My business partner is going to kill me for sharing this with you.
Will it work for you?
In short, I’ve been using cartoons to help us start more conversations with Senior IT professionals, CFOs of local governments, Small Business owners and even HR people.
The exact application varies for each campaign but I’ll share enough so you can get started.
Obviously, the entire idea is a version of Stu Heinecke’s ‘contact marketing’ play from his book called “How to get a meeting with anyone” – it’s well worth a read.
How to do it?
I can’t draw but I can cut n paste. You can, too.
Typically, I create a concept in Slides and then send that to one of my preferred cartoon creators over on Fivver.com
Within 4 or 5 days and at a cost of about $150 I have an original digital cartoon.
I can now send that cartoon in the mail by printing it and sending it.
You can do this via Vistaprint (poorer quality but easy to do) or Cardly, higher quality cards, more expensive, but you get printing and mail tracking. (Just don’t ask for any support from Cardly, this is a small business so you’re pretty much on your own)
If you decide that the send-in-the-mail thing is too hard – you can also simply use the image in your outreach.
I like to leave part of the image blank so I can partly personalise it.
Such as the prospect’s name on the door or the business name on the wall or something.
You want the prospect to at least think you’ve gone to some level of effort, this is part of the strategy.
You could email it to them, text it, send in a LinkedIn message, you could post it on LinkedIn and tag them (I’ve not yet done that).
Then when you call or follow up with another email you constantly reference the cartoon.
Email example:
Subject line: Crazy cartoon delivery.
That sort of thing.
It also works well for getting past gatekeepers.
You – “I’m calling Andy, can you put me through”
GK – “Is he expecting your call”
You – “Sure is I sent him a cartoon gift – he will have it. Just tell him it’s Mark the cartoon guy. He will know who it is and what it’s about”
This works because it’s not a standard approach, no gatekeeper roleplayed ‘what to do when a salesperson sends your boss a cartoon’.
They simply put you through.
That first conversation with the prospect is super easy, too.
“Hi Andy, It’s Mark, I sent you that cartoon. Did you get it OK?”
It actually doesn’t matter whether they got it or not… because this entry doesn’t sound like your typical sales call/ pitch. Their guard is lowered, they’re curious. Maybe even partly entertained.
What’s really important is that we’ve found there is a level of obligation (reciprocity) from the prospect around the perceived time and effort we went to to make the cartoon.
This usually buys us just enough obligation to get a callback, a text response or an email response.
Secondly, your team (or you, if you’re like me and doing the outbound yourself) find yourself feeling very confident that they’ll engage and have a laugh or a chat.
What’s the downside?
The creative. Coming up with something that works and is not offending anyone is harder than you think. I usually go for a run or a ride and something will come my way after an hour or so. I can’t rush the process.
Why does it work?
Because no matter how good you or your marketing department think your outreach script is, to your prospect’s it just another outreach email that can be easily ignored.
Using something a little more unique creates enough difference to get a conversation.
📣 Conversations at the SPEED 🏁 of Trust.
Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways I might be able to help you…
1: The world’s most affordable 1-on-1 sales coaching.
2: Help your team to get better results from their outbound.
3: Book new business meetings for you or your team.
4: Free sales resources.
