailor offers to all of your prospects. Only 10% of your visitors are thinking about buying or taking action now. The other 90% are kicking tires. Offer something that matches their stage in the buying cycle.

Use a simple and clean webpage design for your form.

Remove all unnecessary fields in your form. Typically the more fields in your form, the lower your conversions. Put just enough fields to enable the sales team to start a sales conversation.

Get Creative with your form field labels. Offer your lead generation form in the narrative format. Try presenting input fields as blanks within sentences.

Fix your buttons. Label your buttons so they reflect the action the prospect wants to take: Get Started, Request a Quote, Please Contact Me, etc.. Avoid using Submit.

Don't rely exclusively on forms. Offer a trackable phone number on every webpage and offer online chat as another alternative to connect.

Combine these simple improvements to your form with S2L by Phone and you will enjoy significant increases in your lead conversions. For more information on lead response, contact us today.

A Lead is Not a Lead Until Spoken To

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:42:00 GMT

As the economy continues to limp along on its road to recovery, the fact is, business remains slow. That means it's more critical than ever that you are getting the best possible return on the investments you are making with your business.

Leads are critical, but expensive. Don't waste your hard-earned money purchasing leads that you are not going to contact. Instead, consider funneling some of the money used to buy leads into how you are responding to those leads. A lead is only as good as your ability to reach them. Unless you are reaching your leads and reaching them before the competition, you won't see an increase in your connectivity or conversion rates.

It is now an established fact that Internet lead response is a critical factor that drives lead conversion. S2L International, Inc., developed S2L by Phone in response to the increasing demand for a quick and persistent response to Internet lead inquiries that originate as a form fill. Make sure you are speaking to your leads and you will see your business grow.

S2L by Phone Is Not Click to Call

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:39:00 GMT

S2L by Phone is often confused with Click to Call technology (CTC), which has been around for several years. Like S2L by Phone, CTC is used most often to convert web-based traffic into direct telephone communication between an end user and the business. The key point of difference is CTC is initiated by the end user to request a call back from the business and S2L by Phone is not.

S2L by Phone automatically initiates a call to the business as a result of an online inquiry form being filled out and submitted. When the business receives the call, the business is then provided with the name and nature of the inquiry and prompted to press 1 to initiate an outgoing call to the lead.

When set up properly, the speed from form inquiry to contact should only take 15- 30 seconds. This results in increased connectivity and conversion rates, which translates into a better return on investment for your Internet lead spend.

S2L by Phone is just one of several products available in our suite of lead response management tools.

Squeezing More Out of Your Internet Leads

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:37:00 GMT

f you want to extract more sales out of your lead flow there is only one variable you can change to make a serious difference - the percentage of leads you actually speak to.

Regardless of the number of leads you purchase or generate, your closing rate is going to be pretty consistent each month. But one thing is certain; if you can't speak to your leads you can't close them.

The two factors that enable you to speak to more leads are:

1. "Speed to lead" which is the time it takes you to connect by phone with the lead from the moment they hit submit. Keep it under 2 minutes or better for maximum results.

2. Persistence of your re-attempts to connect by phone. Attempt to call them up to 6 times until you reach them. You'll reach more than 70% of you leads with just two attempts.

You can now automate both of these efforts with S2L by Phone; giving you a simple and easy way to get the most out of every lead.

Plug your numbers in to our new ROI Calculator and watch what happens when you increase the percentage of leads you speak to.

LeadsCon 2010 Study

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:35:00 GMT

At last week's LeadsCon East show in New York, Insidesales.com did a ResponseAudit on the 57 vendors exhibiting at the show. The LeadsCon 2010 Study is particularly unique because it focuses on vendors who actually sell leads, lead management tools, CRM, lead scrubbing services, etc., and not to mention - immediate and persistent response solutions and services. Here is what they found...

About a month prior to the conference, InsideSales.com submitted fictitious leads at each of the company's websites with working phone numbers and email addresses to see how fast they would respond to leads on their own site.

63.2% never responded.

The fastest was Speak2Leads at 4 minutes 23 seconds - we also made 9 different attempts before giving up. The average vendor who did respond sent 2 emails and made 2 phone calls. The average response time was 56 hours, 5 minutes, and 26 seconds.

As these companies represent the lead generation industry, the results are pretty shocking. "Companies are spending a major portion of their marketing budget on leads, only to let them sit two days and make just two calls before their sales reps give up," said Ken Krogue, President of InsideSales.com. He continued, "Lead Response is the next frontier of lead management and marketing. Companies who respond immediately and persistently to their leads get much greater results." Learn more...

LeadsCon East Update

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:33:00 GMT

We hope you’re enjoying your time here at LeadsCon East in New York.

CEO and founder of S2L, Sammy James, will be the moderator for a panel session today. The panel session “Man vs. Machine” will be on today at 10:45 AM and will include an impressive group of speakers including the CEO of Ifbyphone, Irv Shapiro, and the President of InsideSales.com, Kenneth Krogue.

S2L will also be exhibiting at the show. If you would like to set up a time to connect, please let us know your availability. Or feel free to drop by our booth - #T-10. We will be providing live demos, service updates, and information on how to get the most out of the our tools and services.

Not attending LeadsCon East? We will be keeping our eyes and ears open for the latest in lead generation opportunities. And we'll be sharing our insights on the S2L Blog and live on Twitter.

Introducing S2L by Phone 2.0

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:30:00 GMT

We are proud to announce the release of S2L by Phone 2.0™, which continues to emphasize ease of use with simple installation and capabilities typically only available in more costly systems including text-to-speech, intelligent call routing, and real-time reporting.

S2L by Phone 2.0™ also offers breakthrough technology by fully integrating S2L Lead Valet™ which “parks” and manages automated re-attempts to contact hot Internet leads. The result is increased connection rates with more leads converted into actual sales. S2L Lead Valet™ is a simple, effective alternative to dialers that are often complex to set up, require special training, and force users to be tied to their computer.

Other Major Benefits of S2L by Phone 2.0™ include:

Increased Reporting and Analysis - Track all activity and detailed connection times from when the call is answered by the prospect. Robust reporting and analysis of call behavior by individual representative and by lead source.

High Availability and Scalability - Capacity for high call volume and management of concurrent calls with easy installation for both large enterprise customers and partners.

Flexibility To Add New Features Quickly - Take advantage of new features like S2L Lead Valet™ as well as upcoming features that increase lead connection, user adoption, and sales management visibility.

Compatible with Enterprise Applications - Instant integration with industry-standard and proprietary CRM applications, lead management systems, and call center technology.