Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.
Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.
Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.
A prospective client who becomes acquainted with your business by referral or introduction is much more likely to hire you than one who never heard of you before. A prospect who gets to know, like, and trust you over time will decide to do business with you much more easily than one who just ran across you.
Ready to warm up your marketing? Here are six ways to do it. [Read more…] about Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing