Page 46 - Print21 Magazine March April 2021

Business
Who do you trust
cannot automatically send them your commercial email messages.
Algorithms fail more often than they succeed
Another example of the epic fail of marketing automation, particularly on LinkedIn, is the way the algorithms use keywords to make assumptions about your likelihood as a prospect. Inevitably the wrong messages are delivered by LinkedIn’s robots.
A brand I own is “The Content Brewery” – it’s a content marketing consultancy. The useless LinkedIn bots send me invitations and direct messages from individuals selling beer brewing equipment, coffee supplies and beer supplies such
as hops, all because of the word “Brewery”. The executives ‘sending’ these messages have no idea this
is happening because they’ve outsourced their prospecting to a (dumb) computer.
If ever the small data mattered it is in your initial message to a prospect – and if you leave it to machines to do the work, you’ll usually fail, or at least do damage to your reputation, as well as your employer’s.
I suggest you ignore the secret sauce sold by the social selling spruikers and do some hard yards yourself. Approach individuals with a genuine personal message. Engage with your prospects as if you were talking face-to-face with them.
Even better, ignore the digital-first mantra and personally mail useful printed information, such as a white paper, relevant research or a portfolio of case studies, with a QR code printed on the literature. Thanks to Covid, QR Codes are now ubiquitous in society. Link your QR code to
a personalised landing page with relevant content and a call to action.
You’ll have far greater success generating new business prospects by using personalised mail linked to a landing page than you will with any algorithm-based shot in the dark on social media. You can track who replies and what they do when they reply.
That’s not to say social media shouldn’t be used. It is a key part of business, but it needs to be used correctly, and with respect for the people you are trying to reach.
Remember, just because you
can doesn’t mean you should. And relying on machines to do your prospecting is a sure way to become part of the mediocrity brigade dominating LinkedIn and other social channels. 21
in a Covid world?
Marketing guru Malcolm Auld says the use of print with electronic communication is essential, and without print, it is destined to fail.
Last week the annual Edelman Trust Barometer was released. For 21 years it has been one of the best industry resources tracking
global consumer sentiment on a range of measures.
The 2021 report surveyed 33,000 people in 28 countries.
Interestingly, in 2020 Australia was one of the world leaders in gaining more trust in business, government, NGOs and the media. The only sector in which trust fell was technology – driven by the actions of the major social media and search platforms. And in case you aren’t aware, social media channels continue to be the least trusted of
all media.
Given Edelman’s findings, brands
now have an opportunity to build on the newfound trust in organisations, and become a safe anchor for consumers in these frustrating times. But in B2B there is a catch.
A company’s brand is linked to the performance of its salespeople.
And because so many lazy salespeople are increasingly using automated artificial intelligence and irrelevant data-driven
46 Print21 MARCH/APRIL 2021
Above
communications, many brands are
at risk. To build and maintain trust requires genuine communication, and less reliance on automated ‘social selling’ in social media.
Not all individuals
If you spend any time on LinkedIn, you’ll know how the use of marketing automation as a way to build your list of connections has helped to destroy the reputation of ‘social selling’. Every day I get people who are relying on
an automated system ask to connect with me. And each time they do, I
get an almost identical automatically delivered pitch from them to flog me their services. When everyone on LinkedIn is doing the same thing to try to sell to prospects, nobody stands out.
Worse still are the executives
who illegally place me on an email list and start spamming me, just because I connect with them on LinkedIn. FYI, it is against the law to send an unsolicited commercial email – your email list has to be opt-in, otherwise you face hefty fines. If you connect with someone on LinkedIn you can invite them to subscribe to your newsletter, but you
Social media: Large failure rate