Tips to Start a Conversation with the Prospect of Your Dreams
We’ve done many posts on the value of email blasts to quickly and cheaply reach a large audience, and the importance of personalization and utilizing marketing automation tools for drip campaigns and lead nurturing.
And while those tactics are proven effective, they may not be the best for your specific industry or to reach your specific goals.
If your goal is to open a line of communication with a few specific, high-value clients, an email blast is probably not the way to go.
Instead, you may want to consider a good old-fashioned, manually-crafted email - the ultimate in true personalization.
This takes an account-based marketing approach, where you pick out precisely who you want to do business with and approach them directly, rather than marketing to a large audience and hoping one of your dream customers is in the mix.
It takes time. It’s painstaking. But if you do it well, it could open doors for you.
Dunja Lazić wrote a great post on this for Medium where she offers tips for doing this. Here’s a quick summary as well as some of my own input.
- First come up with your list of a few key people you want to reach out to – know their names, titles, and be sure they are the right person for you to reach.
- Do your research. Check out their LinkedIn profile, their company bio, other social media accounts. Learn as much as you can about them, what they are passionate about, and any commonalities between you.
- Try to connect with them on LinkedIn before you email so your name is familiar. If you see that you have connections in common, contact any close connections and see if they really know person you’re seeking. Maybe they can help set up an introduction, or you can at least mention them in your email. (You may want to consider sending a LinkedIn InMail. Here are some tips for that.)
- Keep it short, personal and compelling. You’re sending a cold email to someone you don’t know. Their instinct is going to be skim and delete. This is where you can refer to your commonalities (without sounding stalkerish), and ask them for advice on something they are passionate about or expert in. Remember, this is to open a dialogue, not make a hard sell. Make sure it is about them, not about you. (This applies to all marketing.)
- Follow up. Don’t despair if you don’t hear back. Follow-ups get 30% higher response rates than first emails. You may want to follow-up a few times, but space them out so you aren’t pestering anyone.
Give it a try. It may take some time to master the right approach, but if you do your research and craft something compelling and personal, it could pay off more than a bulk email to thousands.
Need help finding the marketing approach that gets results? Let’s Talk.
Diane Callihan
With more than 20 years of experience writing for some of the country’s top brands, Diane helped to shape Roger West’s content strategy, lead generation, and PR efforts as Director of Marketing. She currently serves as President of Callihan Content Creation.