The old prospecting model is truly dead. But, we still need prospects. So what do we do now? Social selling and Digital Marketing is the best way I know today for warming up the territory. Get the word out there with these powerful tools. After that pick up the phone and make the prospect call. Now you are prospecting with purpose vs. dialing into the wilderness. The prospect will respond.
Two years ago I began studying best practices for digital internet marketing. What an eye opener. The world has changed and the millennials, who are now making decisions, are rewriting the rules.
They know what they want before we even show up at their door. Why? Because they are always just a few clicks away from researching anything they want. Content is free.
So we need to find them, nurture them, educate them, and eventually convert them to customers on their terms, not ours. One to one marketing is way to slow and frankly never worked. You need “one to many” marketing and with the internet you can do “one to millions” every single day. But only if you do it right.
To pull this off you need three things:
- You need a modern constant email engine with a solid initial list that provides high value and knowledge to the prospect – for FREE! That’s right, you give away some of your intellectual property. The right stuff for the right person and they will “opt-in” and follow you forever and one day they will convert. And, if they like your content they will share you with their friends particularly on social media. Now you are viral and your list grows geometrically.
- You need a dynamic easily maintainable web site that tells your story as though you were sitting across the desk from them. Static web sites don’t work and they are usually packed with useless content. They are merely an on-line brochure. Like the ante at a poker game – without one, you can’t get in the game. You want your email engine to drive prospects to your web-site and the web-site does the selling for you 24/7. And, with free google analytic tools you can watch the behaviors of your prospects (landing pages and searches) and chase them down based upon their interests. So, you better be interesting!
- You need an integrated CRM that automatically captures and distributes “opt in leads” from the email engine directly to your sale force every single day. I call this “no prospect left behind.” This constantly feeds the pipeline and once you calculate your conversion rate you can get very precise with your forecasting. You will also get back the 30% of the sales reps time to move prospects to closure. For the example above, that’s like getting six free sales reps.
Where I can help is to provide a complete implementation guide, resource checklist, infrastructure, and help you identify in-sourced or outsourced marketing talent needed to fully implement this digital marketing model. And I will train the sales force to follow up immediately and seamlessly. If you nail this approach you will dominate your market and leave your competition in the dust.
Below is a summary outline to help you understand the scope of this digital marketing initiative.
BIG PICTURE # 1
A web site MUST do three things:
- Turn a stranger into a friend, and a friend into a customer.
- Communicate your story in a way that is brilliant.
- Capture, educate, convert, and sustain clients.
BIG PICTURE # 2
A web site can cause only four things to happen the moment someone sees it. And that’s if they can find you, or even want to:
- He clicks and goes where you want him to go because it’s easy for him.
- She clicks and gives you permission to follow up with her because she wants to follow you.
- She clicks and makes a specific request – like an appointment, or she may want to buy something. Or attend a seminar/webinar. Why? Because you taught her something or provided value somehow.
- He clicks and is ready to engage somehow! She tells a friend about you by clicking, or sharing through social media, or blogging, or phoning, or talking, or something. You get spread around – fast! While you sleep!
That’s it! You’re ready to make the prospect call!
