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My Team Connects

Engaging Customers and Building Community with Copywriting and Content Marketing

“Prospect” Is NOT A Bad Word!

October 16, 2013 by jennifer mcgahan 1 Comment

Lately I’ve been sensing a distaste for the words “Prospect” and “Customer” and even “Sales” by some social media folks. That’s just plain wrong.

I value the trend toward friendship, connections and genuinely liking your followers. Heck, look at the name of this website!

prospects are golden opportunities to serve!Remember, also, that you’re in business. What does a “prospector” eventually find? GOLD! Those are your customers.

You are actually doing your company a disservice if you don’t recognize the importance of serving someone who truly needs your products or services and will pay you to get them. You nurture special relationships with paying customers if you want your company to survive.

So when I say “prospect” I do mean –yes — someone whose life will be better if they open their wallet and purchase whatever it is you offer. That’s the beauty of business. I’m tired of beating around the bush about that. The people you can help — those folks are your “prospects” and it’s clearly your job to serve them.

But there’s a huge difference between serving them authentically and benefitting at their expense. Enormous. Put value into the word “Prospect;” don’t take honor away from it. Your prospects and customers are golden. They become your friends. Family, even. It’s really up to you.

Please don’t be afraid to use the terms “prospects and customers.” It’s a privilege not to be taken lightly!

Filed Under: Freelancing Tagged With: bad words in marketing, customer service, customers, golden opportunity, integrity in sales, Jen McGahan, marketing philosophy, MyTeamConnects, prospect, prospecting, prospects, sales, sales integrity, service

Warming Up A Prospect With A Cold Email

August 26, 2013 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

cold emails to warm up prospectsYou know it would be better to have an engaged subscriber — someone who opted in to your list. You even know the benefits of using an email service for your email marketing.

But the fact remains that sometimes you truly need to contact a certain demographic or even a specific individual to get the ball rolling. You have no choice because it’s part of the prospecting required to open the door for new business. You’re sending it from your personal professional email address to theirs — and it must impress them.

Sometimes you just have to send a cold email. 

First, accept that even when your recipient knows you and and expects regular emails from you, the delete key is easy to access. Bet you do it too; delete emails with barely a scan, especially when you’re busy or you’ve fallen behind cleaning out your inbox. According to the Radicadi Group, a technology research firm, business people get an average of 108 emails every day, and they tend to pile up. How do you make sure yours stands out?

The best way is to become that sender who consistently send useful and interesting emails.

The second best way to get your emails opened is to make sure the person receiving your emails is expecting them. Rule number one in deliverability and list building is a confirmed opt-in.

But there are times when you want to try reaching out to someone you’ve identified might be a good fit as a business client or a partner in a project…the only trouble is, they just don’t know it yet.

You need to send a cold email to start a relationship.

A couple of days ago I tried this — only I wasn’t asking for his business. I wanted to give the guy MY business. Here’s the story:

Last week Mr. MyTeamConnects and I bought our first rental property. As a writer to and for investors over the past decade, I am excited to finally start investing my own money in real estate. (Woo hoo! )

Now, you’d think I would know what to do with a property after all the research, webinars, seminars and phone calls about real estate investing that I’ve been exposed to. But though I know the marketing side of things, I have a steep learning curve to climb dealing with actual property. Now that I own a tangible investment, I’m searching for a property management firm to get some questions answered.

Funny how it works learning something new…in theory, it’s easy-peasy. In practice, you really feel the bumps in the road.  😯

The first firm I contacted told me they don’t manage houses like ours that have septic tanks and wells, due to liability issues. (Hmmm, first road block.) But he referred another management firm — even gave me the owner’s direct email address. Cool! I sent an email to him on his buddy’s recommendation.

To his direct email address, mind you…name spelled out and everything.

I’ll bet you can guess what happened. No response. After waiting a couple of days I went to the firm’s website and sent an inquiry through the website. It was sent to “propertymgr@…” not the man’s direct personal email that his colleague/competitor gave me.

See, the gentleman my first contact recommended was not expecting my email. So it’s probably sitting somewhere in a junk folder. The email filter did it’s job, even protecting him from someone who needs his services! I even dropped his colleague’s name in the subject line: “Your colleague Bart at Bella recommended you.” Crickets. No response. He probably never even saw it.

Now imagine how difficult it is to get a response from a cold email when its purpose is to engage a possible customer — it’s even more challenging!

Many business people, especially B2B sellers, contact prospects via a cold email. They get their list of names and address from various sources:

  • Business cards from a conference, trade show or Meet-up they attended.
  • LinkedIn contacts
  • Purchased email lists
  • Online data-gathering services like Jigsaw or ZoomInfo

Whether you have a long list of cold prospects, or you’ve selected just a few to contact, your next hurdle is creating an attention-getting email. How do you capture someone’s attention within the first few words?

Tip #1, and I can’t stress this enough: Never forget that you are not “selling” anything with a first touch. All you’re trying to do is get them to read and respond in some way.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking this first email is a one-time shot.

It’s a fantasy to believe that all you have to do is send a cold email, and someone picks up the phone and calls you. As I said before, you’re lucky if the email even lands in their inbox, let alone gets read. The type of response you’re aiming for with a cold email is more likely to be one of the following:

  1. Reading it and simply digesting the message. It’s rare that a reader will remember and follow up at some point in the future, even if you’ have left a good impression. Plan to reach out at least a couple of times, spacing your emails a couple days apart. Remind them who you are and repeat your message.
  2. Clicking on a link for more info: a white paper or web page. This is the ultimate response, because now you can ask if they would also like to receive updates, a newsletter, or a follow-up by phone or email.
  3. Deciding to add you to his contacts on a social site — following you on Twitter, checking out your Facebook page or Linked In profile. Reinforce your message or campaign by repeating it on your social sites. That way, your recipient will see a common thread, something to hang onto and remember.

