IT WORKS

Recently I have been on a “tear” emphasizing the importance of building up your data base. In a recent blog I suggested several methods of adding to your base. While there are many options, each of us must select the one or two that we are most comfortable with. The goal is to select the ones you believe best fits your personality and do it!

Several weeks ago, I joined a group of BizQuack members that wanted to participate in a “Growth Spurt”. My goal was to increase my BizQuack base by a certain number during the allotted time. I identified the target market that I wanted to concentrate on. My next step was how to reach them. While my target market had not changed, new start-ups to existing small businesses with up to 4 employees, I wanted to present different content and to increase my data base as well as to  better segment my target market allowing me to gear my content to a very specific segment.

In this exercise, I was going to try to avoid making individual cold calls. I wanted my target market to want to listen to what I have to say and to contact me. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced me to look at technology options and ZOOM has been my go-to contact method.

My decision was to present valuable information via Zoom. I have formed two meet-up groups and have over 600 members that have joined the two groups. I decided on LinkedIn and Alignable along with referrals from existing data bases, as my source of participants.

My system is simple: define a need that my target market has and offer a solution by means of a seminar. Registration is by e-mail, thus giving me permission to contact them, and I form a separate group for each session.

I did a limited test on Monday of this week and had 11 people sign up to attend a session this afternoon. The amazing part is that they all showed up for my Zoom call. I used an existing class I had presented and did not have to prepare, did not have to find a meeting place, and saved a lot of time.

Tomorrow I am going to schedule two separate information sessions for next week and will offer them only to my two Meetup groups. The following week I plan to schedule a minimum of 4 sessions and market them on all my selected outlets. If I am successful, I should be able to add a minimum of 50 to 75 new members to my data base each month.

My goal is to continuously increase my data base and to dedicate most of my marketing effort to that group.