Cutting through the Marketing White Noise

A strange irony has occurred over the last few years with the emergence of social media: It has never been technologically easier to get your message out to new prospects, markets and partners, yet there have also never been so many people trying to do the exact same thing.

So now it’s now easy to get your message out, but getting your message heard can feel almost impossible—a bit like screaming at a football game. How can you stand out from the millions of other marketing “white noise” messages being sent every day?

Traditionally, the focus in outbound lead generation has been to lead with a few key benefits, but the problem with this approach is that it no longer works as well as it used to. A few short years ago, leading with something along the lines of, “I’ll be in your area next week and wanted to stop by for a few minutes and let you know about our ability to reduce your costs” might have gotten the job done. Problem is, the benefits that most of your competitors use probably sound remarkably similar to yours—and they just don’t stand out.

Our own internal research has shown that the amount of time you have to gain a prospect’s attention has dropped even further than it was only a year or so ago—down to just a few seconds—to the point that we recommend introducing yourself with your name and company name as quickly as possible and then immediately jumping to your prospect’s pain point. Don’t waste any time talking about your company at the start. Instead, jump right to what you’ve determined to be the most painful and costly problem for the person with whom you’re speaking. Then follow with a strong example of how you helped another company with that same problem, and be sure, when possible, to back that up with a dollar value reflecting cost savings or revenue increases.

How do you determine what keeps your prospects up at night? The short answer is: Research. When prospecting, there are a variety of search methods that can be used to uncover pain points. As with most things, start with a Google search on the company. More than likely, just a few minutes of research will be well worth your while. (For additional information on this subject, see Ginger Cooper’s article, “Five ways to Uncover your Prospects Biggest Pains”.

Consider the example of a recent experience I had. I’d been purchasing a company’s product and services for some time and had no intent of switching. Fairly often, I’d receive calls from competitors of this company, but the messages all sounded the same, and my goal was to get the sales reps off the phone as quickly as possible. Then one day, I received a call from a salesperson who made me want to listen. “I bet you’re paying around X amount for these products and services if you’re using them, and you might be encountering these problems (he listed  few things), ” he said in his message. “But if you’ll call me back, I’ll show you how you can get a similar product, with free support, shipping, better service, and a great warranty”. I called him back, and he won my business. This was the one in a hundred marketing attempts that got my attention and broke through the white noise.

What was different? This sales rep had clearly done his research before calling me. Rather than a pitch about who he was and what his company did, he hit me with specific issues that he knew were likely to get my attention. He left a voice mail that was, in short, a perfect prospecting call. He’s doing quite well I understand. I’m not surprised.

Before you call into prospects, take some time to understand the relevant issues in their industry (a good way to start this research is to find industry conference and webinar calendars). Use social media tools and do Google searches to seek out specific problems. Talk to your customers and use their experiences to position yourself and gain an understanding of the dollar impact of your products/services to their business. In the new economy, this approach will have you quickly realizing that sales opportunities do in fact, still exist—for those who know how to uncover them.