What is an MQL - and why is it the most important metric when it comes to measuring your social media marketing effectiveness?

Stapho Thienpont: 0:00

Who is it that I want to sell to? So if you already have some clients, the first thing that I would do is look at your CRM and look at which companies are making you the most money and figuring out what it is that they have in common. So if you have customers already, that's great. You can just interview your top 10 best customers, see what they have in common, and then start finding more people like that.

Jim James: 0:22

Hello and welcome to this episode of the unnoticed show. I'm delighted today to have Stapho Thienpont joining me all the way from Belgium, Stapho Thienpont, how are you welcome to the show?

Stapho Thienpont: 0:34

I'm great. I'm very happy to be here with you today. And I. I'm ready to share as much good stuff as I can, and hopefully help whoever's listening to this help them get noticed and hopefully help them generate some more revenue.

Jim James: 0:48

That's wonderful. I mean, you've got a long background in lead gen and one of the things that you shared with me is the idea of differentiating between general leads and profitable leads and the move from sort of general casting the net to really spear fishing. And we just. Dive right into that topic because for most people finding leads that convert is a number one problem.

Stapho Thienpont: 1:13

Yeah. So I think one of the things that I've noticed these days, especially with people just listening to, or basically social media managers, pretending to be marketers, and what everybody's doing is, or, or many people are doing is trying to get seen by as many people as possible. And you can tell about how they're talking about it. It's just like, Oh, I got this many views or I got that many views and that's, that's nice. And that's really good for your ego and stuff. But it ultimately doesn't really help you generate any money. So I like to differentiate between MQL marketing, qualified leads. Those are just people that fill your requirements, people that you want to sell to. And then we have SQLs, which are, you have people that also fulfill your requirements, but are also interested in buying from you now, before you get to any of those It's important to just start understanding who it is that you want to sell to depending on your business. so what I think is, instead of just doing stuff, like just doing a, say a podcast without a strategic background, or before you're posting on Instagram or LinkedIn, or doing any of these kind of things. Before you were just doing this and casting a wide web. I think it's much more useful to start with. Okay. Who is it that I want to sell to? So if you already have some clients, the first thing that I would do is look at your CRM and look at which companies are making you the most money and figuring out what it is that they have in common. So if you have customers already, that's great. You can just interview your top 10 best customers, see what they have in common, and then start finding more people like that. If you don't have customers yet, that's fine too. cause I've been there, you know, like I've had my own company, if you don't have any start with figuring out a list of, I would say a hundred companies that you are saying, like, these are people that I would love to work with. now the caveats or the, the thing you need to remember is that you, you want them to be as similar to each other as possible, because if you make a piece of content that would be valuable for all hundred of those companies is going to be gonna make things much easier for you. So the first step in my, in the, in the way I look at it, it's just like, okay, who do I want to work with? make a list of 100 of them and then interview at least 10 of them. But you really want to interview all 100 of them. And when I say interview them, you really want to be interviewing the people that would be in charge of buying your service. Right? So not necessarily the people that signed, but necessarily decision makers. But the people that would initiate this kind of conversation, we were talking a little bit before about how you have a PR firm. So I would imagine that if you're working with a smaller company, the marketing manager or marketing leads or whatever would be the one that would first go like, huh, maybe we need some PR. so, so that would be what we call your champion. So what I would do if I, if I were. And somebody's helping somebody similar to you. I would tell them like, look, let's make a list of a hundred companies and then talk to all of their marketing managers and see if we can interview them. And oftentimes from just these interviews, just marketing research interviews, a lot of people start are already able to start a sales conversation because you're most likely the first person to actually listen to them. Instead of just talking about themselves the whole time.

