stop breaking into people's homes

a letter about an experience I recently had, and an attempt to offer a better way to help those who truly do not know that a better way exists

Dear you,

Last week, my phone rang, and I didn't recognize the number, but I went ahead and picked up the call because sometimes your blessings/good news come from numbers you don't recognize. Anyway, I picked up the call, and the caller said:

"Hello, are you Blessing? My name is Cyril, and I am calling from * insert company's name *. Your contact was generated from a software by my bosses, and I would like to speak to you about my product."

I paused for a second with just one question: "How did you get my number?".

He stuttered for a few seconds and said, "I don't know the software, but my bosses used it to get your contact information, and they gave me your number to call you."

It was absurd.

I had a few thoughts: maybe a brand sold my data, or they illegally obtained it, or they got hold of a bunch of random numbers who may or may not be their target audience and just chose to waste resources by calling 100 random people and shooting blanks in the sky with "hope" as the strategy, spending so much on calls, without first doing the essential work of knowing your target audience and finding a way to attract them or get connected to them legitimately.

There are better ways to sell than stealing people's data to cold-call them. It's like picking the locks into my house to tell me about your products. It's such a sly way of doing business.

Isn't purchase supposed to be based on trust? How can I trust you if you sneak around to get my data? It's one that I did not give you. There are much better ways to get this data and establish trust, and these are three ways:

Host a free event relevant to your target market

Get them to sign up for the event, including their email and phone number. Only people interested in the topic, which is tied to the problem you are solving, will go the extra mile of signing up, and that's a good thing because 100 interested people within your target audience are much better than 10,000 people who do not care about you. Target quality leads over random quantity that means nothing.

Sponsor an event with your target market in attendance, get a booth, and do something experiential and memorable.

Stop sponsoring events just for clout. Sponsor events that bring you value and have your target audience in attendance. Don't just come on stage and give a boring speech about your product. Create an experience. Involve people. Gamify the experience. If you had a fintech product helping people save, create a leaderboard and say the first group of three to hit a savings goal of $500 at the end of an event will get an extra $500. Then go on to sell the benefits. If you are a video editing tool, showcase a live demonstration of the tool in action by involving the crowd in a video shoot, and then ask five people to call out requests. At the end of the experience, share a discount code and let people know that everyone who signs up and takes an action qualifies for merch or something valuable to them. Create fun moments people are willing to sign up for that also tie back to your product. Or before people qualify for a merch or goody bag [make sure it's really good], they need to scan a QR code. Make it fun! Use your imagination. Do it in a way that is intentional. And focus on valuable metrics. Having 1 million people sign up on an app but only 100 using it after 7 days is not a flex. It's better to have 200 signups, with 150 still using it after 30 days. So it is important to do it in a way that is not for everyone, only your people.

Collaborate with a community or creator

Give them a unique code people can use to sign up for free or for a special discount [this way, people start paying from day 1] or collaborate with the creator/community in a way that is natural and adds value to their target audience [which should include yours too]. This is synonymous with being introduced to someone by someone else they know. Because people trust the creator or community, they'll transfer that trust to you.

Bonus: Create something of value and make a landing page to collect the data of those interested. This could be an ebook, a webinar, a guide, or something useful to your audience. This way, people need to share their contact details before accessing it, and that attracts them to you, too.

People often complain about marketing budgets being the first thing they cut. Sometimes, it's because some marketers give us a bad rep by spraying money and praying without a strategy. They are out there sponsoring events that don't concern your target audience, running untargeted ads, and cold-calling people who don't give a damn about you. Even worse, they don't even fall into your target category. Imagine someone cold-calling Bill Gates to tell him how he can make money from YouTube as a creator!!!! Please be for real! He will make more money as an investor in Google than as a creator.

So, please, care enough to know your audience. Stop breaking into the homes [minds/attention/time] of strangers without knocking and expecting them to buy from you. It's rarely ever going to happen. 9.9 out of 10 times, they don't buy because you came in like a thief. That's what it feels like when you call someone who didn't give you their number. Come with prestige and honour as someone who has value to offer.

Also side-eyeing people who don't let people unsubscribe from their emails... maybe the question to ask yourself is: are you looking for customers or prisoners?

A word is enough for the wise, and a word is not enough; here are almost 950 words.

With Love,

Blessing Abeng