Businesses Survive by Capitalizing Through Reaching Out to Everyone
Sales funnels start with drawing potential customers’ attention
Entrepreneurs who want to get their business off to a fast start need to reach out. What’s the best way to go? Ian Cleary and Ivana Taylor offered their opinions on how to run successful campaigns regardless of business size.
Cleary is an online marketer and founder of RazorSocial, which uses content marketing to grow businesses online. Taylor owns DIYMarketers, a company “committed to helping small business owners get out of overwhelm.”
They discussed the importance of building brands, driving sales and how traffic, links and media attention fit into the picture. One important factor is positive publicity. Traffic and links are also indicators, and it’s important to make a good first impression.
“Traffic, links and so on are all great, but what’s important is building your funnel,” Cleary said. His outreach funnel starts broadly at the top with awareness and progressively narrows downward through consideration, conversion, retention and finally — and pointedly — advocacy.
“It’s traffic and, for me, it’s engagement,” Taylor said. “Engagement is most important because it means we are in a relationship.”
Cleary’s go-to strategy for building links and traffic is great content and relationships. Taylor favors generating and sharing content and engagement via social media.
“I always reshare when someone shares my content,” she said. “I also have a network, and we support each other in social media. I like to see more and more people focusing on content relevance.”
You’ve got mail
Email outreach also relates to marketing.
“The email marketing tool is for subscribers,” Cleary said. “Email outreach is for sending personalized emails via your own email tool. Inbound is someone knocking on your door. Outbound is opening the door and reaching out to people.”
Taylor put the tool in different words.
“Email outreach is just another name for pitching people to share your content or participate in content development and promotion,” she said. “One part is informing people, sharing info about business and content, but I like my email reach to be entertaining as well, not always self-promoting.”
Cleary sees email outreach as a public relations, marketing and sales strategy and more. Taylor agreed about PR and marketing and added, “It leads to sales in that it expands your reach to other audiences. Email outreach depends on a goal that we want to accomplish. Based on that, we tailor the message to fit PR, sales or marketing.”
Be personal
An effective outreach marketing campaign starts with a good targeted list, Cleary said. “Send personalized emails and ask for permission before you ask for help.”
Taylor said, “An effective outreach program must start with a relevant and targeted list of contacts and influencers. The next important element has to be a great email that has the recipient at the center and then follow-up.”
It’s also important to identify the right people to help tell a brand’s story. Brand advocates should be familiar with and align with the brand’s values and be enthusiastic. The high profile of an advocate doesn’t matter nearly as much as credibility.
“SEMRush, Buzzsumo and GroupHigh are great tools to identify the most relevant prospects,” Cleary said. Taylor uses tools such as BuzzSumo and Brand24 as well as curating Twitter lists.
Networking and building outreach relationships come into play for networking and generating leads. Networks create relationships that lead to more relationships, building up a warm market that gets you away from cold calling.
“Networking is key to success of outreach,” Cleary said. “You want to build relationships so you can reach out again in the future.”
Kill the dull
Putting life into a dull campaign is important, according to Taylor.
“Networking and building relationships is everything,” she said. “There’s nothing worse than a cold email that asks you to do something for someone couched as if it’s something for you.”
Marketers are prone to mistakes in any outreach campaign. Like anything else, don’t expect instant success. It’s a campaign, not a skirmish. Success takes effort, patience and time.
“This is the one thing I’ve noticed,” Taylor said. “It’s almost like I’d have to decide to take a weekend and build out my goals, strategy task list and campaigns.
Right fit
“Research the site or the person you are pitching, and make sure there’s a fit,” she said. “There’s nothing worse than getting a cold email from someone who thinks that DIYMarketers is a website about construction and remodeling.”
Taylor cited another mistake: “Partnering with a wrong person or influencer is not just waste of time and money but a message to the audience that we do not understand them.”
Small businesses can build an outreach campaign as long as they understand the math.
“Email outbound is a numbers game,” Cleary said. “Email a small number of people and get better results.”
With that, Taylor said small business should keep a broad, distant outlook.
“Focus on the goals of your campaign and set a strategy and structure,” she said. “Be sure to track your work. The owner should set the structure and delegate.”
There are differences and similarities between influencer marketing and an outreach campaign. Influencer marketing is part of an overall outreach campaign. All the parts must mesh together in one coherent strategy with its vision and messages.
“This is where a lot of small business folks or marketers get stumped,” Taylor said. “It’s like there’s this flurry of activity and not much focus. Most influencer marketing campaigns include some form of outreach. You have to reach the influencers.”
About The Author
Jim Katzaman is a manager at Largo Financial Services and worked in public affairs for the Air Force and federal government. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
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