May 9, 2020

1257: A 5 Step Follow Up Process to Engage Your LinkedIn Audience w/ Matt Heinz

Apple Podcasts podcast player icon
Spotify podcast player icon
YouTube Channel podcast player icon
Google Podcasts podcast player icon
Castro podcast player icon
RSS Feed podcast player icon

In this episode we talk to Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing & Host of Sales Pipeline Radio.

If you like this episode, you'll probably also love:

How to Turn Marketing From a Cost Center to a Profit Center

Measuring the Impact of Content on Sales Pipeline Contribution & Conversion

Getting Personalization Right in B2B Sales

#ContentBasedNetworking 2: How to Do Content Collaboration at Scale

5 Research Based Insights Into How Marketers Buy

Why (or why not) B2B Marketers Should Leverage Podcasts

Announcing Our 1st Sales Hire (and a LinkedIn Engagement Tactic Everyone Should Use) with Logan Lyles

LinkedIn Video from Matt Heinz


Are you getting every B2B Growth episode in your favorite podcast player?

If not, you can easily subscribe & search past episodes here.

You can also find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.830 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:09.109 --> 00:00:13.109 I'm joined today by Matt Hines. He's the president of hines marketing. He's 3 00:00:13.109 --> 00:00:16.550 a former guest on this show. He is a linkedin superstar when it comes 4 00:00:16.589 --> 00:00:21.460 to content. He's also a fellow podcast host of sales pipeline radio. Matt, 5 00:00:21.579 --> 00:00:25.579 welcome back to the show man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate absolutely 6 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:29.699 anytime I get a chance to pick your brain about content, about social about 7 00:00:29.699 --> 00:00:34.460 anything marketing. It's always a good time. For folks who aren't as familiar 8 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:37.450 with you, they haven't heard your previous episodes here on the show, they're 9 00:00:37.450 --> 00:00:41.049 not yet following you on Linkedin, which I highly suggest they do, and 10 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:44.369 if they're in BDB marketing and not following you, I'm not sure how that's 11 00:00:44.409 --> 00:00:48.530 happened yet. But give us a little background, give us quick context before 12 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:53.079 we jump into an engagement follow up strategy that we're going to be talking about 13 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:55.759 today. Really just to give people a little preface. We're going to be 14 00:00:55.880 --> 00:01:00.240 breaking down how can you take next steps to continue engagement with folks who like 15 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.670 comment react to your content on Linkedin? But give us a little bit of 16 00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:07.469 background before we jump straight to that. Man. Yeah, say that five 17 00:01:07.510 --> 00:01:11.390 times fast. So I've been doing B tob sales and marketing for a way 18 00:01:11.510 --> 00:01:15.109 too long. I started hines working about twelve years ago and we really focus 19 00:01:15.230 --> 00:01:19.379 on helping be to be organizations develop more predictable sales pipelines. You know, 20 00:01:19.459 --> 00:01:23.659 we find that many companies are doing random acts of sales and marketing and there's 21 00:01:23.900 --> 00:01:29.659 too much lumpiness in the flow of qualified leads, in the sales but also 22 00:01:29.739 --> 00:01:34.689 just the flow of qualified opportunities. That can improve the accuracy of your forecast 23 00:01:34.730 --> 00:01:37.650 and hitting your number month after month, quarter after quarter. And that's even 24 00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:41.769 more important right now as more companies find that what was working in a good 25 00:01:41.810 --> 00:01:45.849 market isn't working as precisely right now. So, you know, helping companies 26 00:01:45.890 --> 00:01:49.280 figure out how to create more predictability and scalability, especially on certain times. 27 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:53.159 That is that is what we do. Yeah, absolutely, Man. Predictability 28 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.280 is just a word I think a lot of people are clinging to in any 29 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:00.909 place they can find it in life and in work right now. To lumpy, 30 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:04.430 I love the way you say that makes me, you know, think 31 00:02:04.510 --> 00:02:07.950 of when I'm making the mash potatoes for dinner and they're just coming out to 32 00:02:07.069 --> 00:02:09.949 lumpy. So anyway, that's what sticks in my mind. All right, 33 00:02:10.349 --> 00:02:15.389 let's talk about we're going to get to some of the tools and your specific 34 00:02:15.430 --> 00:02:19.740 tactics for how. You often follow up with people who engage with your content 35 00:02:19.939 --> 00:02:22.979 on Linkedin. But before we get to the how, as we usually do 36 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:24.259 on the show, I