Dan Sally walks through outbound marketing tactics with a comedic twist, from first contact through email follow-up and special offers. He illustrates his points with absurdist stories: dressing as a ghost, hiring someone in a chicken suit, and briefly following prospects to get their attention.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dan Salley, and I'm very proud to say that I am an outbound marketer. People don't have time to go on the web and search for products they want to buy or services they're interested in. They really need to be interrupted to grab their attention. Sometimes I'll dress up as a ghost, and I'll hide behind a wall, and I'll wait till they walk by, and then I'll jump out and scare them. And then, you know, once we've had a good laugh, then I talk about our service or hand them a brochure or something like that. So a lot of marketers do what's called lead nurturing, and the idea is they send someone an email, and then they send them a different email based on how they respond. Now, I think that might work for some people, but I think it lacks a certain personal touch. So I like to do the same thing. And I have the same type of flowchart, only I add the human element and I do it in person. The first step is what I call first contact. That's when I approach the prospect to talk about what I do. How. Hello, prospect, Would you like to learn more about how to improve your sales? If they say yes, I go right into the pitch. If they say no, I move on to the second step, which is signing up for my email list. Again, I'll let it simmer a bit, let them walk a few steps and think about it. And then, hello, would you like to sign up for my email list? If yes, we go right to the pitch. Again. No, no big deal. Sometimes the buying cycle takes a little longer, and some prospects are a little earlier on in their purchasing decision. They need a little more time. So I'll follow them around. Maybe I'll let them get a coffee or, you know, when they're stopped at a. At a crosswalk or something. I'll approach them again for step three, the special offer. Would you like to learn about some special offers we have? If the answer is yes, we go right to the pitch. If the answer is no, again, that's okay. The buying cycle takes time, and some prospects need more time to be educated. So maybe it's time to add value. And that's when I get to step four. Compliment their appearance. That's a very nice tie you have on. Oh, what a lovely hairstyle you have. Now, if they're receptive to that, again, we go right into the pitch. No, again, no big deal. There's no pressure. They need a little more time. Now There's a critical third element to this, in addition to the yes and no branch, which is when the prospect takes hostile action. Now in that case, we move immediately to the last step, which is run. Now, for this step, it's very important that you have a good pair of shoes and you have some nice loose fitting clothes you can move around in, because some of these prospects can run rather fast. You'd be surprised. You want to read my blog? I publish stuff daily on it. You know, I've tried inbound marketing, but the fact is, it just doesn't work. I mean, writing a blog like try getting somebody to read that. Gotten zero results from that. Now pay a kid $8 an hour to dress up in a chicken suit holding a sign. That's going to get some traffic.
