A blog that challenges B-to-B marketers to learn, share, question, and focus on getting it right—the first time.
Carolyn Goodman is President/Creative Director of Goodman Marketing Partners. An award-winning creative director, writer and in-demand speaker, Carolyn has spent her 30-year career helping both B-to-B and B-to-C clients cut through business challenges in order to deliver strategically sound, creatively brilliant marketing solutions that deliver on program objectives. To keep her mind sharp, Carolyn can be found most evenings in the boxing ring, practicing various combinations.
You can find her at the Goodman Marketing website, on LinkedIn, or on Twitter @CarolynGoodman.
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As a marketer who works with clients in a wide variety of industries, I am guilty of downloading white papers on topics of interest. I regularly attend webinars in an attempt to learn new things and stay current on what others are doing. And I visit websites and ask for samples. Apparently, those behaviors trigger an automatic smack across the face of the dozing sales guy, who leaps into action in hot pursuit of a "lead."
While I'm in information gathering mode, Pesky Peter has decided it's appropriate to call me and try to set up a face-to-face meeting—all within 24-hours of my casual interaction with his brand online.
Today's winning call came from a woman at a printing company, who was following up on an online form I had completed. I had visited the website, cruised around looking at a few case studies, and then requested a sample of the product. What I got was a call requesting a 1:1 meeting so she could bring the sample in person. I tried to get rid of her several times telling her I just wanted to see the product and, if interested, would call her for more information. But she refused to be swayed. Quite frankly, I don't know if I'll get the sample sent to me or not after that exchange.
Within minutes of hanging up, she called my office manager trying to find additional contacts within the creative department, so she might make an appointment with them instead of me. Being a smaller agency, it was easy to thwart that behavior.
Email follow ups don't seem to get much better. I have learned that if I provide an email address (so I can download the whitepaper), it usually triggers a follow up email within just a few hours. While the email is personal, they're often extremely aggressive in tone, and get more nasty when I fail to respond or take any kind of additional action.
The latest cold prospecting technique by the USPS is an example of "what not to do." They emailed me an invitation to a webinar in the form of an Outlook meeting request. Marked "Urgent", it came from a USPS rep I've never heard of, on a topic that I've never inquired about, and without any explanation other than a title of the presentation and a dial-in number and password so I could "accept" it and add it to my calendar. Quite frankly, it felt intrusive.
And speaking of email, why do sales people get so nasty so quickly when they don't get a response to a cold prospecting email? If I've never heard of you, and I don't respond, please don't send me a follow up email asking why I haven't responded. I haven't responded because I don't know you and I'm too busy to respond to cold prospecting emails on topics/products/services that don't interest me.
I know cold prospecting is hard—so here are a few tips that might help folks from wasting their (and my) time:
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