In order to create a campaign we need to decide on 3 things:
- The goal
- The Avatar
- The messages
In the following document I will walk you through the considerations and examples on how to craft an effective outreach campaign.
The output that’s required from you after reading this document is to produce a campaign document that includes all the sections in this document. Also, you should provide the reasoning for why a decision was made. For example, explain why the goal was selected, why this flow, why these messages etc. .
- Goal
- How to decide on a goal
We will decide on a goal depending on the stage of the client:
Stage | Company Stage | Types of Outreach Campaigns |
1 | Stealth Mode | 1. Product Feedback Request (Humble): To refine the product/feature in development.2. Personal Research Request (Humble): To gain domain knowledge and understand potential customer needs. |
2 | Early Stage, No Clients | 1. Product Feedback Request (Humble): To refine the product.2. Personal Research Request (Humble): To gain domain knowledge3. Help Me Sell Approach (Humble): To get feedback on sales strategy.4. Case Study Campaign: To demonstrate authority and expertise.5. Pre-Conference Outreach: To build awareness and network. |
3 | Few Scattered Clients, No Clear ICP | 1. Professional Question Outreach (Humble): To identify trends and commonalities in your existing clients2. Help Me Sell Approach (Humble): To get feedback from existing clients on how to refine your value proposition.3. Pre-Conference Outreach: To network and find new client opportunities. |
4 | Few Successful Case Studies, Needing to Grow in Existing Market | 1. Case Study + Demo Request: To showcase successful implementations and present your solution.2. Inner Circle Invitation: Create a community of satisfied clients and industry influencers to help spread your brand.3. Content Hub Invitation: To expose potential clients to your solutions.4. Pre-Conference Outreach: To leverage industry events for growth.5. Case Study Campaign: To showcase the success and credibility of your offerings.6. Webinar Campaign: To educate potential customers about your offerings and industry trends.7. Offer Campaign: To provide exclusive deals or offerings to attract potential customers. |
5 | Success in Existing Market, Entering New Market | 1. Pre-Conference Outreach: Use industry conferences to engage with potential customers in the new market.2. Personal Research Request (Humble): To understand the needs and characteristics of the new market.3. Case Study Campaign: To showcase your success in the existing market to the new market.4. Webinar Campaign: To educate potential customers in the new market about your offerings and industry trends.5. Offer Campaign: To provide exclusive deals or offerings to attract potential customers in the new market. |
6 | Success in Existing Market, Adding New Product | 1. Product Feedback Request (Humble): To refine the new product based on feedback from existing clients.2. Event Invite: Launch the new product at a dedicated event and create excitement around it.3. Pre-Conference Outreach: To promote the new product at industry events4. Case Study Campaign: To showcase your success with the existing product to promote the new product5. Webinar Campaign: To educate existing customers and potential customers about the new product.6. Offer Campaign: To provide exclusive deals or offerings to promote the new product. |
- Goal list:
Goal | Campaign Description |
Product Feedback Request | Facilitate meetings for genuine feedback on a specific product or idea. This is aimed to understand a prospect’s thought process without pushing for a sale. |
Personal Research Request | Conduct interviews with prospects to increase domain expertise and request referrals to expand the network. |
Subject Matter Expert Interview | Collaborate with marketing and sales teams to interview experts from ABM targets. Package the interviews into content such as podcasts, articles, or recorded interviews. |
Content Sharing Outreach | Share valuable, relevant content with prospects and accompany it with a short video explaining its importance. |
Event Invite | Invite prospects to physical or virtual events. These events provide additional touchpoints without the necessity for a direct meeting. |
Content Hub Invitation | Direct prospects to a specific content hub on the company website. This will allow prospects to explore offerings and get acquainted with the brand at their own pace. |
Professional Question Outreach | Reach out to experts for their views and opinions on topics relevant to your industry. This helps build a network of reciprocal relationships and potentially uncovers new opportunities. |
Help Me Sell Approach | Request feedback from prospects with the explicit goal to improve and better understand the market. This approach provides an honest, refreshing interaction with the prospects. |
Pre-Conference Outreach | Connect with prospects before, during, and after industry conferences. Asking for recommendations and speaker references is a good conversation starter and makes the most of conference attendance. |
Inner Circle Invitation | Create an inner circle of advisors, beta-users, and influencers to shape the company’s direction. This approach not only raises the status of the prospect but also helps in amplifying your personal brand. |
- Avatar
- Avatar parameters
Next, you will specify the Avatar, who is the target persona that this campaign is aimed for. You will list the following items:
- Seniority
- Role
- Industry
- Symptoms of the problem
- Pain points
In an outreach campaign, it’s crucial to effectively communicate both the pain points and the symptoms that your solution can address.
