Growing Your Pipeline Through Targeted Communications Strategies
Growing Your Pipeline Through Targeted Communications Strategies
An articulated communications strategy, including marketing and public relations, is responsible for building the awareness and credibility that lead to sales needed to reach those business objectives.
Any successful communications program has three basic ingredients – positioning, awareness, and third-party credibility. Communications programs require strategic alignment with business goals to ensure that the right messages are reaching the right audiences.
While market influencers such as the press and analyst communities are receptive to broader corporate messages, to be successful you must also incorporate narrowly and specifically tailored messages to key customer and partner targets. We refer to the recipients of broad messages as “macrotargets” and the recipients of narrow messages as “micro-targets.”
Macro-Targeting Market Influencers
Macro-targeting is the approach to business communications with which most people are familiar. Macro-targets are media, analysts, and other broadly based market influencers who can validate your business model, enabling the generation of a high level of awareness for your company. Your business receives the important third-party credibility that comes through coverage of your messages in various publishing outlets (such as magazines, analyst reports, briefings).
Establishing a positive reputation in the market is the first step to generating sales leads. Remember, the goal with macro-targeting is to build confidence in your company, making it easier to get in the door with sales prospects, partners, etc. People do business with those they know and trust.
Yet keep in mind that these messages may be too broad for the specific contacts that form your business development target base. You need to add micro-targeting to your corporate messaging and positioning strategy when looking for an introduction to a specific business entity for the purpose of developing partnerships, prospecting for customers, or seeking investment.
Micro-Targeting Corporate Dealmakers
Micro-targeting is the strategy that focuses on specific people, companies, and organizations that can more immediately affect revenue enhancement and overall success. This enables you to go beyond high-level messaging and provide important information to a focused audience with the goal of facilitating business meetings.
All businesses thrive on capital, customers, and partners. These three things drive revenue. This is where micro-targeted messages become essential. They answer the question “Why?”: Why invest in us? Why buy from us? Why work together? Develop messages that show specific synergies between your company and the target audience in question. That means taking the macro-level messaging you may use for public relations purposes and concentrate it for the narrow segment of prospects that will help you drive your company’s revenues.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you have to use macro-targeted and micro-targeted communications together. If you generate media placements, you’re already on track with macro-targeting. Getting to the meeting stage with those that can help you meet your capital, customer, and partnership goals requires close attention to micro-targeted messaging. Context is everything. Contextualize your business proposition with what you know of your prospect’s business. Reaching the media with macro-level messages gives you general credibility, and delivering your PR results to your sales prospects on an ongoing basis gives weight to your micro-targeted messages.
Growing Your Pipeline Through Targeted Communications Strategies - To learn more about this author, visit Marc Hausman's Website.
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Every successful business starts with a plan that details where the company expects to be in terms of revenue within three to five years and broadly touches on how it will get there.
An articulated communications strategy, including marketing and public relations, is responsible for building the awareness and credibility that lead to sales needed to reach those business objectives.
Any successful communications program has three basic ingredients – positioning, awareness, and third-party credibility. Communications programs require strategic alignment with business goals to ensure that the right messages are reaching the right audiences.
While market influencers such as the press and analyst communities are receptive to broader corporate messages, to be successful you must also incorporate narrowly and specifically tailored messages to key customer and partner targets. We refer to the recipients of broad messages as “macrotargets” and the recipients of narrow messages as “micro-targets.”
Macro-Targeting Market Influencers
Macro-targeting is the approach to business communications with which most people are familiar. Macro-targets are media, analysts, and other broadly based market influencers who can validate your business model, enabling the generation of a high level of awareness for your company. Your business receives the important third-party credibility that comes through coverage of your messages in various publishing outlets (such as magazines, analyst reports, briefings).
Establishing a positive reputation in the market is the first step to generating sales leads. Remember, the goal with macro-targeting is to build confidence in your company, making it easier to get in the door with sales prospects, partners, etc. People do business with those they know and trust.
Yet keep in mind that these messages may be too broad for the specific contacts that form your business development target base. You need to add micro-targeting to your corporate messaging and positioning strategy when looking for an introduction to a specific business entity for the purpose of developing partnerships, prospecting for customers, or seeking investment.
Micro-Targeting Corporate Dealmakers
Micro-targeting is the strategy that focuses on specific people, companies, and organizations that can more immediately affect revenue enhancement and overall success. This enables you to go beyond high-level messaging and provide important information to a focused audience with the goal of facilitating business meetings.
All businesses thrive on capital, customers, and partners. These three things drive revenue. This is where micro-targeted messages become essential. They answer the question “Why?”: Why invest in us? Why buy from us? Why work together? Develop messages that show specific synergies between your company and the target audience in question. That means taking the macro-level messaging you may use for public relations purposes and concentrate it for the narrow segment of prospects that will help you drive your company’s revenues.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you have to use macro-targeted and micro-targeted communications together. If you generate media placements, you’re already on track with macro-targeting. Getting to the meeting stage with those that can help you meet your capital, customer, and partnership goals requires close attention to micro-targeted messaging. Context is everything. Contextualize your business proposition with what you know of your prospect’s business. Reaching the media with macro-level messages gives you general credibility, and delivering your PR results to your sales prospects on an ongoing basis gives weight to your micro-targeted messages.
Growing Your Pipeline Through Targeted Communications Strategies - To learn more about this author, visit Marc Hausman's Website.
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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