Marketers have been pounding email inboxes for so many years now that the ‘delete’ and ‘spam’ link button have been showing signs of wear like the rub on the bottom of sneakers.
In this new age of technology, I do believe that many novice marketers have been trained to click-click-click and blindly send marketing emails daily to hundreds of thousands of unknown prospects, in the hopes that some desperate soul might finally open their email and become their next big deal.
Though this email marketing strategy may be an effective way to reach hundreds of potential prospects in a short period of time, for free, it is certainly not the way to convert and create long lasting relationships, and I would also say, that it may not be the ideal way to start one.
Though there may be a few professional marketers that honestly do deploy email marketing as a serious strategy, the overwhelming presence of instant-machine-gun-email-marketers make it very difficult for a serious practitioner of email marketing to get the attention that they are looking for.
The reality, in my view, is that email marketing only truly works when you are sending an email to someone that you are currently and/or actively building a relationship with, or have already established a relationship, whether it be in person or on the phone.
Short of that, the chances of your spam-like-marketing-email being clicked over to the ‘trash’ or ‘spam’ folder are as high as a used burrito wrapper being tossed into the garbage.
Though I am not advocating to NOT engage in ‘cold’ email marketing, there are specific email marketing tactics that are well defined, and when well deployed, can be very effective.
For now, this post is recommending a powerful marketing strategy that has been proven to deliver strong results over decades.
What I am suggesting is to actually get out and meet people in the real world face-to-face.
Regardless of age or generation, the fundamentals of meeting people with a handshake and a smile, and exchanging good stories, and having good conversation, all in an effort to ‘get-to-know-each-other’, has been, and always will be, in my view, a powerful method of building relationships.
In fact, getting to know someone without any intent to sell them anything is yet even more powerful.
The selling of your business, product, or service, should quite frankly be tertiary in any initial meeting, in most instances.
The first contact should always include the ‘Hello’ and the exchange of pleasantries, and then, it’s the actual genuine interest that you may have in getting to know this new person standing in front of you.
Then, if you are doing this right, the proverbial inquiry of ‘So, what do you do for a living’ should naturally come to fruition in the course of a blossoming conversation.
Here is a key point… If the person that you are speaking with is not moved towards asking YOU what YOU do for a living, then YOU are doing something wrong.
So, where do you meet people?
Just so we are clear, we are discussing ‘marketing tactics’ here, so when you consider meeting people for the purpose of generating new clients for your business, it is important that you cast your fishing line in the proper waters.
In other words, if you are casting your fishing line off the edge of a pond, expecting to catch a TUNA, you may want to rethink your strategy.
So, following are some ideas on where you might connect with prospective clients. Please adjust as needed for your own specific needs:
- Attend Business Meet Ups in Your Local Town
Doing a Google search for ‘local business meetups’ can bring up a few publicly announced business meet up sessions. Some may be free and some may require membership. Whether or not you decide to pay for a meet up session depends on the value that you believe that it may bring to your business goals. - Get Active in Your Local Community
Whether it’s a social group, a political group, or a charitable group, everybody knows somebody, and it’s a great way to meet people and contribute to a cause that can help you to build out a network of people that can spread the word around town about what your business has to offer. - Join a Local Sports League
Sports are universal with those who participate, and because of the very nature of the activity in sports, very strong bonds can develop between individuals, based on individual attributes. Developing relationships with teammates can progress into so much more than a simple ‘business relationship’. Partnerships, support, networking, strategic planning, and so much more, has been gained from being a part of a ‘team’ that plays towards ‘winning’ on the field. Those type of attributes can easily transfer to any business endeavor. - Start Your Own Meetup
By doing so, this can be an incredible way for you to not only meet new people and build a network, but this also presents an incredible opportunity for you to meet and ‘interview’ members in an open and relaxed venue and select one or more who may be a potential good hire for you.
The big take away here is to get out and meet people face-to-face, because as Business Owners, we should always be on the look out for potential clients, and if we so happen to find incredible people to help us to build and grow our business, it just sweetens our efforts.
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