I have made this mistake myself and I have seen countless folks make the same mistake as well. We spend too much time tinkering with shiny marketing automation tools – we think about scaling marketing when we don’t even know how to take baby steps… i.e what’s working right now.
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You don’t know what the market wants
We don’t even know what the market truly wants and what the market will actually respond to. I have seen this happen again and again – both in IT services marketing and medical marketing.
If you don’t know what is currently working with your marketing or business development. STOP. Do not automate or try to scale anything.
If I ask you “hey, you are getting 1 customer a month now.. What do you have to do to get 100 customers a month?” and you don’t have an answer.. STOP. Do not automate marketing.
First, get your marketing message down pat.
Don’t tell me you have 15 different messages that resonate with your prospects.. That’s BS. You’re not a name brand (else you wouldn’t be reading this article anyway).
If you don’t have a single, simple sentence that explains why your client/prospect should listen to you for the next 5 seconds – you will never get the sale anywhere anway.
Try marketing the old school way.
Try emailing one by one and write each message one by one.
Cold call into your target accounts and try to speak to anyone that will listen to you. Understand the lay of the land, understand the pain points from various players. This in itself will give you a better idea about what to say to the next person you call.
Set up PPC ads and try to get people to click your ad.
Write a blog post and try to get ranked on whatever term you think you want to rank for and to be found for.
Stop with the tools already. Go ghetto, go guerilla.
Do something that’s ANTI-SCALE.
Understand your market, understand what to say that will open doors and allow the “sales process” to begin.
And you don’t even have to do a whole lot…
The most important thing is copy-writing.
PPC Ads
Take a hint from PPC ads.
Here’s how much google allows you to type in an ad.
“Enter 3 to 15 headlines. Headlines appear at the top of your ad and can be up to 30 characters. Your headlines and other parts of your ad (including extensions) may show in different configurations based on the device that a potential customer is using, or when Google Ads predicts that it may improve your performance.“
Then, you get “Enter 2 to 4 descriptions. Your ad’s description appears below the display URL and can be up to 90 characters.”
Google got it spot on.
You have upto 30 characters to draw in your prospect’s attention.
If you catch their attention, you have 90 characters to get them a bit more interested/intrigued to click on your ad.
Only then can they read your long, boring feature list of what amazing stuff you can do for them..
If you fail at the 30 characters, you have lost the game right off the bat.
If you win the 30 characters game, then you lose the 90 characters game, you have lost the game again..
If you win both, you get the prospect on your landing page .. that’s when you start the game of getting them interested enough to submit their info for the next step.
Cold Email Prospecting
If you are cold emailing, keep in mind that your email looks like this to a prospect
Or this
The name uses up some space and then you have your subject line and a teeny tiny bit of your first sentence to even BE in the game.. Much less starting to play the game.
Make sure that your value proposition is condensed into a subject line.. That will show up in bold.
After that, make sure that the first few words of your first email sentence shows value enough ..
Only then you are in the game 🙂
Cold calling
Is it very different for cold calls?
Nope ! You have about 5-8 seconds of your prospect’s attention.. Who was not waiting for your call anyway, didn’t want to pick up your call and only did so by mistake.. Make sure those 5-8 seconds (30 characters) pique your prospect’s attention (i.e. “what’s in it for me?”)
Only after you get past the gatekeeper of 5-8 seconds, are you granted the next 5-8 seconds..
That’s what the competition is..
The game of SEO
OK, so you want to play that game?
Here’s a sample of what your prospect really sees when they google something that’s related to what you do
“Digital Patient Check-In System | GetWell Practice …
https://www.getwellnetwork.com › getwell-practice
Effortless digital patient check-in system that maximizes practice efficiency and patient satisfaction. … GetWell Practice takes care of everything, from scheduling and digital intake to clinic-based health education and post-appointment surveys and assessments. Our digital patient …“
That’s all you get… to grab your Google prospect’s attention. See how little that really is?
So, the next time you think of automating marketing, think of getting your marketing copy right.
I know you want to speak for your hours about how great your product or service is… Write your heart out.. Then start chopping the words.. Keep chopping until your entire “pitch” can be condensed into 1 Google PPC Ad.
That’s it.. That’s your cold email, that’s your cold call, that’s your PPC ad, that’s your blog post topic and meta description
Do this until you start getting responses.. Even if that’s a resounding NO !
A no is a LOT better than complete silence.
Embrace the NO. I like the NOs better than radio silence.. At least I know what’s not working. This helps me weed things out. It’s a NO to what you just said.. It’s NOT a NO for another pitch you might attempt.
Keep going with this.. Until you start getting to the next step.. Whether it is a click through to your landing page, an email response for more info, a call back or whatever it is that you are looking for (call to action).
Once you get to that level.. Then you might kind of start thinking about marketing automation..
But before you do so.. All you should be thinking of is copywriting..