If you make an impression, that’s great, but guess what? The ball is still in your court. Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to just getting that first cold email opened… 

Now that you have the proper mindset, it’s time for the real work — writing a subject line that compels action when they don’t even know who you are.

Thursday’s blog post will give you five smooth moves you can use to get their eyes to lock onto your subject line and open your email. Stay tuned!

Filed Under: Email Tagged With: business email, cold calling, cold email, contact list, email marketing, email subject lines, email tips, finding customers, Jigsaw, LinkedIn, marketing, marketing with email, prospect, prospecting, real estate investing, real estate property, sales, subject lines, Twitter, ZoomInfo

B2B Marketing’s Navel Gazing Problem

August 8, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

 

B2B Marketing Navel Gazing

 

The term B2B Marketing should be wiped from “business-speak” altogether.

 

Who ever heard of a big fat business with buildings and products and “a brand;” actually connecting with another “important business” on a meaningful level?

Businesses don’t make connections and decisions; people do! B2B Marketing Campaigns that forget this are flushing money away.

B2B marketing doesn’t seem to work very well for a lot of companies. Traditional advertising and email marketing can seem like a waste of time and money.

According to Richard Levey of Chief Marketer, “80% of the marketing and sales executives surveyed by Corporate Visions indicate their demand generation programs are ineffective, and poorly constructed sales material is a big reason why.”

So if business people even find their own ads kind of boring, how dull must they seem to their customers?

Pretty eye-opening, don’t you think?

B2B Marketing professionals can be the worst type of navel gazers! Click to tweet!

Most sales copy is all about the benefits and the value the company offers, but it does nothing to address the customer’s pain. In fact, most sales copywriters don’t even pretend to know what the pain really is! The producers of these marketing materials take the very high road and crank out words and pictures that illustrate how they can help solve this or that problem du jour. This makes them feel smart and justifies their paychcecks.

Unfortuantely many times they’re just guessing. They know their own stuff so well they think their customer wants it, even though they don’t — at least not at the moment.

Here’s a simple way to connect and dispel of that extra whiff of stand-offishness B2B marketing materials tend to have. 

When you’re are writing copy for a business to communicate with another business you need to remember that there is a person on the other end of that email, blog post, Facebook update, or tweet.

REAL PEOPLE move these businesses and make buying decisions; not abstract entities. (Of course sometimes, you need to get more than one person on board to make a sale.) A company has a culture, a product, and a space in which employees work and socialize, but the people who make decisions have a lot more than that…

They are concerned with the age-old things: “status, security, comfort, fear, convenience, money, and all the other primal preoccupations of our species throughout the centuries” [Quote from Words That Sell, Richard Bayan]

There’s no way to imagine all the possible forces acting on that influencer/ decision-maker you need to reach. Think of the unlimited possibilities, needs and concerns:

  • Leading a fired-up team through a new project
  • Thinking about a sick mother at home
  • Taking a lunch hour to deliver cupcakes to their kid’s school
  • Hitting their sales numbers this week
  • Pushing a deadline out to the farthest limit (no more wiggle room)
  • Buying a new car this week
  • Getting through the day unnoticed because they put on two different shoes that morning. (I actually heard this story from one of the most put-together business women I’ve met this year!)
  • Meeting with that department head who doesn’t see value in their recent contributions

You’ll never know unless…

You ask them. That’s it…just ask. 

You can do that, you know. In spite of your slick, glossy brochures and neatly targeted promotions and packages…you can sometimes show your humanity and simply say you ‘d like to know exactly what they’re going through.

The #1 way to know what’s really on their minds?

Forget the B2B Marketing tactics for a minute. Leave an open door and a way for your customers to voice their concerns. This small gesture goes a long way toward getting a vital champion on your side. Just opening some channels of communication will transport people from “prospect” to “friend.” (And it’s always better doing business with people you like!)

Decision makers are looking for other people to verify that your business is the real deal. Inviting people to a Facebook page or your Twitter stream (with pictures of people — not just your logo!) is a step in the right direction.

The amount of time people spend on social sites during the workday is rising, and they’re not all looking at pictures of their friends’ pets, checking Olympic updates or reading inspirational memes featuring sunsets! 

Interaction with businesses on social sites is dramatically changing the way people do business. B2B Marketing that leaves this out will fall way behind in the coming year or two. Don’t let that be you!

Your customers are real people with real concerns. To make real connections, think “person to person.” Not building to a building, product to a product, a brand to a brand. Click to tweet!

Touch the heart of the person behind the business by asking their opinion and showing the real people behind your own business.

Only when you really know who they are, will you be able to drop the phony B2B marketing stuff that isn’t working anyway.

Looking for connections that keep your company within fingertip’s reach of your ideal clients? Stay in their loop, instead of hoping they stay in yours. Click to tweet! 

Share your biggest frustration with B2B marketing..I’ll be waiting over on Facebook.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: advertising, B2B Marketing, copywriters, customer, email marketing, Facebook, marketing strategy, prospect, sales copy, sales material, social media, Twitter, Words that Sell

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