Terraforming Digital Environments for “High-Ticket” Prospect Interaction and Acquisition

To terraform means to transform a planet so as to resemble the earth, especially so that it can support human life. We have a much simpler task. We need to transform the ecosystems our prospects operate within into hospitable environments for a client acquisition strategy to survive — and or move them to another environment that is hospitable.

• We should find prospects where they normally operate and are comfortable, but it’s not necessary that we accept that environment for what it is or even remain in that environment for our method of outreach.

For the sake of this exercise I will use an unnamed business social network as an example:

Social networks have amazing features that exist, but the ecosystem is ultimately built to optimize the value of your data and interaction for the best interest of social networks (I don’t blame them!), not to optimize the social network’s data and your interactions with others for the sake of your client acquisition channel. So what are the tools that exist that will allow you to terraform this environment into a hospitable environment for your client acquisition efforts?

• Data Aggregation Technologies (sensors) — The large social networks are very strict on unauthorized data aggregation and one should be extremely careful on how they go about aggregating data from them (authorized extraction through API is one thing, but unauthorized aggregation is another). Here is further information on the subject. There are several ways to aggregate information, please look here to get an overview of available data aggregation methods. Note that there is a lot more research and development that needs to go into infrastructure setup in order to avoid anti-botting issues and you should consult with your legal team to make sure you are not violating any laws. Look here to see how Soter.ai has implemented some of these projects for clients. Think creatively about other sources that can be combined with this base data on your prospects.
• Automated Outreach Technologies (actuators) — There are many technologies that exist for automating outreach on social networks (most are basic robotic process automations), but I believe the best option for outreach is email. With email you have fewer limits on messaging and you can do more to customize and segment your audiences based on the information you gather on them from social networks. Find email addresses here. Find email automation here. If you want to automate outreach on LinkedIn, find an idiot-proof tool here.
• Move these opportunities to human contact ASAP. As noted in this previous post:

“Who not how: This is where we get into the human elements of the process. I see these as two of the most important positions in the client acquisition process for “high-ticket” companies, and if you don’t figure out who sits in these seats, you can spend a lot on generating opportunities and fall flat at the finish line or never even get there.

Opener: Someone who is relationship focused, loves to connect with new people and makes orthogonal connections that lead to introductions which result in a value exchange once a person with a need and means is connected to a competent person with a solution. I recommend using an opener to network and do market development while having them sell and make a warm introduction to the closer.

Closer: Someone who is intelligent enough to know the offering inside and out, is hungry for revenue, hyper-focused on results, often is great at networking with openers, thrives under pressure and lives for the high they get when they close a deal. They are the person that will see to it that the team does NOT fumble on the three yardline.”

• Use technology to track opportunities through the funnel: Supplement the sales effort with a digital environment capable of capturing cookies and heat mapping mouse movements (check out hotjar). Also be sure to create segmentation utilizing the data captured from these environments and speak directly to the data points (make it feel personal at scale) while utilizing link tracking to follow your prospects through the funnel. Combine the behavioral data with the base data to decide WHO to retarget in order to reinforce your sales campaign.
• Capture cookies and retarget them back on the environment you found them in!

With these methods, you have created an ecosystem that supports the needs of your client acquisition channel and terraformed the environments they are already in to reinforce the campaign outside of that environment.

If you want to discuss these methods and how they tie together for your target please find me at Thumos.