Jim James: 4:37

That's a really good idea stuff. Now, just for a practical point of view that you've listed, say a hundred companies any bulls that you think people should use or is it just to getting on the phone and how do you incentivize that person who's already busy and may see this as just a sales ploy? How do you incentivize them to take part in your survey? Yeah,

Stapho Thienpont: 4:59

that's a great question. so I think a lot of the times just. so if it provided that you managed to find the list and just making the list, it's going to be mostly just Googling. Do you also have to like find that lead or sales navigator to be able to find them? you could also use Crunchbase, which is if your target audience is startups and you need to know about their funding. but really. Just starting a genuine conversation by sliding in their DMS on LinkedIn or Instagram works really, really well. alternatively, I think it also works really well to do a cold email campaign with a tool like lemlist. what's nice about lemlist is they can add personalized images. What does that mean? It means that let's say what you could do. If you want to get some money on this podcast, you could take a screenshot of this moment right now and then automatically replace my face. With the face of your guests. And then you say like, look, how much fun is it going to be when we get on a podcast together? and this actually really transitions very well into your other question, part of your question, which was how do you incentivize them to be interviewed by you? So for many people asking them to have a little marketing research interview is all it's already enough and you could give them something like an Amazon gift card or whatever. so for many people they're actually helpful and they don't mind as long as you're genuinely starting the conversation. And before you asking them, like some of their contents or look at their website, maybe make like a free video, let's say you're a marketer. You could record a screen, share of their website and review like top five things that they could fix, that they would give them. They would make them feel like you've done something for them and will incentivize them to do something for you so that it works in many cases, but what works in even more cases is inviting them the podcast. So just starting a podcast, specifically targeted to those. 100 people per a hundred companies, so that on the one hand that they would want to appear on it. So two, it would need to be a podcast about something. They feel like they have an expertise in, but also podcasts that they would want to listen to. Right. So let's say you're, you said you do PR for some manufacturing companies, if I remember correctly. So you could make podcasts, that is something along the lines of like PR for the PR for manufacturing, podcasts and them, or you could even say. We are for marketing managers in manufacturing, podcasts, like it's super niche, but it would be so relevant to them that they would offer that they would definitely want to be on that show. So sending a cold email. With a tool, like lemlist and inviting them either to be on some kind of an interview or to be on your podcast is a really good way of doing it. If you want to be even cheaper than this, you can just manually write them on Twitter and then LinkedIn and Instagram, until they start responding, the more you've actually looked at them beforehand, the better and the more positive things you can do for them beforehand. Like, Right. And I always think that if let's say you're a designer and doing maybe making free design for them or reviewing some of their different designs individual upfront helps them a lot because you're leveraging your expertise to do something positive for them. Why do you want to interview them? I think would be another great thing to discuss is there's many reasons for this. First of all. it is your opening conversation, which could potentially lead to a sales at some point that's very useful. But the second thing is you start understanding what their problems and our challenges are. Which you can then use in your marketing, because if you make a landing page or even a cold email, you really need to know why is it that these people would want to buy from me? What, what is the trigger that makes them take the step to buy from you? And you cannot guess this you can only know it by asking them. That's why it's so important to interview them. And as you get to know the people better and better, you will see common traits. So they have things in common. And because they have things in common, you can make one content that is useful for all of them. You also start understanding which kind of questions they have and if you're the best one at answering the questions, and actually you don't even need to be the best one, because if you're not connected with them on LinkedIn and you're answering their specific questions, They're going to see it and you can just tag them underneath the post. It's like, Hey, I had this discussion with Jim, Jim asked me about this. So here is how I think about it. And then they will often tag their friends and their whole companies and the knows who, who you are and what it is that you're up to.

Jim James: 9:32

Yeah. And that's a really great advice. The only thing about podcast of course, is many people feel that can be a bit overwhelming. So. Is there a way maybe even just to, for example, have a zoom call and record that and make notes and share that with them as part of the survey, because the podcast sort of almost requires some continuity, doesn't it?

