In all stories and films featuring the Easter Bunny, he’s often depicted as a really elusive figure (like the spring time version of Santa Claus). No matter how hard kids (and in some weird cases, adults) try to get him on tape, he gives them the slip better than Bigfoot.
This sounds a lot like some cases in your marketing campaign. No matter how hard you try and search for this elusive, legendary prospect, it’s like such businesses don’t even exist!
But like in a lot of holiday stories, believing remains to be prerequisite to seeing. Why? Because their plots usually play out the ‘seeing’ part as totally inadequate. So you caught the Easter Bunny or found his lair, what then? Are you going to expose him to the world? Eat your fill of chocolate eggs? Make sure it stays a secret?
Put in B2B terms, it’s like you’re so bent on finding this almost mythical prospect but have never considered any plans for your relationship.
Granted, the fact that nailing this prospect had you shifting all your B2B marketing tools into high gear is a feat in of itself. It’s just that you need to make sure it was all worth it in the end.
For some of you, you might think the answer is really obvious. After nailing a big prospect, you start doing everything you can in service to someone of such legendary status among businesses.
Yet, how many businesses just go on and do that instead of going back to parading their sales/marketing effort? Better yet, how do you know you’re not one of them?
You treat buying signals as both short and long term opportunities
Of course, there’s only so much you can learn from the small actions that represent good buying signals. But like icebergs, they’re just the tip of what a prospect needs right now. No matter how little you can tell now, you use that begin charting the course of your business relationship. For instance, what particular case study did they read up on? Was it because they were in a similar situation? It’s certainly a good way to start more questions and finding answers that will serve.
You make a point to keep communicating
Communication isn’t only while your prospect is still in the middle of the sales process. You keep it up, even to the point that your prospect should never expect you to stop calling. Think of it as the larger, organizational version of The Good Samaritan. You don’t just reach out to a business when it looks like they could use some help. You drop by with more in case they need it too. Don’t also forget about the importance of feedback.
You don’t alter tone
Maintaining communication doesn’t mean changing the feel of how you talk with a prospect. It would be a little weird if, say, you use quality telemarketers when qualifying but give your customer service agents give them poor reception. It doesn’t matter whether you’re outsourcing one, the other, both etc. What matters is that the tone of communication doesn’t cause a strain between you two.
To sum it all up, your goal is to not just deliver a good marketing message but the real business value right after. For all the effort you put into getting the Easter Bunny, you need to think bigger than just proving to the whole world he’s real.
