Multimedia Campaigns

0:04 Hi, you live done to censure? Wow for you young. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio again with the Positively Pipeman segment and our special part of show where we give you some powerful business strategies from our amazing guru of business from Next Step CFO Michael Barbarita. How are you excellent? How are you doing day? I'm doing great. I understand this week we're going to talk about multi media campaigns. That's a subject that I love.

0:52 Yeah. So what I'm finding is that, you know, when I talk to clients and talk to business owners, they they say it's you know, it's hard for them to to reach people with any credibility. You know that because there's a lot of messages going out to all different directions, all different angles. And what I found helpful for most business owners in order to give yourself credibility, uh and also but still maintain or still have a cold contact that you're working with, is to do what I call multimedia campaigns. Now, when I was in the ski business, ah, that was all we did. But you know at the time, there was no there was no Internet, so it was all direct mail, radio newspaper, billboard, sometimes an airplane flying over a beach. But it was a multi yeah it was.

1:52 But it was a multi media campaign because by hitting people with different messages from different for outlets. Uh, you're you're able to gain credibility at least over time. And and so let me explain how someone could do a multi media campaign now. And it's a lot easier than and a lot less expensive than what I just described when I was in the ski business. So uh, first of all, everybody knows about email, So that's one content point of contact and that's one outlet. Next is ringless voicemail. I don't know if people know about that. There's all types of CRM platforms that offer what's called a ringless voicemail where you have the telephone number of the of the of the client, of the customer of the prospect, I should say, and uh, they their phone doesn't ring, but but a voicemail is left. You also have the telephone itself to call and and reach out.

2:55 That's another way. Uh, direct mail still works, I know, contrary to popular belief. Uh, direct mail also adds to the credibility because you're not just spamming or as as some people would perceive it. You could also text them, and you can also send them a LinkedIn message. So by utilizing all those points of attack, all those different outlets, you gain credibility with the prospect it's not because what you're doing is is you're not just slamming them once or twice or just just with one outlet like email, which is considered a lazy person's way of connecting. You're you're actually connecting them from all different angles and it builds your credibility as well as you know, your credibility as to what you do, because you really have an intense interest in, you know, in meeting this person and talking to this person.

3:53 Now, I have a question you were talking about, and we've talked about it before, the ringless voicemail, Right, what is your research show of how people are reacting to that, Because part of me says, wow, that's a great idea, because it's the and the phone calls that are annoying, and I can choose to listen to the voicemail, but the phone calls are annoying. But then on the other side of it, I'm thinking, well, what if people are annoyed that you're just you know, spamming as they would think spamming a voicemail. Well, there's a couple of things on that. First of all, a lot of people think it's their phone cell phone especially that has been mistimed some way where they didn't get because many times I get calls that that should have rung from people I know that should have the phone should have rang, and it didn't because of the cell, you know, being in between cells or something.

4:51 So that's umber one. Number two, No one particular outlet works by itself at all, and so with ringless voicemail, I found I have found less of an annoyance, but it does not work on its own. So if you're just doing a ringless voicemail campaign, forget it that that your credibility is shot. When you're attacking from all different outlets, it actually builds credibility because oh, this guy must really want to talk to me, or this person must be authentic, and or maybe it's the fifth message when they finally decide to look you up online, see that and see that you're credible. So it's it's it's the multimedia approach that is important, not necessarily.

5:42 Any one outlet or any one medium. Yeah, and you know, to that point, I find that even what we're doing right now is part of those multimedia campaign. That's correct, that's correct. Absolutely. So you know, any type of outreach to any type of prospect, as long as it's in a multiple form, it's going to it's gonna separate you. From the rest. And what happens is it's like people don't want to use direct mail because it costs more. And it does. But remember back in my day we had direct mail, but we also had to be on the radio.

6:22 That costs more than. Emailing or anything like that, right, yeah, yeah, we also had to be on the news, in the newspaper that was that's expensive. You had to be in the Yellow Pages. That was expensive. Oh god, I know, it unbelievable. So you think about the costs and when you talk about emailing, ringless, voicemail, texting, LinkedIn, connection and direct mail, you're not talking about big costs there. Yeah. And I think not just LinkedIn, I think all forms of social media. I think you, I think people look at you as more legitimate if you're on multiple social media. Right, that's exact, excellent point, excellent point. Yeah, that's right.

7:03 If you're if you're on multiple social medias and direct messaging from multiple social medias. Absolutely, that's another credibility factor because it shows you're working at it, and it shows that you know you're not you're not some type of scammer, because eventually you're going to be looked up and shown that you're credible as long as you are. Well. You know. It's funny too. You mentioned LinkedIn, which I think is such a powerful h tool for business, and it goes but I also think that goes right in line with what you're saying, because I get ten million spam messages in my LinkedIn every day, and so the only ones I'll pay attention to are people that I know from some other campaign. That's it, not just the LinkedIn message right right.

7:53 And by the way, you can use the telephone too, And what I do with that is, especially if I know I'm calling a cell phone, well I you know, I'll make a call, I'll leave a message, and they I'll send a text right off that just left. Your message about ABC We'd love to speak to you, poop. And that once again that combination that shows that you did some of the work. In other words, you just didn't spam the text you actually made a phone call and made a concerted effort. To speak to that person. There you go. It goes a long way. It goes much further than just just spraying stuff out there, which is what a lot of people are doing. Oh no doubt about it. And you know, to be successful, you do have to show some effort and some ingenuity and create a relationship. And you don't create that by just spamming one thing, you know, with no effort put into it.

8:48 And when you think about it, too, Dean, if your effort is targeted, really targeted. You know, I'm only talking about sending out one hundred direct mail pieces, you know, and then focusing on that one hundred people and hitting them. From all angles. You know, I'm not talking about grabbing three thousand and spray once again, spraying it out there. You can't do it. Yeah, But if you maybe fifty fifty to one hundred direct mail postcards or pieces, as well as the phone calls, the ringless voicemails, the texting, the LinkedIn messages, they all they all add up to. Credibility, absolutely so. Any other bits of advice you could give people about multimedia campaigns and then how do they reach out to you to get even more help in this arena.

9:41 Right, So I just I just want to reiterate that it just helps going over the noise that's out there, and most people are going to take that inexpensive, cheap route of slamming and this and this is a way where it's still an expensive but it's it's you're showing that you're providing more effort, that you really want to speak to somebody. And so, uh, the ways to reach me is go to my website NeXTSTEP CFO dot net. I love to do book interviews because because business is always changing and that uh, we wrote our book about a little over a year ago and we're constantly updating it with new information. And uh, the way the book interview works, it's it's sixty minutes on zoom. I present strategies for my book and then I ask you if that strategy were implemented in your industry, if it would be effective and and and you commented, and I comment on that, and I document it for the book.

10:46 And that's nice, yeah, nice, yes, And. And the uh, the person who's being interviewed loves it because they learned about new strategies that they didn't know before that their competition isn't doing well. You are a wealth of information. People definitely need to reach out to you and check out everything that you do, even if this subject doesn't pertain to them. You have some definite powerful business strategies. So thank you once again. Michael Barbarita from Next Step CFO. We look forward to talking to you next week where we're just going. To ask look forward to it. Thank you, Dan, Thank you for.

11:29 Listening to the Adventures of Pipelin. I'm w for CUI Radio.