The unaware audience

“How do I get more leads?” is usually the first question we hear from prospects and clients. It’s a great question to start with, but it’s not the only question you should be asking.

If you’re in the B2B segment, you know that it functions differently from B2C efforts. There is a lot more education that needs to happen before you can go straight to “I want to buy this now” – especially if you run a services agency.

The piece that we’re missing, me included, is reaching the unaware segment of our audience before they can become leads. We’ve been pouring over our own monthly reporting, trying to figure out what we’re missing. What we’re missing is a lot of activity at the top of our funnel.

Trust Insights is really good at helping people solve problems when those problems are known. We are not so great at attracting an audience of people who only have symptoms and are unaware of the actual problem.

Gini Dietrich  gave me this clear cut example of what I was trying to articulate about the unaware audience:

“I actually just heard a commercial in the car this morning that was interesting. It’s for an ear, nose, and throat doctor. They talk about how if something is going on, you call your primary doc then they refer to you an allergist who does a bunch of tests only to figure out you don’t have allergies so you go back to your primary doc who suggests more doctors and more tests. But with this place, you have a stuffy nose or an earache so you go to them and they figure out the root cause on your first visit.”

In this example, Trust Insights is the ENT, and we want people to come directly to us, even if they just have a stuffy nose. Why? Because we’re specialists. We know that a stuffy nose is part of the story and we have a whole set of questions to ask that will narrow down the diagnosis and get to the root issue.

When we take that example and start to translate it to marketing, a stuffy nose becomes a data point that doesn’t look right. A sinus headache becomes missing data. And so on.

This brings me back to the point, you need to be able to educate the unaware audience on the symptoms so that they will come to you for help, aka, “How do I get more leads?”

In the latest CMO survey, we know that customers want superior product quality, excellent service, and a trusting relationship.

Start with education. This is through your blog and other content. This content should introduce who you are, what you do, and your expertise. We ALL jump too quickly to wanting people to buy from us so we skip over the awareness stage. Without awareness, people won’t buy. Couple that with an attribution report and you’ll know which channels to publish your awareness content on.

Don’t skip over the relationship-building phase and assume it will come once a contract is in place. So, my advice to you (and me) is to spend more time getting to know your audience. Don’t go in with the hard sell. Really listen to what they are saying, the questions they are asking, and help them put the pieces together for themselves. The leads will come. They will be the people that you helped understand their symptoms. The people that trust you to provide the answers.

How do you reach the unaware audience? Let me know in our Free Slack Group, Analytics for Marketers