I bet you hate to make cold calls. Over the last ten years or more, you didn't need to cold call, market or sell much to win your share of contracts. The phone kept ringing, and you stayed busy. I'm sure you also like it when potential customers call you with jobs on which to bid or propose. This "old school" marketing plan-letting your reputation speak for itself and waiting for referrals to grow your business-used to work. But now it doesn't.
In today's tough work environment of less work and more competition, you need to make outbound sales calls and implement a marketing system to keep your pipeline full of potential projects to bid. The following is my simple marketing system that doesn't require cold calls. Instead, it's more like a form of that Chinese water torture you saw in the old movies-Drip! Drip! Drip! I call it: "Bug 'Em 'Til They Buy or Die!"
The "Bug 'Em 'Til They Buy Or Die" Marketing System:
- Create awareness of your company
- Pique the potential customer's interest
- Stay at the top of the customer's mind
- Generate inquiry
- Get face-to-face interaction
- Convert a bid or proposal into a contract
- Develop customer relationships
- Get referrals
This eight step marketing system is designed to move the prospective customer through all eight marketing steps without a single cold call. The goal of this system is to get potential customers to call you versus you calling them.
This system builds an awareness of your company and what you can do for customers over a period of time.
Create Awareness Using the Rule of Seven
You must have at least seven contacts with a potential customer before he/she:
- Remembers your name
- Feels he/she knows you
- Trusts you
- Will take any action toward you
To grow both our construction and speaking businesses, we use the trusted U.S. postal service to build customer awareness. We mail something to everyone on our mailing list at least four times per year. Once is not enough, and we don't just mail any old boring piece of mail. We send creative, unique, fun, factual, caring and informative articles, photos, postcards, white papers, mini-brochures, checklists and guides. We use a professional design firm to keep our image consistent. Orange and blue are our colors. Everyone recognizes our orange hardhat or our blueprint background on every piece of mail we send out.
Everything you send out must do one of three things to create and build awareness:
- Pique customer interest
- Create a perception of value
- Reinforce customer relationship
