The dreaded "Let's Keep in Touch" - How to ?

A Pod of Podcasts !

One of the biggest challenges I have personally encountered in the B2B sales space is how to "keep in touch" with people we have presented ourselves to in the past but the compelling event (funding for the purchase, organisational preparedness for adoption, external factors etc.) that heralds a "live opportunity" is still some way off. It would be ideal if there was a steady stream of "non salesy" but relevant information that could be shared with such prospects with the view to staying on their radar, taking on a thought leadership position, forming a relationship & so on ! Let me introduce you to the podcast interview - done right this could do all that & also offer you the opportunity to form a warm & real relationship with the leaders in the industry.

The suggested method is :

1. First identify some well known or respected voices in the industry relevant to your product / service & approach them with the view to interview them to create a podcast. People usually want to help so in most cases where the intent of the interview is clearly to present something of real value to the community without commercializing it they will try to do so within their own constraints of time & schedule. It's important to make it as easy as possible for the interviewee to participate - so no downloading of software, no calling into international nos. & so on.

2. The topic of the interview should be mutually agreed upon - clearly this cannot be directly about your product / service. Remember the intention is to present something of real value to the audience so stick to talking about genuine problems, solutions, advances in technology etc. 

3.  The actual interview should be recorded, edited & published in as professional a manner as possible – on your own web properties as well as any third party sites & groups that allow this (for eg. Linked Groups).   

4. The podcast should also be promoted over the various social media channels - this gives you something to talk about over the lifecycle of the event. You should also request the interviewee to promote the podcast to their own followers, friends etc. This should help drive up traffic to your web properties.

5. This is also a communication that should then be sent out to the customers, partners and "warm" & "cold" prospects in your database. This is a golden opportunity to communicate with them in a “non-threatening, obligation-free manner” with the added benefit of allowing you to take a thought leadership position - almost by reflection ! 

6. The process of approaching, confirming & setting up of the interview also offers ample opportunity to build a strong & warm relationship with the leader being interviewed & to leave them with a positive feeling about your organisation. 

Even a couple of podcasts a month can feed a reasonably steady effort to reach out to your customers & prospects. What's more "Ye olde podcasts" can always be recycled when they relate to events that come up in the news cycle or when there is a need to re-establish contact with someone with a specific interest area. As an example I can point you to http://www.techpostmedia.com/podcasts - the host is perhaps not the greatest (blush, blush) but the guests are usually top notch !