Finding and Nurturing Prospects
Automation saves time, but personalization builds trust. This is one of the most difficult questions you’ll ever have to answer, and your answers will shift with time. We’ve all talked to robots without realizing it haven’t we? How did you feel when you realized it? How do you think your customers feel with the “usual” answers? Your brand has personality – so expose that personality! Your company has a culture, so expose that culture!
Best Practices for a Balanced Lead-Gen Approach:
- Segment email lists to ensure personalized messaging. Sending out mass emails is a quick road to obsolescence. The minute the target “feels” you are not talking to him or her personally, the faster the drop rate. We are not suggesting you can’t use mass emails; for example, I send out to 101 clients once per month with thoughts on the market that applies to most everyone on my list. Over time, they get accustomed to these touches, and over time, some respond.
I’m positive most don’t read them. But I don’t send them for everyone to read. I send them to let people know I am thinking of them, which I am all the time! Occasionally, I’ll get a response back like this: “Great article! A bit long, but all useful and thought provoking. Thanks for keeping me abreast of this perspective. I am continually applying the input to how we do business.” And that from a Chairman of a major bank we do business with – but is not a client! How much is that impression worth? It will NEVER show up in an ROI spreadsheet, but I assure you, being in his thoughts sometime in the future, he will recommend us if the need arises to one of his customers! So the answer is, priceless! We do business with people we like, don’t we?
- Use AI-driven CRM tools to track customer interactions and suggest tailor responses. Sometimes too much is made of CRM. Remember: people don’t want to buy anything: as Bob Stone said, people buy things for only two reasons: to protect what they have, or to gain something. “Understand that and you’re on your way to overcoming human inertia,” Stone said.
He was right. So any CRM is just worth the time of day: some information helps you make “strategic” decisions, but most information is just nice to know! The question is, how much time do you have for the nice to know versus the need to know? That’s always the question, so technology that will help you “adjust” your time commitments always helps.
We use a CRM tool not for CRM, but for its reverse IP lookup information – not personal contact information. It helps us track the visitor’s journey on our websites and our client’s websites. In B2B Never Sleeps, I outlined that journey – so important in finding and hitting the right targets. So we actually bend the software to our needs, not bend to its needs. And that makes all the difference!
- Automate follow-ups, but add a human touch (e.g., personal video messages). People now recognize automated responses – and send them right to the trash. That’s why automation is really dangerous: you want to respond quickly, but at the same time, not robotically. Our recommendation is to use “common sense” to your response strategy. Balance automation (like an immediate email) with a follow up phone call from a human!
Keep reading our series on How to Target and Hit the Right Customers: Deep Dive Insights.