Getting Prospects for Your Campaigns

I am not writing this for the well established company. I certainly know that this is more a simplified summary of the steps to follow when building the renewal campaign. This is my justification to write this post about prospects.

One could buy/rent lists and go through it in-house to divide them into the 3 categories mentioned in the previous entry. This is not my favourite way of getting prospects details, for one simple reason: these contacts never showed an active interest in your product.

My second favourite approach is to collect my own prospects directly. New technologies are facilitating this approach more and more, not just with the Internet, but also with online social and professional networks. Of course, these supports are only as good as the information you put on them, our efforts can be dismissed with just a click.

And my very first preferred way of capturing prospects is the old fashion face-to-face way: attending conferences and visiting professional exhibitions and events. These are great places to talk to people, exchange business cards and use the event as the perfect excuse to send them an email and/or letter with more information about what I do.

Bear these words in mind because my next post will be about building the campaigns and you will see how I always send communications based on what action I want my audience to make.

The Campaign - First Steps

I know I am stating the obvious here, but sometimes that’s the best place to start. And when it comes to marketing the two more important things to start with are: a product/service and a list of prospects.
Let’s start with the product/service. How well do you know it? It is important, very important, that you know it inside out. If you don’t, find out who does and learn everything about it. Especially who is the intended end user and use that information to build a comprehensive Profile of the Perfect Customer for that product/service.
Now we are ready to move to prospects. Once the profile of the end user has been completed, look at your list of prospects and divide them into three categories based on how well they fit the profile of the ideal customer. Taylor three different campaigns for each group.

• Group 1 - The ideal customer. They need as much specific information as possible because the product/service is perfect for them, and the more information or samples is sent to them the quicker they will respond to the campaign. This group also needs fewer incentive - price, additional services, etc - because the product itself is all they need.
• Group 2 - Too much information may put them off of the service at this stage. It could make them feel it is too much for them. Focus only in the areas that meet their needs based on the parameters used when profiling them. Some incentive may help to bring the response sooner.
• Group 3 - Their need for the service/product is too low. A few of them may convert into customers but this will depend on their curiosity, budget, interest in the incentive. In some cases it will not be cost effective to target this group because the ROI is too low.

(There, I have thrown in the first acronym. I think that means I should leave it here for today).

INTRODUCTION

Email, Direct, digital marketing, ads on different supports...all have a common purpose: promote a product or service to a specific group to make them feel the need to buy it now that they have all the information about it.

The concept is simple, and so are the basic rules to follow:

•         Compile a list of prospects
•         Design and write the message that best describes your product/service
•         Send it and wait for the orders and enquiries to fall on your lap

Well, it is not quite as simple as that.

I have been lucky enough to work on Subscriptions Marketing for over 7 years in a very good B2B company and over that time I have worked with very good people and have also developed campaigns, templates and procedural schedules from scratch.

I can also boast of having learned everything I know by doing. I have no degree or diploma in Marketing. I do hold a degree in Journalism though which, with all due respect to marketing experts, it is just as relevant: we all want to engage with our audience.

I could add gravitas to my words by name dropping the companies I have worked for, but that would look a bit pompous, still if you are really curious, check my LinkedIn profile.

Working with capable people is a very good way to learn, but if you don’t have that option because your company doesn’t have the resources to get a top guru, you can still take advantage of the experience of people like me. There are many of us in Cyberspace, happy to share our experiences with you all. I will list the links to some of them later on.