Tired of implementing growth hacking strategies? In this post, I will share a strategy that will help you reach out to important prospects and stakeholders of companies you want to target.
Selling to companies with multiple decision-makers seems difficult, but this strategy will make your job easier.
Let’s say your company has built a product (or provides services) for large enterprises and corporations. You want to get in touch with the decision-makers or key stakeholders of the prospects.
To your surprise, you found that they are not active on Linkedin and still haven’t accepted your connection request. You found their email address and sent them an email. Your email still lies unopened in their inbox (or spam folder) alongside thousands of emails.
Even account-based marketing is not working for you because you need to reach out to key stakeholders or decision-makers.
You really really want to get in touch with them at any cost.
What will you do? The answer is simple. You will leverage the power of contact marketing.
What is Contact Marketing?
It is a shadow-form of marketing that delivers promising results compared to account-based marketing and has been generating results most marketers dream of. It is one of the thoughtful lead generation strategies of 2020. The strategy helps sales teams connect with VIP prospects, key stakeholders, and decision-makers to build the right kinds of relationships with them.
VIP prospects don’t hang out on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, and their inbox is probably managed by their assistants, you cannot directly call them on their cell phone. But, you want to get your message across! You want to sell to large organizations and corporations. You think you at least deserve a chance to speak to the decision-makers after having built something useful for them.
In short, contact marketing is the act of launching micro-focused campaigns with an aim to get in touch with specific people of strategic importance (against all odds) for a sale, partnership, or just to build a relationship. All digital means to get in touch with your VIP prospects are blocked. But there’s one way – the offline channel. No, you don’t have to go to their office.
Contact Marketing Strategy
There are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to creating and executing strategies for contact marketing. All you need to do is send a parcel (which could be in the form of a letter or a big box) to your prospect and figure out a way so that the parcel reaches them.
The gatekeepers or the front desk workers do not share across all parcels with the concerned – that’s where you need to think creatively. Your first goal is to get past the gatekeepers. To do so, before sending your parcel, call them up, and ask them to verify the address. Tell them they can expect a parcel from you soon. Another strategy could be to write “CONFIDENTIAL” or “ONLY FOR PROSPECT’S NAME” on the parcel.
Sending the parcel and making sure it gets delivered to your prospect is just half the job done. You need to have a strategy in place for the rest of your plan – what will be the contents of the parcel, what will be the call to action, and more. Most importantly, you need to communicate effectively.
Examples of Contact Marketing
There are countless examples of contact marketing. You must figure out the one which is good for your business. Here are a few examples of contact marketing:
Magnifying Glass Strategy
This strategy is effective if you’re a digital marketing agency or an SEO agency that wants to reach out to mid-sized and large companies. In your package, send them a magnifying glass and a short letter mentioning something like: “Even if they use a magnifying glass, they still won’t be able to find you on the first page of Google”. End the note by requesting them to connect with you or your firm.
Research Strategy
Go through the website and blog articles of your prospect or one of their recently published interviews. Take a print out of the article or the web page and highlight important points. Send them a letter along with the printout mentioning how you or your firm can help regarding the highlighted points. To keep a track of news regarding your prospect companies, use Google Alerts.
Video Strategy
Record a video focusing on how you can help your prospect. Publish your video on YouTube and make sure the video can only be seen by those who have the link. Shorten the URL using bit.ly or other link shortening services. Now, send them a letter mentioning that you have made a video for them. Include a screenshot of the video with your face in it. Mention the shortened link in your letter and patiently wait for your prospect to contact you.
Resource Strategy
Send your prospect a book or a print of a whitepaper or an article that will be useful for your prospect. Attach a letter mentioning the usefulness of the resource and how you can help in solving their problems taking reference to the resource you sent. Make sure to use storytelling elements that work.
Sherlock Holmes Strategy
This is one of my favorite techniques. Create a Q.R. code online and encrypt your message in it. Take a print of the code, put it in an envelope along with a note mentioning that the Q.R. code needs to be scanned. Send them the envelope. Make them feel like Sherlock Holmes for a while.
When to use this approach?
Use this approach anytime you want. It is not an alternative to the digital approach. However, better use this approach when:
- Your prospects aren’t tech-savvy or digital-savvy
- Your prospects are hard to reach (VIP’s, CXO’s, etc)
- You want to target a handful of people who can change the scale of business
- You are in a market/industry which is inundated with digital marketing
Conclusion
When digital channels fail in connecting with important prospects and stakeholders, employ contact marketing. Be creative and patiently wait for them to contact you. Build your own strategy or simply use one of the above-mentioned strategies. Contact marketing is a powerful tool that you can use to engage with people that are hard to reach. Try it out – it works like a charm!
