Dear Tig: Forward-to-a-friend Resources, Pushy Reps and Rude Buyers
by Tig Tillinghast
** Tig's weekly column fields questions from and for marketers. **
Dear Tig,
We are interested in adding a “forward this page to a friend” function to our site, but we have no idea how to start. Can you provide a resource for setting this up?
Thank you, Lone Star Marketer
Dear Lone Star,
Adding this function can be a great idea. After search engines and links from other pages, references from friends and relatives is the third most important site traffic generator, according to eMarketer.
Many companies provide this service, often at a very low price, and sometimes even for free (so long as they can push some of their own advertising in the process). They tend to operate as a server-side application that interfaces with a small piece of HTML code that you put on the desired pages. Most are able to provide some text and graphic customization and basic reports. Some even include email list management tools.
Refer-a-buddy.com will set you up with a free two-week trail ($19.95 per year thereafter). This British company has been in business for a long time and provides some tracking reports, like the one pictured here.
The folks from www.tellafriends.com have several different levels of service, ranging from about $30 to $40 per year.
Finally, the innovative people at www.sitepromotools.com give you a choice of paying $49.95 for the year or paying nothing at all with the inclusion of some ads that would be shown to all the people receiving the referrals.
When investigating your options, be sure to look very carefully at the privacy policies. The most important question remains who gets granted access to the email lists created by these applications.
If they don't explicitly define this, suspect the worst.
Dear Tig,
I have a hard time saying no, and reps take advantage of it. I grew up in the Midwest, where we were taught to always be polite. The reps are so pushy that being polite means saying yes to multiple sales meetings, dragging out the process.
I can handle the buying decisions. That's not the issue. I just don't like being turned into a jerk by having to refuse these too-frequent requests.
Signed, Easy in L.A.
Dear Easy,
This isn't your problem. Remember those telephone marketers that prey on your politeness? They'll call you up asking a couple simple questions to get you in the mode of conversation, but then they don't let you get a word in until you've heard their pitch. This is what some reps do, and you need to be prepared to deal with them appropriately.
Having had a lot of buyers work for me over the years, I know this issue well. Oddly, it's precisely these very new and very nice buyers who can sometimes crack, sometimes overcompensating with unprofessional behavior. They need to learn early on that saying no is a professional requirement and one they will need to stay sane as well.
Remember that reps making obnoxious requests, pestering or becoming too pushy bring upon themselves the response. They are the cause, and you are merely the vehicle for the effect.
Dear Tig,
I can't get agency people to return my calls. I think it's stunning how rude these people are, and I work for a very large publisher. It's difficult to pretend to enjoy meeting with them when I feel like I get insulted every time I call for a follow-up. How can I get better response?
Yours, Lonely in Canada
Dear Lonely,
Have you met my last letter writer, Easy in LA? No, I'm just kidding. I think a relationship between you two would implode into a mixture of insincere codependence.
Sometimes buyers can indeed be rude. After getting inundated by rep calls--especially at the end of quota quarters--a buyer begins to wonder just how useful is answering the phone.
The diligent become cynical. The cynical become jaded. The jaded don't return your phone calls.
Even the jaded, however, return the calls from reps that call only when they have something worthwhile to discuss. The reps that call with deals, new research, exclusive opportunities, etc., get their calls returned. The reps that call only because the two-week tickler file popped up that morning get deservedly ignored.
Whatever you do, don't take it as a personal affront. If you added up all the time that reps demanded of the average buyer, it would constitute several lifetimes. Some people need to be ignored. That it's you is a professional issue, not a personal one.