Stapho Thienpont: 9:53

Yeah. So it's a good point. So I always feel that the most important part about. The podcast is saying that you have one and then, and then record on the recording. It's it? I think that's much more important than yeah. All the other stuff. But if you think about it, what is a podcast, right? It's you know who it is that you want to talk to? You have a cover image, you have some sort of description cover image You can literally get done for 15 bucks on fiver. So it's super cheap. And then the rest is just like you said, you're calling them on zoom and then you're recording it and that's, that's this it. So, so, and then of course, if you really, if you really want to take it's, if you bottle have a real podcast, then the next thing is. just uploading this audio to something like a podcast.co, which is my favorite podcasting platform. And of course, if you can get it edited and have it as nice as possible, that's great. But really, almost anybody could just cut up the audio to where it starts in the right moment and ends in the audio. also, if you want to have an like a little, little intro, an auto song, cause you like. There's this guy that I used, like five times on fiber costs, like 40 bucks to get a nice intro song. So it's all, it's all super, super easy, but the, and I have that, there's this there's a really nice article about this by sweet fish media. And it's something like 26 steps to start a podcast. And it's super easy, much easier than you think. Yeah.

Jim James: 11:27

Yeah. Okay. And the barrier to entry now is so low, isn't it? In terms of both cost and technology as well. And when we were talking before, you're also mentioning about once you've got this content and you've done these interviews with your avatars, right? The companies and the individuals that you want to know what problems they need to sell you to about how you can share that as content from the podcast, but also beyond staff boot. Can you share with us some other tools that you've mentioned.

Stapho Thienpont: 11:56

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So if you actually managed to to, to record podcasts, then the next thing is to help. The person that you record the podcast with, help them share this on social media. Why is this important is because they're usually connected with other people similar to them. So that means that you can propagate your reach to other people that fit your ICP, your ideal customer profile. So that's really, that's really very beneficial. If you can get them to share it with just other people from other companies. but the other thing is also people from within their company gets to see it. And the more expensive your service becomes the more important it becomes to make sure that all the stakeholders know about you. So let's say for example, I work in company butters and at the marketing manager. So if you were selling me. PR I would be your champion. So you would first want me to know about it, but then it was also my boss to know about it. So if, if, if, if I share a clip from this show that we're doing right now, or my LinkedIn, my boss is going to see it. And all of a sudden, everybody that needs to know about you knows about you. That's basically why it's so important and how you do this clip is. You have the podcast.co two platform where you can do all your podcasting stuff and I'm not paid by them, but I'm just, just so you know, I just liked her too. and you can, they have this button where you can just, it has like a little video icon. If you click it, it just allows you to see your podcast, choose a little timeframe from the pocket from it. And then you easily turn it into a clip where you can have like a little way forum and automatic captions. Captions are important because What is it like 90% of people don't turn on the sounds when they're watching something on LinkedIn or even Instagram. So within podcasts, let go, and you haven't headliner integration and headliner is a tool that actually allows you to make those clips and then anticipating your next question which would be like, how do you get people to actually see it? So you have this tool we mentioned before we started recording, which is called lamp bots is from same people that I mentioned before with Lem list, which is the cold email tool. This is lamp bot. Well, MPAA does, is it allows you to make a group of people, preferably people, you know? and you agree to say, like you agree to engage on each other's contents. So let's say Jim, Jim and I were in limbo together. That means if I post something, I can make it. So Jim's profile automatically likes it. And that's important because LinkedIn shows your contents to people in your first connections. Based on how many people engage on the content and if it reaches a certain threshold. So let's say it shows it to a hundred people of your first connections and let's say 30% of them like it or something like this. Then it will start also showing it to your second connections. And the second connections is based on who it is that is engaging. So let's say we use that. I post on LinkedIn. I use Lempods your accounts likes it. This makes it so more of my first connections, get to see the posts, but it also makes it so your first connection seeds, which are my second connections, and this is also a very cheap tool. what is it like five to 10 bucks a month or something like this? to just get a lot more people to see or LinkedIn content.

