Look at you, you savvy marketer! You’ve taken advantage of the tools available and automated your personalized marketing program. Now, prospects are consistently hearing from you without you even touching a button. There’s just one problem: your messaging reads like a conversation with a robot.
‘I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.’ Sound familiar? That’s because everyone—including your competitors—is using the same canned approach.
According to The Muse, very few people customize their invitations. Which is unfortunate because that quick little message can have a big impact on future business. Think of it as your first impression that you only have one chance to make. If you’re connecting with someone you don’t know at all, it’s your only opportunity to convince him or her to accept and/or reply to your message.
It’s time to put the ‘personal’ back into your ‘personalized marketing’ campaign!
In order not to sound automated, your messaging should reflect a happy medium between businesslike and casual conversation. At Marketing Direction, we tend to lean more toward the friendly side vs. the business side. It’s a tough balance to achieve because you want to sound polished without sounding like a machine.
Automated software can be an effective means of making sure you are consistently reaching out to potential prospects. Since implementing marketing automation to promote our business, company sales have increased dramatically. Our campaign began in April of last year. At that time, prospect meetings averaged around one or two per month. In just one short month, meetings jumped to between three and five per WEEK!
Sales for 2019 almost doubled that of 2018, which we firmly believe would not have happened without marketing automation. While there are numerous platforms that utilize automation, we prefer using LinkedIn because of its robust features and targeting capabilities.
Utilizing LinkedIn, we can target the prospect, request a connection, ask for and schedule a meeting AND create a customized presentation for the prospect’s company without lifting a finger. Furthermore, we can send a meeting reminder as well as a follow-up email after the meeting has taken place.
According to HubSpot, people are three times likelier to reply to a LinkedIn InMail message than a traditional email.
We definitely recommend automating your LinkedIn connection requests because we see a lot of success with our clients who are doing so. You can really define your target and only speak to those who are truly interested in your product or service. Our messaging is very specific so that when a prospect accepts a meeting the expectations are clear they are going to learn more about our marketing services.
Additionally, our automated approach is successful because it reflects a human touch. Messages are personalized to the recipient and are created in-house by a staff of professional marketers. The key is to be casual, specific, honest and concise. On occasion, our automation connects a friend or acquaintance and they have no idea the message was not written specifically for them.
Frequency is equally important. We recommend scheduling messages to be sent every four business days when a response for a meeting request is not received. Be sure to test your automated program to avoid any glitches and to ensure messaging stops when a prospect responds.
Marketing is a numbers game which automation can help improve as well. Let’s face it: the more people you reach out to, the more success you’ll have. With our LinkedIn automation, we send out 50 connection requests every business day per LinkedIn profile. Despite process efficiencies and time management skills, there is no way we could spend that kind of time asking for connection requests!
Adding personal touches to your marketing efforts can significantly enhance your prospecting results. Your target market is more likely to respond, which can lead to greater loyalty and engagement from those same customers. Bottom line: get personal with automated marketing.
