Business to Business Marketing AVALANCHE HOW to find FREE local prospects NOW
Heres a simple tip that can become a core part of your marketing routine.
Despite what many business professionals think, and many marketers unfortunately
perpetuate, marketing is rarely sexy, its winning business that generates
excitement.
Prospects are the lifeblood of your business and form the base for all
your marketing activity.
Generating prospects profitably however, is often like panning for gold
- you have to find a source and keep believing that there is gold in there.
Ill point you in the direction of a cheap, good source - your local
newspaper.
Do you REALLY read your local newspaper?
There are a number of simple opportunities for you to get new customers,
but three that are easy to spot in your paper are:
A Its a new business
B Changes in ownership
C Changes in size and location.
Many new businesses have no provision for your service in place, yet.
They may think they are not ready for you or dont need your service.
They may think they it will be expensive. Youll need to convince them
otherwise. However, I believe, the main reason is that no one has approached
them yet.
In my experience, new businesses will be receptive to you if you make
the effort to contact them. If your business also saves them money, time
and effort all the better. Something to think about for your marketing
messages.
The other two groups are always going to be more difficult prospects
to turn into clients, but will almost certainly produce higher average
fees. They will be open to change because of their situation, but be more
hardened to your approach. Be patient and use a longer-term strategy.
I imagine that it will take you about 15 minutes to scan the newspaper
each week and pick out these three groups of prospects.
Adverts and the recruitment section are the most obvious places to find
prospects and their contact details, however most local newspapers also
have a business page or business related articles, which will also give
you a contact and perhaps a crucial piece of information.
If you specialise in an area such as small cash handling businesses,
this could actually become one of your leading sources of prospects.
The actual gathering task can be given to another member of staff, but
you may be the best person to spot other opportunities for you and your
business.
Once you have identified a prospect, I find using a simple introduction
letter followed by sales call still generates the best results.
This is a numbers game; you need to do this tip weekly to get the maximum
benefit. At the very least you will find yourself much more in touch with
the pulse of your local business community.
However, I believe you will be delighted at finding a simple, profitable
way of getting new clients and building your in-house prospect lists.
|