Jim James: 15:16

Wow. That's amazing. This is lempods.com. And a few people have asked me to be part of a, sort of a group where everyone goes on to like the content and the theory is good, but actually the practical practice is that you could spend ages trying to go through all these LinkedInposts. So Lem, pod, souls, that problem of, of making. Content sort of light and therefore move up the, the algorithms. That's fantastic. And then now you then staff are starting to close the loop because we started this conversation with your ideal customer profile. And you've taken us through that journey, which is fantastic. Where do you get them into the funnel then? Because. What we're also talking about is getting people into a place where you can have a sales conversation with them.

Stapho Thienpont: 16:11

Yeah. So my expertise is high ticket B2B which might sound more fancy than there really is. And for actually for many freelancers, I would actually suggest them to charge a lot of money so that he can focus on one or two clients. so. What I, so just to loop back to the previous things that we're talking about. so my suggestion is if you're doing a podcast to have a little conversation before you start recording and you ask them, when is your heart stop? so a lot of the times they will say like, okay, I have to stop at six. And they say, okay, that's great. That means I'll stop the recording at five 50. So then we have 10 minutes, 10 minutes to talk. And then during your podcast, you actually ask them a lot of the questions that you would normally do as a, as a qualified, I call your qualifying questions. So to speak, you figure out during your show, whether this person would be a good person to buy it from you or not. So when you then shut down the recording, you can actually say like, okay by the way, this is what my business does. If you were interested in this. We can always book a call about it. If you're not, that's fine too. And then after your call, after your podcast, you send them a little email to thank you them for being on the show and how much you appreciate it. And maybe the number one thing that you learned from it. And then you add your booking link in there as well for your disk. If they want it to be a discovery call. And then the next time you can follow up is when your episode goes live and you let them know, Hey, the episode went live now. and then also when you are posting your clips, you can tag them again, but they have many, many different touch points with you. And because you've had this podcast conversation with them, or just interview conversation, which really all fits very much the same requirements. the, the, the podcast is, is, is, has an extra edge because it shows that you appreciate them and think that they're experts. and it's a, both of them are really good at helping you establish the conversation and build rapport. And by them, just telling them a little bit about what it is that you do. if, if they are currently in the stage where they would be interested in looking for a service like this, And very naturally flows into a sale because they just, they like here, they feel like you like them. and there is a little bit of a relationship built and that makes it easy to transition into a sales conversation. In my experience,

Jim James: 18:38

that's pretty nice stuff. So somehow reaching out, learning from them, what they need from you. Somehow formatting that into either a podcast or a, even just a zoom meeting, it could be right that you make into a video clip or an audio gram, and then sharing that on social and possibly have it in your Lim pod community share simultaneously will amplify that conversation. That's fantastic. So Stapho or you've now joined to come to go Bothrs there in Belgium, if people would like the benefit of your wisdom over and beyond this podcast, how can they find you?

Stapho Thienpont: 19:14

Yeah. So, if they wanna learn more about this kind of lead generation stuff, then they can always reach out to me on my personal LinkedIn. I'm sure there'll be a link. And if by the off chance you want to build an app or a digital product that you could find us at bothrs.Com. but we haven't really talked about this stuff bothers us, but yeah, anybody's totally free to send me a message about lead generation. And then if I can help with some advice, I'd be happy to do that. And if I can connect you to somebody that can actually help you in other ways or help, help you find the tools, then I would also be very happy to introduce you to the right people in there and the right tools.

Jim James: 19:51

Thank you so much for joining me on the notice show today.

Stapho Thienpont: 19:54

very happy to be here and I hope people enjoyed it and that this was somehow useful.

Jim James: 19:58

Very much so. And I've taken a screenshot. So I'm going to share that on LinkedIn. Once we finish this call and for all those listening, I will put in the show notes, the links to those applications, and also to the Stapho's, LinkedIn account. Thanks for listening to this episode of the unnoticed show. And we've talked really about the need to focus on a few ideal customers rather than worrying so much about the vanities statistics of large volumes of likes, because most of us don't need millions or even hundreds of customers. We need a few profitable ones. So until we meet again, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that if you're working on LinkedIn and B2B marketing, think about focus and content. And have a lot of fun. Thanks so much for listening.