like to talk about the why a little bit. 37 00:02:24.659 --> 00:02:29.020 You know, you posted a video on this a while back. It really 38 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:31.889 kind of resonated with me. For folks who say, I don't know, 39 00:02:32.129 --> 00:02:36.530 I'm putting out contented, it's fine, don't really need kind of this follow 40 00:02:36.569 --> 00:02:39.129 up strategy. What's your thought on maybe? Is there lowhanging fruit here? 41 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:44.680 Is there and you know in a miss that people are just stepping over and 42 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:47.879 not realizing in here? Well, I think that you know, in general, 43 00:02:47.919 --> 00:02:53.360 and especially in this moment, your ability to provide value and share ideas 44 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:55.599 with people where they're hungry, to learn their hung we just try to make 45 00:02:55.719 --> 00:02:59.629 sense of what's going around, is enormous. And that doesn't mean you have 46 00:02:59.669 --> 00:03:01.909 to write a twelve hundred page or one hundred word blog post. It's for 47 00:03:02.150 --> 00:03:06.030 for Seo. You don't have to write a fifteen page white paper. It 48 00:03:06.150 --> 00:03:08.789 can be a hundred words. You know, I look at what Dave Gerhard 49 00:03:08.909 --> 00:03:13.659 is doing, who was formerly of drifts, and I can't exactly where he 50 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:15.939 is now, but like every day he's posting things on Linkedin and it's very 51 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:20.460 short comments, but it is it's really helpful. It reminds me of what 52 00:03:20.659 --> 00:03:23.819 some does on on his blog. Quite frankly, he never really writes anything 53 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:27.930 along, he just writes something that's interesting, that makes you think. And 54 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:30.090 so part of the content, part of the value, is not what you 55 00:03:30.169 --> 00:03:32.330 read, but it's what you think about it do about it next. Yeah, 56 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:37.569 absolutely, Man, and oftentimes a hundred words on Linkedin may end up 57 00:03:37.689 --> 00:03:42.000 reaching more people more quickly than one one hundred word blog post on your blog. 58 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:44.800 I mean, there's a lot of different factors there, but I've just 59 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:49.879 seen, especially right now, it seems like people are really looking for ways 60 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:53.080 to improve. And you know, I've talked to some people that say, 61 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:55.349 oh well, we're pulling back on our our content. The last thing we 62 00:03:55.469 --> 00:03:59.629 want to do is is be promoting. And I'm like, well, one, 63 00:03:59.789 --> 00:04:02.469 there's your problem. Your content shouldn't be promoting, it should be educating. 64 00:04:02.870 --> 00:04:05.710 That's the way that you're going to draw more people in and to you 65 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:10.379 know, if there are people who are changing jobs or who have been affected 66 00:04:10.419 --> 00:04:13.900 by a layoff or they're trying to get more juiced for the squeeze, they're 67 00:04:13.939 --> 00:04:18.139 trying to add more value to their organization right now in tough times, your 68 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:23.980 content can really serve them well. So let's say that you've gotten act of 69 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:28.089 on Linkedin. You're starting to get more engagement there. What's kind of your 70 00:04:28.290 --> 00:04:31.009 follow up strategy? Their Matt to not just kind of leave it there and 71 00:04:31.089 --> 00:04:34.170 maybe hey, I get a new connection, but a way to kind of 72 00:04:34.410 --> 00:04:40.040 maximize that effort in the return that you get with the engagement in the audience 73 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:42.879 that you're trying to reach. So I do a couple things. So first 74 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:45.680 of all, just as a follow up on your comment about like just short 75 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:47.399 form content there can help people in this moment. You know, I think 76 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:50.759 there's a lot of people that are where, if they aren't generally anxious, 77 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:55.310 this condition is making them anxious. People that are generally anxious, like myself, 78 00:04:55.949 --> 00:04:59.829 this really feeds your anxiety and so I think that anxiety leads to shorter 79 00:04:59.829 --> 00:05:02.149 attention spans and so as much as we may want to sort of create content 80 00:05:02.310 --> 00:05:06.069 for Seo which is, you know, longer form. That shorter form content, 81 00:05:06.110 --> 00:05:09.779 I've noticed, gets a lot more attention, a lot more likes, 82 00:05:09.819 --> 00:05:13.180 a lot more sort of pass along. But what I've what I've done with 83 00:05:13.339 --> 00:05:15.220 our content, and so you know, I think about for business development. 