Here’s why:
Pain Points: These are the root causes or fundamental problems that your potential customers are facing. Identifying and understanding these pain points is crucial because it allows you to tailor your solution and your messaging to the actual needs and challenges of your customers. By demonstrating that you understand their pain points, you show that you have a deep understanding of their situation and that your solution is designed to address these specific issues.
However, while pain points represent the underlying problems, they can sometimes be abstract or not immediately apparent to the people experiencing them. That’s where symptoms come in.
Symptoms: These are the visible effects or manifestations of the pain points. They are the tangible issues that your potential customers are dealing with on a daily basis. Symptoms are often what motivates people to seek out a solution, because they are the immediate, visible problems that are causing discomfort or difficulty.
In your outreach campaign, focusing on symptoms can often be more effective than focusing solely on pain points. This is because symptoms are the issues that people are directly dealing with and are therefore more likely to resonate with them. By addressing the symptoms in your messaging, you can show your potential customers that you understand their immediate needs and that your solution can provide relief.
- Avatar Mapping
Avatar mapping – How to decide who should be reaching out to whom
In order to increase the chances of Avatars accepting our connection request, we should think strategically about who is the person who will reach out to the Avatar.
The following table is the preferred way to map an Avatar to an Outreacher (the person doing the outreach)
Persona level | Campaign type | Outreacher |
Senior | WebinarHumble Product feedbackContentEventWinbackResearch | Founder, CEO , C-suiteDirectors, AE, Marketing: VP/Director/Head of Marketing Sales: Marketing: VP/Director/Head of Sales Product: VP/ Director/Head of Product |
Midlevel | WebinarHumble Product feedbackContentDemoEventResearchWinback | Founder, CEO , C-suiteDirectors, AE, SDR Marketing: VP/Director/Head of Marketing Sales: Marketing: VP/Director/Head of Sales Product: VP/ Director/Head of Product |
Entry level | ContentFeedbackMeetingDemoEvent inviteResearch | AE, SDR Marketing manager/ Content /Coordinator Product: Head of Product / Product Manager Product Marketing Manager |
- Decide on the Main Currency
The concept of a “Main Currency” in the context of cybersecurity, DevSecOps, AppSec, and AI refers to the primary metric or value that a customer or user is seeking to gain or optimize. This could be a tangible or intangible value, and it’s often what drives decision-making and measures success. The main currency can vary greatly depending on the specific goals, needs, and challenges of the individual or organization.
Here are some examples of how to select a currency:
- Identify the primary goal or need: What is the main objective that the user or customer is trying to achieve? This could be improving security, optimizing performance, reducing costs, etc.
- Consider the specific context: The main currency can vary greatly depending on the specific context. For example, in cybersecurity, the main currency could be the level of security or the number of vulnerabilities detected and fixed. In DevOps, it could be the speed of deployment or the number of successful deployments.
- Think about what is measurable: The main currency should ideally be something that can be quantified and measured. This allows for clear tracking of progress and success.
- Consider what is valuable to the user or customer: The main currency should be something that the user or customer values and cares about. This could be something that directly impacts their bottom line, their performance, their reputation, etc.
