How to Reach and Influence Prospects

August 1, 2008 · Comments

information flowThis was requested by GirlPie

We talk about how social media like blogs and podcasts and social networks will help us grow our business, and yet, there are several ways in which we’re hampered. Some of our customers won’t provide testimonials. Others will take a while to actually execute a project. Still others have stumbled onto your site, and it’s up to you to keep them. Let’s talk about these prospects, first.

Who Are Your Prospects?

There are, of course, tons of ways to think about who your potential customers might be. David Meerman Scott talks often about buyer personas as a way to better understand who you’re hoping to reach. And in my examples below, I’ve only picked three types of prospective new customers. You have many other people interacting with your media, and it’s up to you to balance your efforts such that they align with the relationships you need.

Here are three prospect type examples:

Private Customer

In the example GirlPie provided, her customers don’t really want to refer her. This means she has a Private Customer. You could say that SEO and search marketing professional often have Private Customers as well. In these cases, your audience doesn’t want to tout your skills, because they don’t want to admit their prior weakness, or have other reasons to stay quiet.

Newcomer Customer

Some of us have customers from larger companies who are very new. They’ve been tasked with adopting an online strategy, or a social media marketing plan, or something like this. These customers are browsing the web, grazing through keynote searches, and hoping to gather enough information to convince their senior team that they understand enough to make some starter moves. This audience will recommend you, but only after they’ve launched their project (and sometimes that’s a long while after you could’ve used their recommendation).

Clean Slate Customer

Several people find their way to your site by way of search. Perhaps you rank high in Google for blog topics (that’s my constant #1 search term), and so someone searching for topics for their blog will land on your site, and wonder what to do next. In these cases, these potential customers might need a bit more content and guidance before they become actual prospects (and remember, we’re talking business in this post, not community and other reasons to do social media).

Reaching These Prospects

In all three cases mentioned above, different tools will have a different impact. Here are some suggestions:

  • Private Customers – consider an email newsletter with discrete information that reinforces your benefits. In that newsletter, encourage forwarding. Email is much more intimate than a blog setting. Consider a private online pay forum that allows for anonymity, if that’s also useful.
  • Newcomer Customers – along with your media posts (blogs or podcasts or the like), create specific-to-their-industry informational documents (or recordings or presentations), with an eye towards empowering your contact with information that will convince their senior team to take action.
  • Clean Slate Customers – In many ways, the simple answer here is to provide great content that’s useful, evocative, and invites further inquiry. From there, if you see any responses that match your business offerings, reach out. Send an email. There’s no harm in exploring a potential business relationship, should you see signs that a person has a need you can help fulfill.

You’ll note that I didn’t mention social networks much in this instance. The way I use social networks is to build relationships. I do any business prospecting by way of the media I create. I’m on the networks to connect, to be helpful, and to learn new things. Hopefully, that distinction makes sense. If not, ask me to define that better, and I will.

Business Isn’t Evil

The social web has enabled all kinds of new opportunities to communicate. Business and sales are just one portion of a large spectrum of ways we connect and transact. As with everything you and I talk about here, it comes down to clarity of purpose. If you’re selling something, state it. If you’re looking for customers, talk about it. If you’re there to educate, that’s fine, too. They’re YOUR tools. Use them the way you want. Just be clear and open about it.

What’s your thinking on all this? Have I identified your prospect type here? If not, tell me in the comments, and we can open the question up to the community. What’s your thinking?

—

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.

Photo credit, Jurvetson

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  • Chris exactly! It is about relationships!

    You need to be Bold and Sincere!

    If you try to play people you FAIL
  • I've also noticed that some Private Customers don't talk about you because you're their "secret weapon" - in that it's not so much that they don't want to admit they needed help, but that they don't want their competition finding you in a search about them.

    Which has workarounds...
  • The funny thing in my personal experience is this, I can draw a line from just about every single campaign I've done to some level of customer acquisition. That means seminars, trade shows, media coverage, webcasts, etc. So while companies are looking for the silver bullet, I believe for a modest dollar professional services purchase/investment, the rule is, be smart and be available. Meaning engage, interact, discuss ideas, and mix it up online and in the physical world.

    Now this is surely not necessarily the case for the local dry cleaner, however, our information patterns are so fragmented, that buying decision points are obtained across a wide spectrum of formats, interactions, and individuals.

    This has made the job of marketing and communications more difficult. If I had to leave you with one take away it is this, have a person dedicated to managing the communication flow and points to prospects.

    Chris, since youmention David Meerman Scott here is an interview I did with him this spring, http://tinyurl.com/5ucjh7
  • When I just finished working for a company in the email security space. We got around the issue of private customers by allowing customers to give "blind" testimonials, so we could have them give a great reference and refer to them as a "Fortune 10 company" etc... which was not as good as getting their real name but still better than no name at all.