84 00:05:15.339 --> 00:05:17.699 For us. I think about it as a long game, like I want 85 00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:21.490 to build trust and reputation incredibility with an audience so that when they have a 86 00:05:21.689 --> 00:05:25.610 need, they come to us because they know they'll get more good information on 87 00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:28.930 because they think they'll get sold too. So if we post something on Linkedin, 88 00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:31.490 I kind of separate out the people that will like and comment it on 89 00:05:31.889 --> 00:05:35.480 first connections and second connections, and if it's a second connection, I will 90 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:40.240 very likely send them a connection request with a custom message that says something like 91 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:43.279 Hey, thanks very much for, you know, checking out some of my 92 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.079 content. You know, appreciate the prestiate the read. If there's things that 93 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:49.430 you want to see, I've got twelve years of content and I'm also creating 94 00:05:49.470 --> 00:05:51.550 new content every day. So there's new things you want to learn, let 95 00:05:51.550 --> 00:05:54.990 me know. I'm happy to either share that or Cret for you. I 96 00:05:55.029 --> 00:05:57.069 get about it and these are people that I don't know, that I'm not 97 00:05:57.110 --> 00:05:59.829 connected with, and I'll get about a ninety five percent connect rate with them 98 00:06:00.189 --> 00:06:02.310 for people that are first connections, and I throttle this based on how often 99 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:04.660 they might connect are. They might, you know, like something, but 100 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:08.019 I'll send them an email and just you know, I've got this sort of 101 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:11.899 a process and attemple for that just very quickly says thanks for engaging with our 102 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:14.860 content. Same thing if there's other content or that you like to see, 103 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:16.379 if there's questions you have in your business, let us work on that for 104 00:06:16.500 --> 00:06:19.209 you. Will create some content for you and for the broader audience. For 105 00:06:19.290 --> 00:06:23.209 that it's been a great way to drive new, you know, sort of 106 00:06:23.449 --> 00:06:26.569 renewed engagement with people I haven't talked to in a while, and it's been 107 00:06:26.569 --> 00:06:29.610 also a great way to take people that clearly have some affinity with the content 108 00:06:29.649 --> 00:06:32.639 I'm creating around be tob sales and marketing and creating first person connections with them 109 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:36.759 so that they're more likely seeing the next few pieces of content to get promoted 110 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:41.319 out there. Yeah, absolutely, I think that touch is super smart, 111 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:44.759 especially with, you know, all the context that we talked about in the 112 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:48.470 current environment but also just tactically. I've noticed something on linkedin where you have 113 00:06:48.589 --> 00:06:54.430 a new connection and there all be a notification that shows up and let's say 114 00:06:54.430 --> 00:06:57.790 you and I just connected, Matt, I've seen this. Similarly, Hey, 115 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:00.819 matt hines just posted an update that you might be interested in. So 116 00:07:00.899 --> 00:07:05.860 if you are starting to put out content, starting to get engagement and connections, 117 00:07:05.899 --> 00:07:11.060 if you're not following that that up with additional touches and email, a 118 00:07:11.699 --> 00:07:15.449 personalized message or more content for them to consume, you're really, you know, 119 00:07:15.569 --> 00:07:18.810 doing yourself a disservice and you're not getting, as I like to say, 120 00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:24.089 as much juice for the squeeze as as you could, because it's kind 121 00:07:24.089 --> 00:07:27.810 of this snowball effect. I've noticed, at least when I'm more consistent on 122 00:07:27.930 --> 00:07:31.000 Linkedin, the views in the engagement start to climb and then when I kind 123 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.959 of stop for a while, it kind of falls off and it takes a 124 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:38.759 while to build it back up. I'm consistency, I think, at least 125 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:42.199 on a platform like linked in, from my own