Persona | Typical Relevant Currencies |
CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) | Number of vulnerabilities detected, Level of security compliance, Number of security incidents, Cost of security incidents, Level of data protection, Number of data breaches, Cost of data breaches, Time to respond to security incidents, Time to recover from cyber attacks, Amount of sensitive data exposed |
SOC Analyst | Number of security incidents, Time to respond to security incidents, Number of successful cyber attacks, Time to recover from cyber attacks, Amount of sensitive data exposed, Number of data breaches, Level of data protection, Number of vulnerabilities detected, Time to fix vulnerabilities, Level of security compliance |
GRC Analyst (Governance, Risk, Compliance) | Level of security compliance, Number of compliance incidents, Time to resolve compliance incidents, Level of risk exposure, Number of risk incidents, Time to resolve risk incidents, Cost of security incidents, Number of data breaches, Cost of data breaches, Level of data protection |
Application Security Engineer | Number of vulnerabilities detected in applications, Time to fix application vulnerabilities, Number of successful attacks on applications, Time to recover from application attacks, Level of application security compliance, Number of security incidents, Level of data protection, Number of data breaches, Cost of data breaches, Level of risk exposure |
IT Manager | Level of system uptime, Number of system outages, Time to recover from system outages, Level of system performance, Number of user complaints, Time to resolve user complaints, Number of successful deployments, Number of failed deployments, Time to recover from failed deployments, Level of automation |
DevOps | Time to deploy code, Number of successful deployments, Number of failed deployments, Time to recover from failed deployments, Level of automation, Number of manual processes, Level of system uptime, Number of system outages, Time to recover from system outages, Level of system performance |
DevSecOps | Number of vulnerabilities detected in code, Time to fix code vulnerabilities, Number of successful secure deployments, Number of failed secure deployments, Level of code security compliance, Time to deploy code, Number of successful deployments, Number of failed deployments, Level of automation, Number of manual processes |
- message
- Message
- Flow
- Repeat
- Messsage
How to craft a message
- Sound human
- Don’t write like an email
- Make it short
- Use lowercase as much as possible
- Ask questions
- Use specific industry terms
- Use specific technology names
- Refer to the Main Currency
- Avoid over-personalization: first name is enough
Message structure
Follow the following guidelines when crafting the messages:
- Connection request
- Up to 300 characters
- Message 1
- Introduce yourself and the company
- Add a social proof . examples:
- Option 1: Client name + measurable outcome + timeframe ( we helped Amazaon to reduce time-to-remidiation by 22% within 30 days)
- Options 2: Testimonial (“ACME helped us to reduce time-to-remidiation by 22% )
- Option 3: Article/Newsstory (“As seen on Fox news [link to article]”)
- Add a promise
- If pitching a product – “We can reduce time-to-remidiation by 22% within 30 days”
- If asking for advice – “I promise there’s no sales pitch – pure advice ! “
- If asking for an interview – I promise to be very respectful for your time / I promise that nothing will be published without your review
- Make the whole message as short as possible
- Message 2
- A one line reminder – “name, making sure youve seen my last message?”
- Message 3 “I assume you’re busy”
- Give them some more time to respond – for example if the campaign is asking for an interview for an article then the message could be: “name, I assume you’re very busy – all good, we have a few more days until we need to wrap up in case you can still make it.
- Give them a way out “ no worries if you cant make it this time, if that’s ok with you I’ll keep you posted in what we’re doing
Flow
- First messages are short spread apart 2-3 days then move to 4-6 days
- If they dont accept – there are a number of actions we can take in order to bring our connection request back to their attention. But we don’t want to over do it as it will take up activities from other flows.
- Wait 7 days
- Follow them
- Wait 7 days
- Like a post
- Wait 7 days
- Withdraw connction request
- Wait 21 days
- Send connection request again with the same flow