Let me tell you a story.

About three months ago I abandoned the idea of marketing to all SME businesses and decided to focus my efforts on creating a profile of my “ideal client." From understanding what my target audience looked like I was able to specialise Westteks IT support and maintenance services to the recruitment sector.

 Tip 1: Get The Right Database

Firstly, I signed up to procure a list  of recruitment companies with the following specific criteria:

• Only directors or owners

• Only businesses located within a specified radius

• Only businesses that have traded for more than five years

• Only businesses with turnover between £1 and £50 million

• Only businesses that do not have any CCJ’s

The search generated  608 records, but I discovered that none of them came with email addresses. All was not lost though as very shortly after, I received an email from someone offering their data research services.  Normally I would delete these emails but instead decided to make contact with them and test the waters.

Tip 2: Always Test and Measure

I started off by asking the contact to find me 50 missing email addresses from the list I had procured. He worked over the bank holiday and by the following Tuesday he had found all 50 email addresses. I was impressed so I sent him the complete list. Two weeks later I received an Excel file from him with 93.4% of the records filled with the correct email addresses and I paid the $60 fee with a smile.

Tip 3: Find The Right Process and Always Be Polite

From his experience, my contact recommended that we import the list into LinkedIn and agreed upon a process to connect with all the new contacts. The process was as follows:

• Invite the contact to connect on LinkedIn. Once the person accepts the connection, we thank them for connecting and asked them politely if they would mind us asking them a few questions about their businesses current IT challenges. Most of the time they were more than happy to answer.

• Monitor your LinkedIn profile two hours a day. If you are unable to do so, like myself, I asked my contact to monitor my profile for me and whenever he saw a new connection to reply with the set questions. Their answers allowed us to better understand their pain points.

• It is at this point that I take over and engage directly with the owner/director to discuss their challenges,  with the view of getting a meeting face-to-face.

This simple process has helped my company gain several new clients over the last two months. If you would like to know more about using LinkedIn to generate leads please feel free to contact me and I will be glad to share.

Previous tips of the month: