#253: How Many Touches Is Too Much in Your Outreach Campaign?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:00]:
In this episode, you're gonna learn why it's important to have multiple touches across multiple platforms in your outreach cadence. And we're back for what is another episode of the how to sell podcast. Can't wait to get into this one, David, and I can't wait to welcome our long time listeners back to the show. And if you're a first time listener, thank you very much for showing up. We hope you take away some actionable insights that'll help you sell more. David, we've got an interesting topic this week, and the the topic, was stimulated from my drive to the airport. I was driving to the airport, and I saw monday.com billboards everywhere.
David Fastuca [00:00:42]:
Like, everywhere. Bloody Monday. Well, that's all you see on the billboards now. I love to know their marketing budget. I seriously would.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:49]:
And what was interesting about it, Dave, is I was driving across 3 different freeways. Right? Because he had to go from 1 to the other. And then when I get to New Sydney, there was more in Sydney. Right? It's literally they are pumping the above the line, and they've been notorious for that. Right? But what I found even, like, more interesting around this is then I jumped on YouTube because I wanted to watch. I was actually with one of our good friends, Carl Valeri, on the weekend, and, I was telling somebody to get this famous goal. So I went to YouTube to find the goal, and guess what freaking ad come up? Monday. Was it Mindset dotcom? I had so not only are they are they popping ads on billboards, but they're also pushing ads across digital and and social as well, right, which is which is a key part of their their acquisition strategy.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:01:36]:
Yeah? But then it dawned on me. I'm like, you know what? It's interesting because they had, you know, and the messages are quite different. One's about CRM. One's about workflow workflow automation, because they're obviously got multiple parts of their platform now. And so there was different messages for different parts of their platform. And I thought to myself, well, this is great. Yeah. They're obviously trying hard to build an inbound and build their brand, which is fantastic.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:03]:
They've obviously got the budget to do so. But the question came up, how do they control who looks at those billboards? How do they control who watches those YouTube ads?
David Fastuca [00:02:13]:
Well, they are. The YouTube ads, you got some control. Yes. You do. But the billboard ads, you got no control unless you got some strategic placement happening, right, which is probably what they do off the freeway, assuming people will drive into work Yeah. A certain portion of the day. Right?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:28]:
Yeah. And, you know, live at the airport, I even saw it at the airport going into the Corners Club. Right? I saw them on the they freaking everywhere. But I think that's why I wanted to have a very, very short session with you about the power of inbound versus the power of outbound. Mhmm. And most sellers don't have the budget to be able to go, right. I'm gonna put billboards everywhere to try to promote my product or service. Yeah? And the question that we've got to ask ourselves is, who responds to inbound? You can't control that, can you?
David Fastuca [00:03:02]:
No. You can't. You can't control the quality. You can't control the frequency. It's, you know, completely out of
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:03:08]:
your control. Yeah. But what's great about outbound is we can absolutely control who we're sending our messages to. And I think there's 2 parts of this conversation that we wanna cover, Dave. The first is having control over the audience that you're engaging with, but the second is the importance of multiple touches. And just like what Monday do, multiple billboards. Right? Billboard, billboard, like, literally littered through the freeway. You get to the airport, they're at the airport.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:03:38]:
Right? You're jumping on social and digital, they're there. So they understand the impact of putting their message across multiple platforms and multiple places because it takes people a number of times before they take action. And this is how we need to be looking at our outreach strategy. It's not just about a one message, sending one message and and saying that's it. We've gotta be hitting them across
David Fastuca [00:04:03]:
multiple platforms, and we've gotta
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:03]:
be doing it multiple times because people platforms, and we've gotta be doing it multiple times because people need that Forum they take action.
David Fastuca [00:04:11]:
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Look. We had a conversation the other day, with a prospect. It's been going on about 3 or 4 weeks, and I just let it be. I thought they'll get back to me when they're ready, then I just did my usual LinkedIn posting every day. And then I got a message from them. Saw your post today.
David Fastuca [00:04:28]:
Haven't forgot. Let's jump on the phone today and get it sorted. So, again, like, that, you know, post, you know, could be the the billboard, you know, for what we do. Right? It doesn't have to be a physical billboard. You just need to be in front of your buyers.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:43]:
Mhmm. Yeah. And it's interesting. Right? Because if I look at if I look at an inbound cadence that I'm running as well, so when we have have paid to get a person to click our ad and come into the funnel, if I look at the amount of touches it takes to even get them on a call, we're looking at, you know, 12 to 15 touches. And if I look at the text messages, 123456, right, before they've actually taken action. So it just goes to show that the process for both inbound if you've got an inbound if you're spending all this money in inbound, you absolutely want to have a process to follow those leads up. Right? But when it comes to outbound, we've gotta be really thinking about where are we placing those messages? What's and and we've spoken about cadence on this podcast so many times, and I know some of you probably go, Luigi, I'm bored of this topic. But I think it's even more important moving forward now.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:05:39]:
We are gonna be testing a really cool video sending tool in the next month, so we wanna bring that data back to our audience here. But let's actually talk about it, Dave. So a really effective outreach strategy should involve multiple touches across multiple days. Yeah?
David Fastuca [00:05:57]:
How many, Louie? Well, look, is is there a sweet spot number, do you think?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:00]:
Yeah. Great question. In my opinion, minimum. It has to be a minimum of 12 touches. Yeah. Right? Minimum. And the data's backing that up. But I think it's not just about putting it putting a a touch for the sake of putting a touch.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:16]:
It's about really being considered or having a considered approach to this and saying, right. I'm gonna send the first message and it could be I might view them on LinkedIn. Yeah? That's an impression. It'll show them that I'm looking at them. Then I'll send the connection request so there's another impression. Right? Then I might call them. Okay? And they the good there's a high probability it's gonna go to voice mail. I'll leave a voice mail, then I'll send a text message.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:42]:
And now I've left multiple impressions and touches. I'm gonna wait. Good chance they won't respond. Send a follow-up. Right? Obviously, there's an email in that structure as well. Send a follow-up. Put a particular message. Now when we talk about a considered approach, this is where we don't just have to always think about sending them an email or saying book a meeting.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:06]:
Let's take action. Mhmm. Right? It could be the second touch or the third touch could be, hey, here's a podcast link that spoke about x topic that I think might help you tackle some of these challenges that I know are pretty you know, that you you you I think you could be tackling. Right? Because if you I
David Fastuca [00:07:27]:
just wanna pull on that thread a little bit more. Right? So how many times do you get that email, that follow-up email that's just bringing this to the top of your inbox? I hate that. Checking if you got the email. Like, yes. I got the email. I'm responding because I think it's useless. So you're talking about leading with with insight, leading with some, you know, giving you something of value. Yes.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:47]:
Yeah. Like, I get all the time. So, Dave, this is where I think it's important as part of your cadence, as part of your outreach strategy, give some consider what content that you're sharing through it. If you are connecting with them on LinkedIn, share something of insight that relates to the topic that you wanna talk to them about. And it goes back again. So we go look at Mindset. They're putting out mass messages to a mass audience, right, about certain topics. And they're hoping that people driving go, okay.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:19]:
Yeah. That's something. I'll inquire. So their their hypothesis is that the topic or the message you're putting out there relates to a person's problem they're trying to solve. It's the same process when building your list. You build your list based on certain attributes and characteristics that you think, yes, this audience could be suffering from this problem that we could help them solve. Yeah? So what you're then doing is when you create that list, have some relevant content pieces that talk to those problems. Right? Share that.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:53]:
Ask questions. Like, they've gotta have multiple touches across multiple platforms before people take action. And this should help you if you are struggling listening to this, going, I do, you know, I hear this a lot. 12 to 15, 18 touches sales crazy. It's harassment. Right? If you're struggling with that concept, then ask yourself the question, why do inbound campaigns? If you put a TV, if you put if you watch 25 minutes a show on 10 Play, right, or whatever, whatever, you know, platform you're watching, look at YouTube, whichever of those platforms. Obviously, you have to face no way. Sales.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:34]:
Yeah. But if you're looking at I was watching a show the other day, 25 minutes. It they had the Apple iPhone ad. I don't know if you've seen it, Dave. It's it's it's the it's the young boy. It looks like he's in India, and he's and he's trying he's doing the the karate chop. Right? Henya. Right? That's the karate chop.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:53]:
I don't know if you've have you seen that ad? It's actually a really cool ad. Right? The dad's Say that again. The dad's holding up the camera recording his son trying to chop this, and everybody's waiting. And it gets from day to dark, and he's still going. And the whole premise of the ad is the iPhone's battery life lasts longer. Why? Because everybody freaking complains because iPhone's battery is shit. Reality is it's rubbish. Anyway, so they've tried to tackle that problem by showing you can you know, the battery life Fastuca longer.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:23]:
Yeah? But the example I'm trying to set here is 25 minutes, 4 ads, 4 or 5 ads. The same thing. Okay? So if you struggle with the fact that you've gotta reach out to someone 12 to 15 times, 18 times across multiple platforms, that's a lot. Just think about inbound. Inbound ads, they hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer because people need that before they take action. Right? That should help you change your relationship with the amount of touches required when you're building your outreach cadence. Yeah? So if we just summarize this episode, Dave, the summary is really simple. Okay? Ta your outreach plan can become the most effective plan for you in building pipeline.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:11:06]:
Why? Because you can get very focused, laser focused with who you can target. To target the people that you know have a particular problem, maybe not know a 100%, but your hypothesis is they're they're experienced a particular problem, you've got some insight to share that can help them solve that problem, you're building out that strategy, and if you do get them or when you do get them into a conversation, there's a high probability of them converting to the next step, right, versus a mass marketed inbound campaign, which, hey, there's nothing wrong with it if you've got the budget. But most of us, most of you listening to this, don't control the budget, a, and, b, don't have the budget to take that sort of action.
