Always Be Marketing (Through Email)
You have to meet your prospect where they are, not where you want to find them.
Find out where your prospects already spend their time and be where they are. In the world of B2B, that means building an email (automation) strategy.
When working with sales organizations who want to leverage marketing for lead generation, we are often approached with the dilemma of unresponsive prospects. For example,they might have a sales strategy that leverages in-person meetings or phone calls to develop a personal connection with clients. The problem? Most people don't answer the phone anymore. It's very, very hard to get through on the phone today, and almost impossible as a first-touch method. And scheduling in-person meetings, while a very solid way to build relationships, doesn’t happen until the relationship is already well-established.
Business is done differently today, and while prospects will eventually warm up to your methods of personal connection, you have to reach them first.
You have to start by meeting them where they are. In the B2B world, they are probably in their inbox. And in that case, you should build a strategy to send email. Are they also on social media? Then leverage that channel to be seen and easily found so you can connect that to your email program. Do they watch YouTube for six hours a day? You can create engaging video content that will draw their interest and include that in email to build even higher engagement rates.
Find out where your prospects already spend their time and go to where they are.
Remember, they aren’t going to answer your sales inquiries until they're ready to talk to you. They aren’t ready until they are in a situation where they have a need for your product or services. But, if you are regularly found where they already spend their time, when they're ready to talk or solve that problem, they will raise their hand and find you.
What does this mean in practice? Continuous marketing is important. Many organizations, especially in a smaller business space, focus on marketing when we don't have anything to do. Then, when we get busy with sales and serving our clients, we stop marketing.
That start-and-stop is what's killing your lead potential. You have to be marketing all the time, even when you're busy. Continuous marketing is easily achieved in email with automation. Marketing automation is wonderful and powerful because your prospects will continue to receive your email, even when you're busy and you don't have a lot of time to send it.
Need help implementing an automation strategy for your marketing program? We can help you find success with our experience and expertise in Mailchimp and email marketing.
