Inbound & Digital Marketing Blog

How To Get Your Marketing To Reach Out For Prospects

May 19, 2015, Clarke Bishop

Most business people know that buying behavior has changed. Buyers don’t answer their phones and don’t respond to advertising.

How_To_Get_Your_Marketing_To_Reach_Out_To_Prospects

Wouldn’t it be nice if your marketing went out and found prospects for you? No searching Google, no worrying about the latest SEO rules, just more leads!

I’m going to show you how this result is possible, and I’ll show you exactly what to do!

Social Publishing

If … It’s a big if. If your prospects gather around social watering holes, social publishing is an excellent way to engage.

Later, I’ll show you an even better way to make your marketing reach out for prospects. Social publishing, though, can be an easy way to find buyers if they are already collected in groups.

People do gather in specific parts of the social landscape. LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, and online forums can all be excellent places to find prospects. All you have to do is:

  • Find a relevant group.

  • Join the group.

  • Be helpful and collaborative. No Selling.

  • Offer valuable content.

The big mistake is to join a group and start selling. “Hi, I’ve just joined the group. Wanna buy my stuff?” Big problem. Don’t do it. You’ll get thrown out of the group, or worse, tarnish your reputation.

Instead, focus on the people and relationships you can create. Look for ways to be helpful and offer value. Then, make your company’s marketing content available to people in the group. As long as it’s valuable and on-target, prospects will see you and your content as a contribution.

Targeted Outreach

People in online groups are usually curious, interested, and engaged. But many have no budget and are unqualified prospects.  No budget means no sale.

And what if your targets are busy people like CEOs? Are they hanging out on social sites waiting to hear from you, or do they have their heads down working on the business?

I told you there’s an even better way to make your marketing connect with prospects, and here it is—Targeted Outreach.

It used to be that it was hard to find your exact target prospect. That was before 1.5 billion people joined Facebook and 350 million business people joined LinkedIn. Now there is rich data available on the majority of prospects. You just have to know how to efficiently find your prospects and approach them.

Here’s the process we use:

  1. Clarity - Know exactly what’s remarkable about your products and exactly which buyers will receive full value—this understanding is essential. If you don’t have this, you need to step back and nail your strategy. 

  2. Precise Prospect Profile - This is our tool to know all about your ideal customer. It goes far beyond the personas that many inbound agencies recommend, and get’s to real insights about what separates actual buyers from the merely curious.

  3. Targeted List Building From the Precise prospect Profile - You know your ideal customer. Start compiling lists of great prospects. Inputs can include LinkedIn, trade show lists, past customer lists, and purchased lists—any source is fair game. But, these are just names. Filter the names through the Precise Prospect Profile to ensure a focus on only the best prospects. 

    Precise Prospect Profile Kit

  4. Buyer-focused Content - If you already have buyer-focused marketing content, great. Otherwise, find the gaps and create appropriate new materials.

  5. Content Outreach - Send personalized messages to your quality prospects and offer useful content. The objective is to see who responds—They are the likely buyers. 

    Use LinkedIn or Facebook messages, InMail, email, even phone calls—whatever works to reach your prospects. 

  6. Micro-Rapport - Each interaction with a prospect adds rapport. When it’s time to buy, contacts already know and like your company. You just have to move in for the close.

Inbound Out Marketing

Inbound Out Marketing is Inbound Marketing + Targeted Outreach.

I still recommend that you blog, create useful content offers, have a high-conversion website, and structure your marketing around the prospect’s buying process. That’s traditional Inbound Marketing.

Now, though, you see how you can multiply your content by adding Outreach. Whether through Social Publishing or Targeted Outreach, you have a short cut. You don’t have to wait for prospects to search for your solutions. You can be on their short list before they even know they have a need. Now, that’s demand generation!

Takeaways

  • Buyer behavior has changed and it's essential that you adapt.

  • If your prospects are searching for you on Google or gathering on social sites, use Inbound Marketing to engage them.

  • To get better and faster results from your digital marketing, add Targeted Outreach to directly engage your high-quality prospects.

Topics: Lead Generation, Inbound Marketing