experience, is just as 126 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:46.230 important as the quality of the content that you're putting out. Matt in. 127 00:07:46.310 --> 00:07:47.990 The Post you did will link to this in the show notes some people can 128 00:07:48.029 --> 00:07:50.709 check out. I think it's like a two minute video you did. Can 129 00:07:50.750 --> 00:07:55.750 you talk about your process? They're from looking at a post, looking at 130 00:07:55.790 --> 00:08:00.579 WHO's engaged with it, grabbing email addresses and then taking next steps, some 131 00:08:00.740 --> 00:08:03.860 of which, as you mentioned, are one one personal lines, but others 132 00:08:03.220 --> 00:08:07.180 can be automated so that folks who aren't doing something like this now might be 133 00:08:07.259 --> 00:08:11.819 able to follow some of your the steps in your process. Yeah, I 134 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:15.050 mean the primary way I do this is by looking at I'll. I'll look 135 00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:18.370 at I'll weight twenty four to forty eight hours after I post something, because 136 00:08:18.370 --> 00:08:22.089 usually I'll get the vast majority of the likes on something within that time period 137 00:08:22.089 --> 00:08:24.250 and they may continue over time, but they kind of Peter out. So 138 00:08:24.290 --> 00:08:28.439 within forty hours I'll click on likes next to my post and it'll, you 139 00:08:28.439 --> 00:08:30.720 know, Linkedin, will open up a list of all the people that liked 140 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:35.000 that content. Usually see they're usually roughly sorted by people I'm cul most closely 141 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.399 associated with at the top, and then once you get to the bottom the 142 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:41.039 list it gets a little sort of further out. But then I use a 143 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:43.830 product called lead Iq and so lead I q is a sidebar that kind of 144 00:08:43.990 --> 00:08:48.669 shows up on the side of my browser and it if I'm looking at a 145 00:08:48.750 --> 00:08:54.070 list result in Linkedin, it'll show that same list in late Iq and it 146 00:08:54.230 --> 00:08:56.620 basically just shows it as it is, just a sort of the same people 147 00:08:56.659 --> 00:09:00.700 and looking at on the side by side and it'll show me with icons who 148 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:03.500 am connected to on Linkedin I'm not, who is in sales force and who 149 00:09:03.620 --> 00:09:07.779 is not, who's in sales force with a matching email address or not, 150 00:09:09.259 --> 00:09:11.850 right, or a direct email address or not, and so those give me 151 00:09:11.929 --> 00:09:15.090 the ability to then have a next step for each of those likes where I 152 00:09:15.129 --> 00:09:16.250 can say, okay, some of these folks are going to get a linkedin 153 00:09:16.289 --> 00:09:20.129 connection request, some of these folks are going to get the email, and 154 00:09:20.250 --> 00:09:24.009 that allows me to very quickly filter and sort the prospects based on what they 155 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:26.919 need to get. Lead Iq, of course, will also help me find 156 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:31.080 email addresses for people that I don't yet know. So I have started experimenting 157 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:35.360 with also like getting email addresses for second connections and sending them emails instead of 158 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:39.070 Linkedin requests, and it's it's not as high of an open right as of 159 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:41.230 people that I know, but it's still close to sixty sixty five percent, 160 00:09:41.309 --> 00:09:43.990 which is pretty good. And so, you know, I think your earlier 161 00:09:45.070 --> 00:09:48.230 point, you know, there shouldn't ever really be a dead end to any 162 00:09:48.269 --> 00:09:50.429 of our continent engagement right, like and I think if all you're doing is 163 00:09:50.470 --> 00:09:54.179 asking for the Demo and asking for a proposal and sort of, you know, 164 00:09:54.220 --> 00:09:56.299 if you if you're just heavy handed with sales, then that's going to 165 00:09:56.379 --> 00:10:01.220 get old really quickly. If you continue to have some value for the audience, 166 00:10:01.539 --> 00:10:03.740 there's always something new you can be providing to them, right. So, 167 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:09.289 you know, some of those outreaches turn into sales conversations. Most of 168 00:10:09.330 --> 00:10:11.690 them do not. Right, it's just Oh, love your content, would 169 00:10:11.730 --> 00:10:13.929 love to stay in touch. Okay, great, and then I have, 170 00:10:15.250 --> 00:10:18.450 you know, on and going. I might see them again in a future 171 00:10:18.529 --> 00:10:20.799 like list or you know, as they start to engage with our content on 172 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.720 our website, they started going from Linkedin to some of