As you read this, someone, somewhere is being stumped by the lyrics of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” I know I can’t recite them all without a little help. And that’s ok, because today I gift to thee a more profitable list of 12. If you can remember this list and put it to work correctly in your business, the gifts (profits) will be plentiful!
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- A HIGHLY TARGETED LIST. Without a doubt, the list is the single most important element of any campaign. It should direct not only the communication (what it says) but also the media used, the offer made, the copy and follow-up. Most do not spend sufficient time building, cleaning and organizing their lists, which is why they waste so much time and money on failed marketing attempts.
- AN ATTENTION-GETTING HEADLINE. The headline is one of the single most important elements of your campaign because its job is to “sell the ad” and grab your prospect’s attention and cause them to want to read and pay attention. To work, it must telegraph the big idea, news or a big promise, arousing curiosity and aligning with the thoughts and feelings of your ideal prospect.
- A REALLY COMPELLING OFFER. What could you offer that is so attention-getting and curiosity-arousing, so valuable, so interesting, that your prospect would immediately click, call or respond? To work, your offer has to, in some manner, benefit the prospect AND align with what you sell (giving away a free drone will get attention and response, but may not lead to selling a managed services contract).
- STRONG SALES COPY. As Zig quipped, timid salespeople have skinny kids. True dat. This trips up a LOT of people who feel uncomfortable with strong, direct sales copy designed to elicit a response by tapping on emotions, but softening the message only leads to a suppressed response.
- REASON WHY COPY. If you are offering something of value, be certain to explain why you’re targeting them. For example, we include a “lift note” in our weekly prospecting campaign to explain why we are sending the letter to THEM specifically.
- A DEADLINE OR OTHER URGENCY. An offer without a deadline or some other scarcity or urgent reason to respond NOW is not really an offer. Yes, there are times when you cannot genuinely have scarcity (like an evergreen offer on your website), but in all other campaigns, you can and should find a way to require a response by X date or offer something to the first Y who respond. Further, the deadline cannot be more than a few days away; giving until the end of the month is a surefire way to take all the punch out of a deadline.
- MULTIPLE WAYS TO RESPOND. Give a phone number, e-mail and web page for prospects to respond to your offer. Some simply won’t go online and prefer to e-mail you or call. Others will only go online and complete a web form.
- CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO RESPOND. Just like with selling, you need to instruct the prospect on what to do now. When I’m selling from a stage, I repeat, multiple times, that they should complete the form, walk to the back of the room and hand the form to one of my team members who are waiting to hand them a welcome kit/gift. In all marketing, you MUST instruct the prospect specifically what to do now.
- FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP! Ideally with multimedia sequencing of online and offline communications. If you’re not going to do this, don’t bother sending the initial correspondence.
- TRACKING AND MEASUREMENT. This INCLUDES phone calls inbound as well as web-form leads. I would also track the “shy yes” prospects (not just the “on fire” leads) who are interested, but cannot, will not buy TODAY for various reasons, to ensure you stay on top of the opportunity until the egg hatches.
- SUFFICIENT QUANTITY. Given most B2B marketing for prospects produces a .5% to 1% response rate, you have to keep in mind that sending 25 letters a week may not result in a landslide of opportunities the first week you send it. It may take two to three months of weekly prospecting before you get a true sense of the response to a campaign.
- CONSISTENCY. At this year’s Roadshow, I stressed the importance of WEEKLY prospecting so that you get in the habit of and continually improve your prospecting and list building efforts. Most occasionally prospect, stopping whenever they get busy, don’t feel like doing it, get bored and decide to try something new, etc. If you really want to build a business, you cannot let a single week go by without some type of prospecting effort.
Do you feel like you just received a gift and the user manual was in a different language? If so, we can help! Schedule a FREE one-on-one consultation today. During the call, you’ll receive another gift, our proprietary marketing roadmap customized just for you! Go to www.technologymarketingtoolkit.com/consult[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
