If you weren’t dating in 2015, consider yourself lucky.
Since most of us live behind some kind of smart screen — hyper-connected and cloaked in vanity — it’s easier than ever for singles to meet interesting and seemingly attractive people.
But it’s more difficult than ever to make authentic connections. An actual face-to-face date can take months, even years, to come to fruition — long after the first Tinder “swipe” or Facebook “like” takes place.
Lead generating is often compared to dating — and rightfully so.
Like dating, business can take a long time to build a rapport with an individual or another company, and sometimes those leads go cold. But business has always been about relationships, and how we conduct business is increasingly similar to how we deal with our personal lives. One great thing about business in the Internet age is that a lead can be revived with a little TLC.
Approaching with Purpose
Any single person today would be annoyed by a phone call or text from a friend-of-a-friend they met once at a party if they weren’t particularly interested in getting to know that individual in the first place. And if said phone call or text doesn’t have a distinct purpose? Forget about it.
The “remember me? remember me?” method of courting is decidedly ineffective because you aren’t giving the person you’re sweet on a good enough reason to remember you.
Consider your romantic interest is your cold lead: Once seemingly interested, but suddenly unresponsive.
Can you identify exactly why this person is uninterested? If you can, you’ve got a great advantage.
If they’re playing the field, excellent. You’ve got the opportunity to demonstrate all the ways in which you beat the competition.
Maybe they need more information about you. Sounds like an open invitation to express yourself!
When you make contact with your prospect, the important thing is to be consistent, but never so frequent that you come across as smothering. This way you stay top-of-mind without scaring them away.
Four Ways to Stay Top-of-Mind
Be the hero:
One of the best ways to stay top-of-mind in your love interest’s busy world is to help them solve a problem you know they’ve been dealing with. This might mean talking to their friends, social media research, or recalling details from the conversation you had when you first met. Maybe over the course of the night, they mentioned they were headed to Germany on business this winter, but was not comfortable with their level of German language skills. Wouldn’t it be helpful if you knew basic German and could teach them some phrases before they left? Maybe you simply know a good tutor or language learning app you could share with them. In any case, lending a helping hand is always a great way to show relevant interest without seeming desperate.
In marketing, delivering content to your lead that solves a problem could be as easy as directing them to a useful resources such as a relevant whitepaper or blog post, as a way to let them know you were listening, you care, and you have expert advice or connections. By sharing content that is  valuable, personalized, and speaks to their unique problem, your lead is much more likely to warm up to the idea of keeping you around. Heroic indeed!
Tell a great story:
The life of the party will always have a great story to tell — and the story will be timely, relevant, and true. As the life of the party, you won’t have to compete with everyone else in the room if you have the most interesting anecdote. Go with what you know, be honest, and have fun. People will be drawn to your charisma.
In your content marketing, use different types of storytelling to see what works best for your audience. But the most important thing to remember here is to appeal to their emotions, and keep it personal. In your newsletter cover, tell stories in your voice to keep the relationship authentic. Use the inside pages of the mailer along with your blogs, white papers, and other resources to give your readers testimonials or success stories. Remember, statistics don’t have to be boring. Share your information in the form of stories and leave your leads engaged and wanting more.
Entertain:
One of the top qualities everyone looks for in a mate is humor. Make them laugh, and they’ll love you. Make them laugh and provide them something of value, and you’ll have made a fan out of them.
When it comes to content, create copy that is engaging and funny, or explains an old idea in a fresh way.
Use the power of celebrity to stand out. In Chapter 13 of Newsletter Marketing, TNP’s CEO Shaun Buck outlines how celebrities can help garner attention to a brand, and that becoming a celebrity in your customer’s eyes increases their loyalty. You can become a celebrity through personal content — sharing a bit of your world with the cold leads you want to heat up.
Give them forget-me-nots:
One of the most important things to remember when considering the types of content to deliver is maintaining communication, even if it’s one-sided. Like with the classic text-courting scenario single millennials are so accustomed to, a quick nudge is a great way to stay top-of-mind.
The bottom line here is that people will buy when they’re ready to buy — not a second sooner — and when they decide they’re ready, don’t you want to be the first name that comes to mind?
TNP client, Teeco Solutions, has a great success story about a man who came to look at their warehouse and products. The man showed up with a tote of all Teeco’s past newsletters, some over a YEAR old. The man explained how much he enjoyed their newsletters, and how getting to know Teeco through this one-sided communication eventually led him to make the purchase …when he was ready.
Whether you’re dating or not, business owners can learn a thing or two from the way singles interact today. By implementing some of these powerful techniques, your cold leads will be hot for you in no time.
