100% Proven Lead Generation Idea: Catch Prospects in Their Moment of Change
Remember yourself checking your email inbox every morning. 20% or more messages are coming from poor guys who try to break through your spam control and beg for a phone talk (a sales pitch, who are they kidding?) with you. Boring.
When it is your turn to approach your company’s prospects, metamorphoses of your mindset are remarkable. More often than not you take the place of these miserable guys without realizing it.
Stats prove we are not so much better than spammers that hit us occasionally.
Let’s take cold emails and cold calls. Geography, job position of your buyer persona, time when you reach them and the amount of emails you send definitely matter. If you have 50 emails to be all sent to Alaska, the best scenario will be you receiving one unsubscribe request.
This was a very clear unsubscribe call I got several years ago.
Even if you mix locations with category of receivers wisely and don’t start your introduction with “I came across your website”, your open rate will still be about 30–50% and reply rate rarely more than 5% (unless your main proposal is free donuts out of generosity).
People don’t bother to be anyone’s prospects.
What to do about it?
I call it the ‘wind of change’ window when your voice is likely to be heard and message to be read. That’s the moment when something significant happens in the life of your prospects. Relocation and job status changes are the best examples.
1. The company of your target has a new CxO
(CEO, CTO, CMO, etc.)
New management often makes radical changes.
They hire new employees and close deals with new vendors and suppliers because they want to be surrounded with people they personally trust.
Get in touch with a C-newcomer asap when he or she has reasonable doubts about their company’s old contractors. You may even address this pain point in your message.
CTOsOnTheMove, for example, provides information about senior IT executives who changed jobs in the last 30 days. I’d like to have more websites of that kind reporting repositions of other C-levels apart from CIO and CTO.
2. The prospect you are already acquainted with has a new job
“New lords new laws” is at work again.
Remember about your advantage: he or she knows who you are and may consider you a good fit to come with.
Have you noticed that LinkedIn readily announces when your connections celebrate new jobs? Harry up and remind them of yourself.
3. A buyer persona of your interest is on the verge of major life changes
Our team has signed a contract with the US company developing accounts payable software when their marketing director was expecting a baby.
We had a chance to meet her 3 months before she took a 3-months maternity leave. At that time, we were perceived as a big relief to their problems compared to how they might treat us if no baby was coming to support our case.
This is also true for unfortunate occasions of prolonged sick leaves and better events as vacations.
The main issue at that point will be to recognize major changes that have happened to your prospects or are on their way. For that purpose, stay engaged with your social network online and offline. Occasional chats pay off.
The last question.
Is it morally acceptable to show up when your prospects face big changes and thereby are more vulnerable? Apparently, that’s the precise time when potential clients need your services the most. Perhaps, even the only time they may need something from you at all.
To my mind, it’s morally questionable to emerge in other times and act like a regular spammer. Eventually, the mission of your company and your own is somehow tied to being useful. There’s no better moment to help than when the winds of change are blowing.
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My team and I deal with marketing every single day. We’ve discovered a number of secrets and little-known facts and we can’t help sharing them. Visit Kraftblick blog and say ‘hi’ to us. See you there!
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