The position before Covid and rapidly rising costs

 We can all remember those halcyon days for marketing before 2020. If you, or your client, wanted to find more business you could just pick up the phone. You could ring through contact lists and have a chat.

Covid hit and all that changed. Everyone stayed at home and remote working became the norm.

What is going to happen next?

 Now, a large proportion of the working population is working several days a week at home.

However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine made an awkward situation even worse.

The cost of living started to rise rapidly, and in particular, fuel. Consequently, the cost of going to work would be a lot more expensive. More people stayed working at home to save money.

Marketing has got to respond to this new norm

With more of the key people working from home, picking up the telephone and ringing the contact, or potential contact is no longer easy. The chances of finding them are much, much lower.

So how can you make contact when roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of your target market is working at home?

Advertising and social media are still viable in this new world, but you have to be prepared to wait for someone to respond.

Most small to medium-sized businesses struggled to get through the pandemic and many emerged with an increased debt burden. There is, therefore, an urgency to find new income streams.

What is the answer?

LinkedIn has a service called Navigator.

Within Navigator, there are thousands of contact details through which you can search. Your monthly subscription gives you access to all of these.

You can target your search by industry, geography, years of experience, numbers employed, and the title of the contact.

Then, all you have to do is to write a brief message, of no more than 300 characters, focusing on what you can do for them and send it directly to each prospective contact.

When you get a link-up, you can send a second message suggesting an opportunity to talk by ‘phone.

Your phone conversation can outline what you do to see if there is a need and this could lead to a proposal and a new contract.

The beauty of this system is that your prospect will receive your message wherever they are, so long as they have access to a computer.

This approach is not intrusive, because the recipient can read their messages at their leisure and decide to respond or not. It also conforms to all legislation.

Track record

Some markets will react quicker than others, and you will have to experiment until you find the right one for you and the right messages to send.

We began using this technique at the height of the pandemic in September 2020 and won our first client in the December of that year. That client asked us to use the same system for them and it resulted in a new client for them in the Spring of 2021.

A brief note about BHT Marketing

Christine and I (Colin) began BHT in 1997 as an antidote to all the unscrupulous telemarketing companies that promised the earth, took your money and didn’t deliver.

We offered honesty and integrity and have won a reputation for being just that.

Have a look at our website to learn a bit more www.bhtmarketing.com

If you would like to talk about this or marketing in general, just call 0808-172-1900 and ask for Colin. I’ll be glad to help.