our blog content, 173 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:28.200 our other content. I can see them in my my own sort of web 174 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.320 search or website analytics. I can see them in our MARQUETTA reports and we've 175 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:33.879 got storing and filtering that allow us to sort of take the next step with 176 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:37.710 them there. But you know, I'm really I kind of you know, 177 00:10:37.870 --> 00:10:41.590 engaging with the linkedin likes is something that we had previously. We just sort 178 00:10:41.590 --> 00:10:46.190 of randomly started doing haphazardly and it's been a really fun engaging way of converting 179 00:10:46.629 --> 00:10:48.029 what use we mentioned earlier. Like, you know, you post an interesting 180 00:10:48.070 --> 00:10:50.980 piece of content up on Linkedin, you might get tens of thousands of likes 181 00:10:52.059 --> 00:10:54.860 on that and ten to thousands of views. You know, you know the 182 00:10:54.019 --> 00:10:56.700 a few hundred likes and these are a lot of people that you know maybe 183 00:10:56.740 --> 00:11:00.820 discover you for the first time, and so the best way to make sure 184 00:11:00.820 --> 00:11:03.179 they can discover and engage with you again is to just engage right back with 185 00:11:03.289 --> 00:11:07.049 them right offer something of value, offer to do something more for them, 186 00:11:07.450 --> 00:11:09.370 and if they're engaging with you there, it's more likely they're going to be 187 00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:13.330 presented with your linkedin content next and if they feel like they've had some back 188 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:16.169 and forth with you, the likelihood they engage with that again and again and 189 00:11:16.250 --> 00:11:20.279 again just goes up. Yeah, absolutely, and I think if you are 190 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:26.399 not kind of doing the hard pivot to just standard connection requests without personalization, 191 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:31.399 which you touched on earlier, and then you're not saying hey, I'm sure 192 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:35.389 things are crazy for you right now. But here's my pitch anyway, which 193 00:11:35.429 --> 00:11:39.470 is what I see a lot right now. You stand out from the crowd 194 00:11:39.029 --> 00:11:43.110 by offering to be more helpful. You know, one of the the lines 195 00:11:43.190 --> 00:11:46.820 that I use. We did a previous episode this on this on my linkedin 196 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:52.179 follow up strategy, something similar to this. Man. It wasn't as sophisticated 197 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:54.340 and I wasn't at that point using a lot of the tools that you're using. 198 00:11:54.419 --> 00:11:58.059 We actually use lead Iq here at sweetfish as well, and I've seen 199 00:11:58.179 --> 00:12:03.250 the linkedin integration works. Works really, really well. But just an open 200 00:12:03.289 --> 00:12:07.370 ended question of you know what's new in your world right now opened up a 201 00:12:07.409 --> 00:12:09.850 lot of conversations. Led to hey, if you posted about this, that 202 00:12:09.889 --> 00:12:13.730 would be super helpful. Led to a few sales conversations. So I think 203 00:12:13.889 --> 00:12:18.120 you've got to you don't want to give people a dead end, but you 204 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:20.039 also don't want to hit the gas petal and just try and take them to 205 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:24.759 the finish line. I think those are kind of the two missteps that a 206 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:28.039 lot of people make. And I don't know, maybe I'm just an anyagram 207 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:31.350 nine and I'm always looking for the gray area in the middle and trying to 208 00:12:31.429 --> 00:12:35.149 be agreeable, but I think there's usually a good place in in the middle 209 00:12:35.309 --> 00:12:39.230 ground where you want to be, and I think you know that's kind of 210 00:12:39.269 --> 00:12:41.750 what you're advocating for here as well. You know, the other thing you 211 00:12:41.830 --> 00:12:45.100 can do, and I think you touched on this in your video, Matt, 212 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:48.179 is as you look at that list, you can add them to a 213 00:12:48.299 --> 00:12:52.460 campaign. You can push them right into your crm sales force. I know 214 00:12:52.539 --> 00:12:56.220 lead Iq can push right into hub spot crm as well. Or you can 215 00:12:56.419 --> 00:13:01.610 take that CSV and and then upload that to outreach or sales loft or mix 216 00:13:01.690 --> 00:13:05.970 Max, whatever sales engagement tools and add some automated steps in addition to that 217 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:11.009 personalized connection request, because again, we want to be consistent, but we 218 00:13:11.090 --> 00:13:13.600 want to be adding value and we