Everyone is familiar with Google, but are you familiar with Google Alerts? If you’re not, you’re missing out on a really easy way to have customer engagement and selling opportunities delivered right to your e-mail or RSS reader.
What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Here is how to easily set a Google Alert up for your accounts or prospective accounts.
1.) Go to the Google Alerts web page.
2.) Go to the create a Google Alert box at the right of the web page & enter the account name you want, select comprehensive, and delivered to feed. If you prefer to have the Google Alert delivered by e-mail I would select once a day, or once a week for delivery. Otherwise, your inbox will get bombarded with e-mails all day.
3.) Now Google will automatically deliver news stories, blog posts and other potentially relevant useful pieces of information about your customer directly to you. You can use this information to stay up to date and aware of potential selling opportunities.
Now go set up some Google Alerts and let the power of the web help you to sell more!
And make sure to subscribe to the New Sales Economy blog for all the latest Sales 2.0 & Social Media tips to help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. You can also connect with me on Twitter @ChadALevitt.
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Chad:
How would you suggest an opporturnity to look for clients looking to have their property taxes lowered. Are they key words to use? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks Sandy
This is a good tip; another common sense trick that I don’t think a lot of people use. I also think any decent SaaS sales 2.0 system should incorporate this type of functionality into their platform. For instance, at SalesFuel they use “Trigger Events” which are essentially the same thing as Google alerts – but more specific; and they delve even deeper into current happenings and events within companies. You can cater them for your specific needs/industries, create custom events, and they are delivered to your mailbox and accessible through the CRM system.
Bottom line…very helpful either way. You get a tidbit of real-time knowledge that gives you that edge.
@Sandy- Since you’re my mother, you will get a personal phone call from me to answer your question. And yes, there are always ways to be creative and find more clients for whatever your target market is, whether it’s through blogs, social media, keywords, video, etc. Thanks for your comment!
@Mike- Turning the information on the web into actionable information that sales reps can use is an evolving science. Insideview, a great Sales 2.0 company has developed some really cool technology that does just that — they coined the term “socialprise” to encompass this developing trend. Seems to be similar to what you mention at SalesFuel. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Chad,
I just happened upon this article again. I agree it’s an evolving science as you put it; there is no clear cut route to follow when it comes to sales 2.0 methods. I do think the notion of using Google alerts is a good one though. It’s a simplified way to leverage information that third party software like insideview and salesfuel use.
As Sandra mentioned above, she wanted to target certain keywords or industries. SalesFuel allows you to do exactly that. So for example, she could set up a profile that targets niche areas within the mortgage industry, and attach keywords to the profile, which would return a very specific set of results.
So using alerts is a good first step, but I find that they are terribly hard to drill down, and hone in on certain bits of information. Also, keeping the information you find organized and sorted can be a challenge. That’s where the CRM system comes into play…
Take it easy.
Google Alerts can deliver a lot of qualified sales leads, but you have to use some specialized search terms to get the best results. Since your mother wants to know about real estate related alerts, I thought she might find this post about a public Google Alerts account for a real estate company useful. It shows how you can get alerts that work well in drip marketing campaigns. You can set up alerts to find useful local stories that you can send out as FYI emails to sales leads. This makes you into a valuable source of local real estate issues, which is part of serving your clients.