Imagine going to your mailbox and finding a heavy red padded envelope personally addressed to you.
You’re curious, rip it open and find a heavy Gold Bar. Intrigued, you read the covering letter which explains the bar is actually a USB stick which contains extremely valuable material that will help your business grow.
That’s what some of our clients and referral partners experienced just before Christmas.
So why did we do this and what were the results?
Email is ubiquitous. Same for LinkedIn messages. And don’t get me started on Facebook messenger. We all get dozens of electronic messages spruiking something or other. All of which are extremely easy to ignore (even if they get past your spam filters).
So how do you cut through the clutter? Have any chance of starting the conversation, let alone become memorable?
The first step is to get attention. We wanted to be different and stand out from the crowd.
Lumpy direct physical mail works. It’s worked for over 100 years and continues to do so. The Gold Bar is pretty unique. It’s heavy and really does look and feel like the real thing.
But it’s what’s on the bar that’s most important.
The Gold Bar contains four books we’ve written on Business Growth Mindset, Strategies, Marketing and Selling. We’ve also got a one hour video on small business marketing, plus other tools.
Our goal is to showcase our expertise and build our credibility as advisors who can help grow businesses – both their own as well as prospects they could refer us onto.
The instant reaction from recipients was they loved it. Some told me they were going through the material daily, making notes and most importantly, implementing the ideas we’d outlined.
For others it’s sitting on their desks. Our details are printed on it so they’re reminded of us each time they look at it.
And that is where the danger lies.
It’ll just sit there.
Sending something that evokes interest without a follow up plan is a waste of time, effort and money.
Case in point. We had one person not even realise there was anything on the USB stick even though the covering letter laid it out. After our call he’s going to go look.
For others it arrived before the holidays, so now they’re back a timely call to ask for feedback reminds them to delve into the material.
But the most important reason is that you must regularly communicate with both prospects and referral partners to keep them thinking of you. At a minimum once every 90 days.
Our Gold Bar acts as a door opener and a reason to keep in contact. Because the one thing you can never control is when your prospects are ready to buy. All you can do is be there when they are.
Would you like a Gold Bar containing the 4 books, video and tools? Hit <reply> and let me know why. Tell us a bit about your business and what you hope to learn and implement. We’re giving away 4 to the best answers.