Outbound Digital Advertising and marketing Technique For Small Companies – Chilly Outreach
How can a small business target customers?
For the past few seasons we’ve looked at how a small business can attract customers Inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is the process of creating content in various formats that help attract customers. Inbound marketing is a long-term marketing strategy for small businesses and should be part of the company’s marketing plan.
There is a second type of marketing called Outbound marketing that small businesses can take advantage of. As the name suggests, this is a way to reach out to a complete stranger and tell them what your business has to offer. Your offering can be a product, a service, or even a collaboration. Since you’ve never contacted this person before and they have no idea who you are, this process is called contacting them Cold use.
The purpose of a cold outreach (like any other marketing strategy) is to identify a potential buyer, then reach them through phone calls, cold emails, or social media and guide them towards a buying decision.
Cold outreach can also be used to generate brand awareness. A dedicated cold outreach strategy for brand awareness ensures that you target specific people or companies with your brand. However, brand awareness doesn’t mean spamming strangers with your latest poster or sending them a discount offer. The goal here is to put the stranger in control of being interested in your brand. Asking them to respond to something that doesn’t require much effort is a good place to start. Cold exposure followed by brand awareness has a better effect on the person.
Let’s take an example. You get an email or call from a company you’ve never heard of, and you get another email or call from a brand you know. Which answer are you more likely to react to? Obviously the “well-known brand” over the “never heard of company”, right? That is why brand awareness is important.
I really like a tactic. Sometimes my social media connections ask for my opinion on their product or service. They ask me because I am probably their target audience. I may not be aware of these connections, but if they request feedback from me, I’ll be happy to respond. But to give you feedback, I’m curious about your product and the company. So I spend time doing some research on them. In this way, they have achieved their brand awareness goal. What started with a simple contact through a business relationship ended with brand awareness. This is called a Prospecting strategy.
During this season of blogging, I’ll cover different aspects of cold outreach. You will find that it takes planning and a lot of patience to get a stranger to accept your offer!
Here are the topics we’ll be going through.
- Networking in Marketing to Grow Your Business
- The challenge of startup networking – attracting new leads
- How can you pitch intelligently in business networking groups?
- Can cold calling really help build your B2B network?
- Here’s how to get your social network marketing strategy right
- The greatest networking opportunity is in your inbox!
- Using Linkedin for B2B Marketing
The art of cold calling
As I said, cold work requires planning and patience. Here are some pointers to keep in mind when implementing this strategy for your small business.
- Understand the purpose or goal of cold outreach: The purpose of cold outreach is very simple – to connect with the person. If you fail, the stranger will not be interested in hearing from you, let alone buy from you. People only buy from whom they trust. So first and foremost, build a relationship with the stranger.
- Define your ideal customer: Before contacting someone, you should do as much research as possible about them. This does not mean that you collect personal data about them, but that you see if they are suitable for your product. If they suit them, you can customize your message to suit their needs.
- Build a relationship: A common mistake companies make is asking too much of the stranger in their first communication. Sending you a website link, talking about your product, its features, etc. can be very daunting to a stranger and will immediately put them off. Instead of being too big on sales in the first conversation, eventually invest in building a relationship.
- Short and direct is better: Build on that, keep your conversation short and to the point. Remember, don’t over-sell your business and product in the first message. Respect their time and just ask them one simple question in the first message.
- Always follow up: If you sent someone a message and they didn’t reply, it doesn’t always mean they aren’t interested. They may be busy or want to review your business before they reply. Since they don’t know you, they may not feel compelled to answer the first time. In all of these cases, it is perfectly acceptable to send a follow-up message asking them about their interest. If it still doesn’t, you can close this discussion.
- Measure your performance: You should have a clear and measurable result from this cold deployment. Do you speak to people to increase sales, invite them to a demo, or do you work with you? Once you have this clearly defined, you can keep your approach results-oriented. You will be able to tailor your message for each person to transform it for that action.
Now that you have an idea of what cold outreach is, let’s dive into specific strategies. By the end of this season, you will be able to use this technique effectively for your business.
Author: Pallavi Tyagi
Pallavi advises startups, small businesses and NGOs in the field of digital marketing. Their goal is to get small businesses to think strategically about their marketing and use multiple channels together.
She is also a marketing coach and startup mentor. She has several workshops for prospective … Show complete profile >
