In marketing, you often hear about how important it is to stay in touch with the people already in your pipeline. If you are familiar with the Pareto Principle, you know that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers, and that principle is meant to point out that nurturing your best customers is the most efficient way to be profitable. So, is there ever a place for cold outreach in your marketing plan?
I am also a big believer in how critical it is to build stronger connections with the relationships that are already strong. However, I have utilized cold outreach strategies on many occasions for both my own business and my client’s businesses.
What types of scenarios might warrant a cold outreach strategy?
First, if you are launching your business, you likely don’t have a list of existing leads to nurture. You have to start somewhere. Think about who your target markets are and which ones you could proactively research. This is especially viable if you are trying to reach a B2B (business to business) market – either as your intended target market or as potential cross-marketing partners.
Think about who your target markets are and which ones you could proactively research. #marketing #business #biztips #smallbusiness #smb #smallbiz
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Second, if you have been in business for a while, but you are about to launch a new product, service, or event, you may find that this new offering would be perfect for a specific niche. Once again, think about who would be perfect for your new offering and ask yourself if there is a way for you to take the initiative and start building an outreach list that would be appropriate for this launch.
When I talk about a cold outreach strategy, list building is the first step and one that you might want to spend some time to do. Since cold outreach doesn’t necessarily yield a high percentage of offer acceptance, you may need a sizeable list, and that takes time to create. If your pitch is going to be for the new contacts to buy something, it will have a much lower percentage of landing – sometimes 1% or less. If what you are pitching is partnership, and you do it right, the rate of acceptance could be much higher. I have seen as much as 30-40%. You will need enough volume on your list to account for likely percentages such as this.
Yet, the list is only part of the plan. What you do once you have built your list is an equal consideration in the process. For example, do you plan to do an email sequence of a few or more emails? Do you plan to try mailers? Texts? Are you going to do a combination of these methods to try to get attention multiple ways? Maybe what you want is to build a steadier, more long-term approach such as contacting them once per quarter.
A good campaign doesn’t involve sitting down and asking yourself what you should say to your contacts today. #marketing #smallbusiness #smallbiz #biztips #business
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When you know your frequency, think about the messages you can send that will build over time and match the amount of outreach you plan to do. This is something you should map out beforehand. A good campaign doesn’t involve sitting down and asking yourself what you should say to your contacts today. It is thought out in advance so that the messaging integrates. Each message should make sense in the context of your sequence, whether it is putting out new information or reminding people of old information you sent. Read here for common mistakes to avoid when you are doing cold outreach.
When you do something new in your business, chances are that there is a new audience that could be a good match for it. Moments like this are a great opportunity to start outreach to new contacts, even if that means it will be cold outreach.
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