Why is this OK? What is a marketing stalker?
I am a marketing stalker and I’m proud to say it.
I hereby give you permission to stalk people who are NOT your customers to get them to talk to you.
In 2016, I went to work for a software company that had a very specific niche market. I knew from previous experience that talking to someone who is buying from your competitor can be a give a marketer insights unavailable elsewhere.
But how do you get these people to talk to you without coming across as a crazy person?
Here is an actual message I sent on LinkedIn. To a stranger.
DECEMBER 5
Can I buy you lunch? We haven’t met yet and this is not a sales pitch. I work for a marketing automation company in Gainesville and you are in our target market. We’d love to bring you in for some market research. Cool people! Free lunch! What do you say?
I’ll tell you what he said. Nothing. No response. But I wasn’t giving up that easily.
JANUARY 27
Gainesville friend – Come have lunch with us. You’re currently using HubSpot and that’s the biggest competitor for our Gainesville-based marketing automation company. We’d like you to come in and help us understand how agencies like yours choose a marketing automation provider. You pick the restaurant and we’ll bring in the food. What do you say?
Ding ding! He writes back, picks a Mexican restaurant. I show up with great hope.
He’s late.
I am too nervous to even munch on chips.
[Insert my friends sayin’ “Uh-huh. She real nervous.”]
I also don’t exactly know what he looks like. Just going off a LinkedIn profile pic. Is this what online dating is like?
Finally, he shows.
I spend the next 40 minutes asking questions.
Question: How did he choose his vendor?
Answer: I feel like I just fell into their funnel. Every time I had a question about starting my agency, they had a blog about the answer. It went from there.
Content marketers…read that TWICE.
Question: What would he change about his current experience?
Answer: Price is a little high. Contract is too long of a commitment for a small agency like mine.
A lower cost option that was month-to-month. That’s what my company offered! But he didn’t know that. Ugh.
Question: Had he heard of my company?
Answer: Kind of. Didn’t think we were a real contender.
Wow. I’ve got work to do. I go on to grill him. What does he read? What gets his attention? What challenges is he facing every day?
I get it. We ask these questions on surveys all the time. Being face-to-face with someone is different, though. You get 100x more.
This had a happy ending. This person ended up ending his contract with our competitor and switching his business over to my company at the time.
That wasn’t my goal. But it was a nice byproduct.
The insights I got from our meeting guided every word I wrote and every campaign I brainstormed for that company. He was like the little guy sitting on my shoulder.
Would Brandon like this? Would he click on it? Would he read it? He was my Ideal Customer Profile personified. In real life! My ICP IRL!
My friends, you need an ICP IRL. Go find yours.
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