Stu Heinecke
Inventor of the Weed Strategy™ model for explosive business growth | www.StuHeinecke.com

How laser-focused “contact marketing” campaigns offer a much more viable alternative to cold calling & emailing

Q: You’re the author of my favorite business book “How to get a meeting with anyone” and many consider you the father of ‘contact marketing,’ which is a great place to start: what IS contact marketing?

Let me tell you a story that perfectly illustrates both what it is and how powerful it is.

This fellow named Dom got in touch with me a few years ago and told me his story of how he ended up reading and implementing the tactics from “How to get a meeting with anyone.”

Right out of college, Dom was recruited as an SDR (sales development rep) at a large, late-stage startup. Management was very clear about his role: we want you to come in and make 100 phone calls a day. All his peers were doing the same. But after going through thousands of calls, they would end up with just a few meetings, and no deals.

Dom was lamenting about the situation over dinner when a friend suggested he read my book, which he did, and committed to giving it a shot. He would still do the startup’s “spray and pray” approach, but he would also try “deep personalization” on the side: “I will research high-value prospects that nobody can break through, and send them a highly personalized gift.”

After doing some profile scrapes and digging into the most promising ones, he came across a CEO who was really into cooking and technology. So he came up with the idea to purchase a BBQ apron and have it custom-embroidered with an Arthur C Clarke quote. Then, he mailed the apron to the CEO. He didn’t have to wait long… Next day the CEO called back: “Hey this was really cool… btw what do you do?” And Dom closed his first 6-figure deal.

Dom’s peers started catching on and asked him for help. He started working with a colleague, going through a list of prospects that he already knew something about: “I know this VP who’s really interested in falconry.” Great, they went on a falconry site and called them up. Ended up speaking with the owner of the site to ask him about the best gift idea for a fan. They ended up purchasing an ornate falconry glove for $95.

Dom’s colleague sent the picture of the glove in an email to the prospect: “I just want to let you know I’m sending you this awesome glove. I know you’re into falconry and I’d love to talk to you about what we do.” Nobody had ever been able to break through to this company but almost instantly the VP wrote back: “This is really cool, I really appreciate it, but not interested.”

Then the glove arrived. And the VP emailed back once more: “Hey, I’m still not interested but the glove was very thoughtful. I know a few CIOs that need exactly what you’re selling and will make intros.” And that’s how another couple of 6-figure deals came through.

Management started noticing of course and promoted Dom to sales manager. That’s when the company was acquired for $4.7bn. So within a year, Dom went from college graduate to sales manager of a multinational company, all because of contact marketing (and his creativity!).

Q: That’s a great segway to discuss your big idea… how to get meetings with high-value decision makers at key accounts, when nothing else works!

The biggest problem most businesses face is: access to important people. Let’s say you want to sell your marketing services… How will you stand out above the noise and get noticed by the VP you’re targeting?

As business owners and marketers become increasingly frustrated by the questionable results of cold calling, emailing, content marketing, and social media, contact marketing offers a much more viable alternative: laser-focused campaigns targeting the few people that can really impact your business.

The perfect example of ‘contact marketing’ was my own marketing agency. When I started, there were only a dozen or so major clients in the industry that I needed to reach out to. With a budget of $100, I produced 24 large prints of my cartoons, personalized for each prospect and framed, and mailed them out. That campaign had a near-100% success rate with each client paying up to $25,000 per engagement!

Q: So how does it actually work? What’s the ‘contact marketing’ framework like?

Contact marketing involves 3 steps:

Researching a short-list of your VIP clients, who can have a major impact for your business.

Crafting a highly personalized message for each of them.

And delivering the message through an intriguing ‘device’, which can be anything from an oversized cartoon print to a sword blade or a remote-controlled helicopter.

Even though you’ll be spending significantly more per person than any mass campaign, your overall marketing budget will be insignificant compared to mass marketing campaigns, and your ROI can be astronomical. Because you’re targeting a small audience with a very high anticipated success rate, often north of 50%.

Q: That puts outbound marketing under a completely different light… what are some of your favorite ‘contact marketing’ examples?

In my books “How to get a meeting with anyone” and “Get the meeting!” I share tons of examples with personalized gift ideas ranging from $10 to $10,000 per contact.

One example from the book is the campaign by NoWait, a restaurant app. They sent an ipad preloaded with a video to each of their 35 VIP clients – COOs of large restaurant chains and franchises. They invested $35,000 on a single campaign but they knew they’d get the attention of exactly the people they needed – and it worked!

Instead of boiling the ocean to increase awareness, contact marketing is a more effective way to build meaningful partnerships and win large accounts.

Another example: a business development rep for an IT outsourcing company took the challenge of handling the 12 accounts that were considered impenetrable. For each one, he researched the CEO’s social media to find out what they’re personally interested in. Then, he hired a local artist to create cartoonish illustrations of these interests. Printed them on a large canvas, mailed them out, and followed up with a phone call to set up a meeting. The result? He connected with ALL 12 accounts!

Or take the insurance company that wanted to rekindle dormant relationships with outside sales producers by sending cartoons printed on large boards. The insurance company called each producer’s assistant letting them know about the cartoon and giving the fedex tracking info, thus breaking through the feared gatekeeper and turning them into allies. The result? A 98% response rate and $2 million in new sales within 3 months!

And here’s a very creative and fun example: a company researched the profiles of 150 decision makers who were likely to attend a conference. The company bought a booth and created a bobble-head based on the LinkedIn photo of each decision maker. Then, they invited the decision makers to visit their booth and pick up their bobble-head.

The result? 25% of the invited executives showed up, and the rest received their bobble-heads by mail – many of whom posted selfies with their bobble-heads on social media. The cost of the campaign was $15,000 and immediately generated a $70,000 sale!

Q: Let’s close with your latest book “How to grow your business like a weed” – what’s that about?

I interviewed a lot of business strategists and found that the common thread or formula of success was that they would all test and expand into new territories (just like weeds do), form strong alliances to quickly change their scale and strengthen themselves while they were the new kid on the block, and finally focus on spreading like a weed.

Thinking like a weed is a whole new mindset because you have to be optimistic, aggressive, adaptive, and resilient. Look outside your core markets and leverage others’ strengths to fortify yourself. The book is essentially a framework of such a strategy to help enterprises expand into new territories, dominate them, and eventually defend them.

The biggest problem most businesses face is: access to important people

Contact marketing = highly personalized gifts for decision makers at high-value accounts

Instead of boiling the ocean to grow awareness, contact marketing is a more effective way to build meaningful partnerships

With contact marketing you’re targeting a small audience with a very high anticipated success rate, often north of 50%