Marketing is more than social media, websites, and media coverage. The business development (BD) team is the foundation of all things business marketing. BD is the part of marketing that conducts outreach to potentially qualified leads to secure them as clients or customers. Since BD is the backbone of your business marketing strategy, and leads aren’t always a renewable resource, it’s LŪM’s goal to ensure you can create a sustainable prospect-to-client pipeline.
With this information in mind, you can be more intentional with your business development and upgrade your marketing game. Keep reading to find out the wo mistakes people make when doing outreach for their business.
🌟Business Development is Meant to be Creative🌟
Business Development gets a bad rep for being too sales-y. In reality, the best business development representatives create relationships using their creative skillsets and sales knowledge. For example, you’ll want strong copywriting and design to be a part of your business marketing strategy. Copywriters have an understanding of short and snappy creative writing that’s suited for cold email outreach and phone call scripts.
Remember - using emojis, alliteration, punctuation, and overall flow of words attracts attention, so make sure your wording is creative. Also, ensure your emails are visually pleasing to encourage more engagement.
94% of first impressions depend on design. So, people are significantly less likely to bother reading your cold emails or handouts if they don’t like how it looks, regardless of the great services you provide. Without design as a focus in your outreach, you risk missing out on truly connecting with potential qualified leads. Check out how your website alone could be costing you customers.
👋Old Leads Matter Too👋
Don’t forget the power of re-engaging past leads or customers. Reaching out to past leads promotes long-term relationship building, which is a personal approach to your business marketing strategy. Besides, you want your customer relationships to last anyway, right? So, it’s perfect to start that foundation strong from the very beginning!
When reaching out to past leads versus new leads, be sure to refine your approach. Repeating the same messages are impersonal and don’t promote social selling, which refers to relationship building as an interpersonal sales technique. Some examples of social selling include meeting up in person at a coffee shop or sending them personalized letters offering a discount to stay in touch via multiple avenues.
While BD processes vary between industries, creativity and re-engagement can easily be overlooked in business development strategy. It’s important to bring some innovation to your outreach to ensure you best connect with new, qualified leads.
In need of a spark of inspiration? Reach out to a professional marketing agency!
LŪM Studio is a full-service marketing agency serving the Rocky Mountain region. We work as an extension of your business to save you time, make your marketing dollars count, and illuminate your business from the crowd. Through bold marketing strategies, creative deliverables, timely action, and an unwavering commitment to keeping our word, our collaborative team will lighten your load and light up your marketing. We apply our decades of combined experience in a variety of areas including public relations, marketing, communications, web development, and more in both the public and private landscape.