Cold-calling stinks. It’s a numbers game, and the nos don’t matter.
After graduating from college, I was fortunate to be brought on board with an Ithaca, Mich., personal finance advising firm. From hearing of the lavish company trips, the job offered great rewards. But, the bulk of the day was sitting in a phone bank room, calling people out of the phone book with script telling them how Social Security was changing and how I could help.
It wasn’t for me (though, I did set up two appointments before quitting after a few days).
If enough of your targeted audience is on social media platforms like blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn, you can use search to eliminate cold calling and develop a connection to open the door for a possible sales or marketing contact. As I’ve posted before, social media is about the Three Cs: Connecting, Contributing, Community.
And, search is a great connecting tool. Starting today and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday, let’s look at three ways to use search to improve your social media marketing or business efforts.
Blogger outreach
Say you have a new diaper that is super absorbent, does no harm to any baby and decomposes within five days of being tossed out in the garden. Cool, eh? And, you want to do some sampling to mommy bloggers.
But there are so many — do you contact just the most popular? Or, the ones that only do product reviews?
No, you conduct a search — with a free service like Google Alerts or a comprehensive social media monitoring tool — with terms like:
- “cloth diapers”: Chances are these moms want to be green and don’t want too have disposables clogging up landfills. There’s a connection.
- “disposable diapers”: If your new diapers have a small price differential vs regular diapers, most people would switch to being green if the effort doesn’t cost more. There’s a connection.
- “composting” or “gardening” with “mom” or “family”: You’re looking for moms who also have an interest in gardening or composting. They may not have kids in diapers, but they may have readers who do — and your product would be of interest. There’s a connection.
Of course, you may have to adjust your terms depending on if your first set of results achieves enough possible bloggers: That is, moms who already are blogging about subjects centered around your product.
Once you find these moms, do your research into their popularity to find the ones that have a sizable audience. Use services like Quantcast, Compete and Sitemeter (if they use it).
Also determine if they do product reviews.
From that list you develop based on the above two filters, read and become familiar with them before contacting them.
With the knowledge of their past related posts and your familiarity with them, you can establish a connection.
Next, I’ll take a look at how to use Twitter for sales efforts.
-Mike
Sales pitch: I’ve conducted numerous blogger outreach using the above method. If you’re interested in me talking to your organization about social media marketing, or in us possibly working together, contact me.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denverjeffrey/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