want to be multi channel when we can 219 00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:18.159 and all of our sales and marketing approaches. If you're doing that, if 220 00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:22.639 you're adding some automated steps to the sequence, Matt, you're such a prolific 221 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:26.320 copywriter. I think that's part of why you've built such a great following on 222 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:30.909 Linkedin. Can you give some people some maybe dos and don'ts in general on 223 00:13:31.070 --> 00:13:33.710 kind of crafting that message? If you're going to go that route, maybe 224 00:13:33.789 --> 00:13:37.669 do a you know, a follow up sequence in your sales engagement platform, 225 00:13:37.710 --> 00:13:41.149 kind of as a next step to this process. Yeah, I think that, 226 00:13:41.309 --> 00:13:43.220 you know, the more you speak to the audience as opposed to speak 227 00:13:43.220 --> 00:13:46.299 about yourself, the better you are. And that's easier said than done for 228 00:13:46.340 --> 00:13:50.059 a lot of companies. I regularly will see companies try to create content that 229 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:54.139 they say, Oh, this is about the customer, and yet every sentence 230 00:13:54.179 --> 00:13:58.129 starts with eye or we write if that same sentence could be recrafted to say 231 00:13:58.289 --> 00:14:01.490 you to F on their issues. And so I would take an extra minute 232 00:14:01.529 --> 00:14:07.610 focus on being copy it speaks to your audience, not at your audience. 233 00:14:09.090 --> 00:14:13.039 Also, take yourself out of the message, like if you're creating content that 234 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:16.519 is top of funnel, if you're creating engagement content, you don't need to 235 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:18.120 reference your company at all. I can't tell you how many times, even 236 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:22.440 just this morning, had a company send me some examples of their sort of, 237 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:26.070 you know, covid nineteen prospect drift campaign, and it was all about 238 00:14:26.149 --> 00:14:28.350 their company, right, and they could have said the exact same thing without 239 00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:31.830 mean the exact same message, without mentioning their company. Six Times in the 240 00:14:31.909 --> 00:14:35.950 email, because if I just scan and I see you mentioned your company six 241 00:14:35.029 --> 00:14:39.059 ts in a short you don't like this is a pitch versus. If you 242 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.139 take it out for that, for this one example of district coming, I 243 00:14:41.179 --> 00:14:45.340 was like, it's a really important message. That was just kind of it 244 00:14:45.460 --> 00:14:46.980 was. It was hard to get the city to separate the signal from the 245 00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:50.179 noise. You know, I think the other thing to keep in mind right 246 00:14:50.179 --> 00:14:54.690 now is you know many of your prospects are qualified and have need but can't 247 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:58.049 buy like you're not going to control when the CFO UN friezes budget. The 248 00:14:58.129 --> 00:15:01.250 way that I refer to this last week is you can't grow tomatoes in the 249 00:15:01.289 --> 00:15:07.049 winter time right you just you're not going to coax fruit out of your fruit 250 00:15:07.090 --> 00:15:11.919 trees in the wrong season and a lot of your prospects are in winter right 251 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:13.879 now. So you can if you can't go tomatoes right now, what can 252 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:16.600 you do to the soil? What do you do to the feel? What 253 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:18.960 do you do with your fertilizer? What do you do in the greenhouse with 254 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.309 your starts? Your harvest time is going to come and my wife throws up 255 00:15:22.309 --> 00:15:24.710 a litter our mouth when I get to that part of the analogy. But 256 00:15:24.830 --> 00:15:28.509 like, if you can't harvest now, what are you doing now to build 257 00:15:28.509 --> 00:15:31.350 value so that you can harvest more later? This is a moment in time 258 00:15:31.509 --> 00:15:35.509 where, even if your sales are lower, even if demand is lower, 259 00:15:35.259 --> 00:15:39.580 invest your relationships, invest in your content, invest in the value you create 260 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:43.700 for people, and that is going to be an enormous competitive disavent or competitive 261 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:48.899 advantage as we come out of this and companies say okay, we're our budgets 262 00:15:48.899 --> 00:15:52.250 are unfrozen, we're ready to grow again, we are in our rebound. 263 00:15:52.250 --> 00:15:56.210 Who Do we go to? Based on who we trust? Yes, absolutely. 