Ever try to cold email the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Or even give the HR manager at your local staffing organization a ring? For so many businesses, the experience is as follows: crickets.
Even the most persistent attempts can go unnoticed when you and 100 of your closest competitors have the same goal in mind. Put simply, decision makers are overloaded with cold connection attempts. And your ideal prospect’s inbox and voicemail bear the weight of your combined efforts.
The challenge, then, is to stand out in a crowded space and provide enough intrigue to convince your audience to give you 30 minutes of their time. Organizations who have figured out their ‘secret sauce’ are why 82% of buyers say that they have accepted meeting requests after a cold call. Of course, those who haven’t are why 58% of prospects say they find cold calling useless.
Reaching your decision maker will make or break your lead generation campaign. These three strategies can help you to cut through the noise, get to the point, and turn cold prospecting from radio silence into a significant opportunity.
1. Understand and Define Your Ideal Buyer
The first and potentially most important step is to build a strong understanding of your ideal buyer. Once you get this step right, every other item described below will derive from it. You’ll need two documents to truly make an impact in your market: ideal customer profile and buyer personas. Both are closely related, but come with slightly different nuances:
- Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) define the organization you’re selling to, including their budget, company size, industry, geography, organizational pain points, and more. They help you understand the context in which any sale would need to happen.
- Buyer Personas describe the demographic and psychological profile of individual decision makers within your ideal customer organization. They’re hypothetical profiles that include nuances like typical job title, channel preferences, individual pain points, and more.
By understanding what motivates and challenges your buyer, you can customize your campaign to reflect their needs. With both definitions and documents in hand, you’re well-prepared to take the next step to make your prospecting efforts more relevant.
2. Focus on Pain Points of Decision Makers
Based on the profiles built in the first step, outline the exact pain points prospective decision makers might face that your product or service can solve. The more specific (while concise) you can get in how you can alleviate pressure points for your audience, the better.
In a crowd of 100+ emails per day, simply saying “you might benefit from my product” is not enough to make an impact. Business people are busy; without a compelling reason to learn more, your message will quickly be deleted. Instead, say exactly how you can improve their life, job, processes, or department.
While you’re relying on your ICPs and buyer personas to drive your audience’s pain points, keep in mind that these documents are not stagnant. In fact, they are extremely likely to change over time as innovations are introduced into your market. If your prospects aren’t responding to your messaging, it’s time to review and adjust.
3. Adjust to Channel Preferences and Availability
Knowing your buyer means knowing their habits and preferences. If you know how your audience spends their time, you’ll know how to optimize your campaign to reach your decision makers. Options include:
- Cold calls, which are undoubtedly the most traditional option.
- Cold emails, which are less intrusive while packing high value.
- Cold social media messages, especially on networks like LinkedIn.
Which makes the most sense for your buyer?
A sales rep is likely available via phone and likely to pick up a call from an unknown number. A CEO, on the other hand, is more likely to check their email with regularity. Understanding where your prospects spend their time and where they like to learn about new product or service opportunities is a crucial ingredient of successful prospecting.
Another variable to consider is the time of day. Your buyer might spend their afternoons in client meetings, making the morning a better opportunity to connect. There are universal best practices to consider as well; email, for instance might make more sense in the morning, while calls tend to work better in the afternoon. Above all, though, the preferences of the decision makers should influence your channel(s) of choice.
Put simply, getting through to your decision makers hinges entirely on how well you understand them and how you can tailor both your message and outreach tactics to their needs. With both firmly in place, you can maximize your chances of getting their attention and interest, moving from cold prospecting to targeted lead nurturing. If you need help filling your pipeline with qualified leads, we can help. Click here to learn more.