    I like your suggestions for producing materials for helping people be internal champions of your product/service.
  • I can answer your question in two ways:

    1. How I sell my clients.
    2. How I help my clients sell their stuff.

    I score clients through a variety of approaches, from conducting social media seminars for writers to sending unsolicited proposals and case studies to prospects with a more corporate posture. I follow up by phone and I meet face-to-face once I identify the right person at a prospective client.

    Once I locate the appropriate conversations for a particular client, I participate in those conversations myself, establishing credibility and trust with other participants who I evaluate for possible targeting. I’m skipping over a ton of tactical detail here, but most of readers here know how that’s done.

    The writers I work for are quick to refer me, and since networking is a critical component of every writer’s survival kit, they have no problem talking about me to anybody who’ll listen.

    When it comes to advising my clients on their strategy for selling, it all depends.

    I’ve created social media campaigns for bestselling novelists, high tech manufacturing companies, youth athletics organizations, past life therapists and Washington lobbyists.

    I assess my client’s market knowledge and their target customer profile and go from there, overlaying what I know about social media users, and crafting strategies that enable the client to capitalize on the overlap through a variety of methods as you’ve mentioned, Chris, in some of your Social Media Toolkit posts.

    Lastly, I think it’s kinda funny that you feel compelled to mention that “Business Isn’t Evil”.

    Unless someone is fortunate enough to be independently wealthy, it’s all about business. While Social Media may still be finding its footing, the phenomenon Social Media represents is nothing new—it’s just different.

    Different than TV, different than radio, different than the telegraph and different than the printing press…but kinda the same in terms of its revolutionary impact on communication, and I don’t think anybody would argue that each of those breakthroughs in communication technology were all about facilitating business and became business themselves.
  • I think the first step in the quest for prospects is to establish yourself as an expert and give hints on how can you help your audience grow their business.

    The message must be clear: if you look for customers, say it, if you're promoting your brand or products, be clear with this.

    In my experience, being transparent and playing fair it's always the first step in the right direction.
  • GirlPie
    Thanks Chris -- interestingly, you hit on three of the types of clients (and potentials) that I deal with (which has nothing to do with blogging.) The "privates" are exactly as Tinu wrote:
    @ 1:45 am
    "...some Private Customers don’t talk about you because you’re their “secret weapon”...they don’t want their competition finding you in a search about them. Which has workarounds…"

    One of my testimonials (I use "Profession/City" to attribute) does call me his secret weapon, so I'd love to hear those workarounds Tinu - ha!

    Chris, your advice for serving/securing 'newcomers' and 'clean slates' is useful to me in two more ways: confirming that my current efforts are on point, and giving me new ways to think about who my service attracts and why. Attracting clients via real-world workshops, website, appearances, repeats, etc. isn't a problem, but using social media to do so, since it's such a great WOM tool, is a different challenge.

    Thanks for making us think!
  • Chris, i'm sending this out to my private network. Good stuff...

    Don't want them to miss out -- and most are not actually on Facebook nor Twitter (yet!)

    Sherry -Austin
  • I used to do web design consulting on corporate intranet applications, but no more.

    It's simple, never do work that nobody else can see. Only work on public projects that you're allowed to talk about. Typically "secret" projects aren't that interesting because they don't solve worthwhile problems.

    Don't be invisible.
  • I can relate to all the types of customers you listed and I try to adapt to all of them in individual ways.
    Thanks Chris,
    JR
  • This was a great article! It did a great job of defining the different prospects and especially how to approach them. So many times a prospect will be lost because they weren't handled with the right type of care. Thanks for the great information!

    Krisy
  • Chris;

    You've identified at least one type of prospect that I seem to get and that's the "clean slate customer." Almost all of my speaking engagements have come about through Internet searches. Very interesting.

    When I was on Wall Street as a stockbroker/financial planner, I had "private customers" because they didn't want others to know they had money and were using me as their financial advisor. It was exceedingly difficult to get referrals from this particular group.

    You've identified at least two customer groups that I've had experience with over the years. Great job!

    Now more than ever I see the need for a newsletter - to reach out to the "private customers" who might feel more free to forward them to others rather then referring them to me in person. Fascinating, isn't it?
  • You're spot on about the fact that social media outlets are a TOOL, not a silver bullet. And the fact that business isn't evil! Like social media, business is a neutral tool for getting things done, and its power can be used either for good or for evil (yikes-what a strong word!). Most of the time the swing toward one or the other isn't so epic.

    http://www.onlinefundraisingblog.com/2008/08/th...
  • Diane Achatz
    Chris, thank you so much for this article. I'm just beginning to learn how to utilize this great tool called Social Media Networking. Doug Firebaugh recommended your site to us, and he's a great leader!

    Chris, your input in invaluable!

    Diane
  • Amanda
    Yeah if one reach that prospects definitely he will acheive the targets..No doubt in that..
    mortgage
    loan point
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