264 00:15:56.289 --> 00:16:00.690 I mean there is something so true about what you just said there, 265 00:16:00.690 --> 00:16:04.240 Matt. Not only was a it a great gardening and and farming analogy, 266 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:07.240 which I think we talked to you and James talked about that in a previous 267 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:12.679 episode on the show og farmer from the Pacific northwest, but the other thing 268 00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:18.360 I saw Dave gearhart post about this. I've talked to some of our new 269 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:22.149 customers that have come on in recent weeks and they've said, hey, we 270 00:16:22.389 --> 00:16:25.669 know that our customers are not in by mode right now, but we're going 271 00:16:25.669 --> 00:16:30.870 to start a podcast because if we are telling the stories from the community that 272 00:16:30.950 --> 00:16:34.220 we serve in the trenches when they're going through these difficult times, and we're 273 00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:41.539 actually adding value by both spotlining people in the community and sharing valuable, tactical, 274 00:16:41.860 --> 00:16:45.299 useful content to the rest of the community. Who are they going to 275 00:16:45.379 --> 00:16:48.169 think of when it when those budgets are unfrozen, as you put it right 276 00:16:48.169 --> 00:16:52.409 there? I had a very, very similar conversation with a marketing team not 277 00:16:52.769 --> 00:16:56.009 two or three weeks ago and it was very much in line with what you 278 00:16:56.210 --> 00:17:00.049 just said there, Matt, not not as much the gardening analogy. You 279 00:17:00.250 --> 00:17:03.119 added some some great color to that. I'm going further with the analogy, 280 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:06.799 with the color there anyway. All right, well, Matt, this has 281 00:17:06.799 --> 00:17:10.279 been a great conversation. Man, not only just kind of good things to 282 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:14.599 keep in mind with your content on all channels, but something very tactful that 283 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:18.990 people can take an implement tomorrow. You know, take a moment one to 284 00:17:18.069 --> 00:17:22.910 two days after you post on Linkedin look at all of the engagement. If 285 00:17:22.950 --> 00:17:26.390 you can use a tool like lead IQ to automate some of this process, 286 00:17:26.789 --> 00:17:32.619 push those into drip campaigns or sales engagement sequences, with whatever tool you use 287 00:17:32.660 --> 00:17:34.859 there. But if not, you can still do this manually. You can 288 00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:38.460 still look at that list and you can use other tools to grab email addresses 289 00:17:38.859 --> 00:17:44.650 or to take the time to send one to one connection requests and personalize those. 290 00:17:45.130 --> 00:17:48.930 I've found that once someone's connected, you can use the voice memo or 291 00:17:48.089 --> 00:17:52.970 the video message to send them something more personalized engaging once they connect with you. 292 00:17:53.089 --> 00:17:56.690 If not, you can use a tool like bombomb to send them a 293 00:17:56.690 --> 00:18:00.359 video in that connection request. That could open increase those rates. I mean 294 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:04.640 you talked about Oh man, those new emails only have a sixty to sixty 295 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:08.039 five percent open rate. Oh my goodness, who would? Who would just 296 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.160 kind of stop and say now, I don't want sixty percent open rate right 297 00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:15.069 now. I think what you've said here is just so useful, Matt. 298 00:18:15.150 --> 00:18:19.069 Anything else you want to add to kind of keeping people engaged, taking next 299 00:18:19.069 --> 00:18:23.829 steps, anything kind of around you're putting out content and you want to effectively 300 00:18:23.910 --> 00:18:27.259 engage with that community as we wrap up today, man, well, look, 301 00:18:27.299 --> 00:18:33.779 I mean we're already seeing news of sort of tiered reopenings of the economy 302 00:18:33.019 --> 00:18:37.940 planned in the US. We're very close to seeing some European countries reopening and 303 00:18:37.099 --> 00:18:40.740 as much as it's been scary for the last thirty, forty five days. 304 00:18:40.779 --> 00:18:42.849 It's pretty quickly going to start getting back to some new normal, and it 305 00:18:42.970 --> 00:18:45.130 may be a very different normal than we're used to, but we're going to 306 00:18:45.170 --> 00:18:48.410 have the ability to get back to work or to be able to get back 307 00:18:48.450 --> 00:18:51.329 to the office, we're going to get back into some routines. Eventually we're 308 00:18:51.329 --> 00:18:52.650 going to get back on air planes and then this moment will be gone. 309 00:18:53.089 --> 00:18:57.680 But it's still here today. So this is your opportunity to lean in on 310 00:18:57.880 --> 00:19:03.039 things