When we think of the #FlipMyFunnel concept, there’s identify, expand, engage and advocacy. One of the most important pieces is engage because if you’ve identified everything, if you can’t engage them on the right terms then obviously, that’s not going to turn it into the sequence that you want and results that you want at the end of the day.
One of the biggest things is engage and one of those reasons is because you’re going to be able to get in front of those
people on their terms. It can be through an account-based marketing (ABM) platform. It can be through social. It can be through direct mail. It can be through marketing automation or even events but you have to figure out what’s best for you. On an ABM level, I think it’s super crucial for people in sales and especially sales development to create that demand, to create that acceleration to be able to put dynamic ads in front of someone who’s about to close with a special message obviously resonates with them. Putting certain messaging in front of them as they go throughout their customer journey is also important.
These things on an ABM platform for engagement obviously is incremental and important and just part of the paramount of where they need to go on an ABM platform level.
Engaging Socially
Most of people’s prospects and customers are on social. So understanding the LinkedIn, Twitter, and different social networks and how to get in front of these prospects is only going to enhance and get you better to where you need to go at the end of the day. It’s not all about just using one thing, it’s about using everything in order to engage with people and get them where they need to go.
Social listening is super important because the more you can listen on the content they’re providing and listen for what their problems are, you’re going to provide more of a use case which is going to create more marketing and sales alignment to get the right messaging and right content in front of them. Social listening is understanding and interpreting the types of content prospects share that reflect problems or solutions that you can provide by just listening, and obviously you can provide value for that person based on how much you’ve listened to it. Looking at what your prospects are posting, what their problems are, what they’re talking about, if they’re expanding their teams.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Tweet “Social listening is understanding and interpreting the types of content prospects share that reflect problems or solutions”]
Engaging Through Direct Mail
Getting inside their direct mail boxes is another great way to engage key accounts. Looking at direct mail pieces. Direct mail is another essential component. If you can bring something to life in front of that person that’s different obviously that’s going to help engagement and that’s going to help that person get to where they need to go at the end of the day. It’s not going to hinder them, it’s going to accelerate that process. It’s super important to send that direct mail piece out, put that in front of them, show them a unique message so that it resonates with them as a person so they feel like “wow, I feel special that you sent this to me and now I’m able to move forward in the right direction.”
This is why engagement is important from a sales perspective. All of these different functions and avenues, you can’t just use one, you have to use all of them concurrently. If you use one, that’s great but if use all of them and you have a strong strategy behind that then that will just increase your sales because you’re going to hit different people on different personality points because some people may hate your direct mail but love your social. Some people love social but absolutely hate marketing automation campaigns. You have to use all of your avenues and all of your channels to engage with your prospects on their terms, so in return, they’ll become advocates at the end of the day.
No one cares how much you care until you care about them.
[Tweet “”No one cares how much you care until you care about them.” @morganjingram”]
You have to care about that person so that in return they’ll care about what you’re telling them. But if you just giving them something selfishly and only give them content on your terms, obviously it’s not going to correlate because you didn’t care about that individual.
Video should be considered a top approach. It creates humanity and the more humanity you create in the sales process, the better because of all the automation going on today.
The least effective strategy has been approaches that are the same. The same template thing over and over and over, expecting a different result. When you’re lazy and just copy a template you saw in an article, those types of measures don’t serve well.
Events are another great way to engage. You have the opportunity for that face-to-face interaction – it’s not dead, it’s still the most important. If you can sit down and have a conversation with someone about their problems and providing them with a solution and actually consulting on the issue, that’s absolutely going to help in the long run. Events are super awesome to engage with those prospects you’ve been looking to connect with and just learning more about them. That’s super crucial and should not be dismissed. There’s so much value in just talking with someone face-to-face.
[Tweet “There’s so much value in just talking with someone face-to-face.”]
Engaging doesn’t just mean sending a message, it means actually looking at what they wrote and commenting something thought-provoking. Maybe even sharing and writing what you learned or gained from the post and actually connecting with people in a genuine way. That’s how you really engage and how you’ll see more dividends on an account-based level. Anything that takes you a little bit more time to do is probably worthwhile because the end result will provide more value. There has to be a value exchange with every single conversation you have. You can’t just be taking everything. On social, it’s easy to just RT and share, but if you take the time to actually engage with the post, it’ll show your prospect that you’re sincere about trying to build that relationship.
[Tweet ” Anything that takes you a little bit more time to do is probably worthwhile…”]
If you don’t engage with rapport, the connection isn’t going to be as good. If someone was calling you, how would you want to be called? If someone called you and treated you like everyone else, you wouldn’t be receptive to the phone call, but if they called you and talked about your favorite team or an article you wrote, that’s definitely going to resonate more because you took the time to listen. You’re showing that you care and did your research.
It’s simple – If you don’t engage, nobody will care. If you do these things, you’ll see enhancements, more genuine conversations, more relationships.
[Tweet “It’s simple – If you don’t engage, nobody will care. #FlipMyFunnel”]
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Morgan Ingram. Morgan is a sales development manager where he specializes in growing the sales development team professionally and personally at Terminus: Account-Based Marketing, the leading account-based marketing platform.
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