that you can do to make your customers more knowledgeable, to create content 311 00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:07.880 that's nerves your broader community, to create a reputation for yourself personally, as 312 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:11.910 well as your organization, as someone who's actually enabling themselves as a trusted advisor 313 00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:17.750 and, based on those things, to create habits inside your organization and for 314 00:19:17.829 --> 00:19:22.349 yourself that you can sustain and build on as we get back to some new 315 00:19:22.430 --> 00:19:26.220 normal. This window is going to close. This is in so I think 316 00:19:26.259 --> 00:19:29.500 there's a heightened level of urgency to take advantage of it now to create that 317 00:19:29.579 --> 00:19:33.500 differentiation as well as the habits they can continue to sustain and grow your business 318 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:36.940 move forward. Yeah, absolutely. I love what you said. They're about 319 00:19:37.019 --> 00:19:41.730 sustaining the habits going forward and it couldn't agree more with building the reputation of 320 00:19:41.769 --> 00:19:45.210 the individuals on your team, not just the logo, you know, and 321 00:19:45.289 --> 00:19:48.609 I think of hinds marketing. I think of your face on Linkedin, Matt. 322 00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:52.529 You know, I think of your content, and that's not a bad 323 00:19:52.690 --> 00:19:56.559 thing right like it doesn't matter. If I think of you, then I'm 324 00:19:56.559 --> 00:19:59.920 going to think of your agency and then Hey, I've got a referral to 325 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.359 send to mat or you know that sort of thing. So Anyway, whole 326 00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:07.309 other side conversation on personal brand we could get into. For the sake of 327 00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:08.630 time, Matt, we're going to wrap it up now. A couple of 328 00:20:08.670 --> 00:20:11.470 follow up resources I just want to mention to people will link to in the 329 00:20:11.509 --> 00:20:17.509 show notes. One will link to some previous conversations Matt has shared with James 330 00:20:17.589 --> 00:20:21.309 and others here on BB growth. As you can tell, I always love 331 00:20:21.430 --> 00:20:23.819 picking Matt's brains, so do yourself a favor check out some previous episodes with 332 00:20:23.859 --> 00:20:29.819 him. Matt and I were also Co panelists on and on twenty four webinar 333 00:20:30.059 --> 00:20:33.819 on bb podcasting and one other. I did an episode on my linkedin follow 334 00:20:33.859 --> 00:20:37.089 up strategy and some of the messaging I've used in the past as well that 335 00:20:37.130 --> 00:20:41.609 I alluded to here. So check those out, Matt. If anybody listening 336 00:20:41.650 --> 00:20:44.329 to this is not yet connected with you and they don't want to hit a 337 00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:47.970 dead end, they want to take things further with you, what's the best 338 00:20:47.970 --> 00:20:49.640 way for them to reach out or stay connected with you and your team in 339 00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:52.720 you know you find all of our content. Here's a blog post, white 340 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.680 papers, best practice guides, research up of hinds MARKETINGCOM. Connect with me 341 00:20:56.839 --> 00:21:00.640 with the personalized invite on Linkedin and I'll accept you. Also, just send 342 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:06.069 an email direct map and att at Hinds Marketingcom and look forward to connect and 343 00:21:06.190 --> 00:21:10.390 continue the conversation. Absolutely. And don't forget, check out sales pipeline radio. 344 00:21:10.829 --> 00:21:14.349 You definitely want to subscribe to that if you're if you're a podcast listener, 345 00:21:14.390 --> 00:21:17.349 which you are if you're listening to this and you want more of Matt 346 00:21:17.549 --> 00:21:19.259 on a regular basis. Awesome, Matt. It's so great to have you 347 00:21:19.380 --> 00:21:22.819 on the show again today. Man, I really appreciate it. This is 348 00:21:22.859 --> 00:21:29.460 always fun. Thank you so much. I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask 349 00:21:29.539 --> 00:21:32.970 their listeners for reviews, but I get why they do it, because reviews 350 00:21:33.009 --> 00:21:36.849 are enormously helpful when you're trying to grow a podcast audience. So here's what 351 00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:38.769 we decided to do. If you leave a review for me to be growth 352 00:21:38.809 --> 00:21:44.289 in apple podcasts and email me a screenshot of the review to James at Sweet 353 00:21:44.329 --> 00:21:48.039 Fish Mediacom, I'll send you a signed copy of my new book, content 354 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:51.799 based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. We 355 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:53.640 get a review, you get a free book. We both win.