This sounds like a pretty counterproductive article from myself; the fact is that in writing these words of advice I am also submitting to the fact that many will not read them; ironic?

There is however a point in what I am suggesting, and it’s one of demonstrable value without cost - to you that is. In getting prospects or leads engaged in doing business with you there’s a constant effort to keep some sort of conversation going that doesn’t obviously wreak of the desperation to stay in contact. You want to add value in some way, make their life easier, do something - just not at too much (or any) cost...what….to…..do?!

And herein lies the answer to this article’s title; you will have common interests with your customers, they will more than likely be part of an extended supply chain. Imagine you receive a blog post to your email inbox, you think ‘I wonder what customer x would think about that’, or ‘I wonder if they would be interested to know that’ - it allows you to re-start or continue the conversation whilst actually adding value.
So, just knowing a little about your customer, and keeping them in mind when reviewing the titles and opening paragraphs of that blog you’re subscribed to could keep doors open.

And it’s not just blogs you should be looking at

If you want to spread your reach a little further, there are plenty of tools out there to deliver industry specific news and articles from multiple sources. But if you want to start out we’d suggest these two to start with.

Google Alerts

Use Google Alerts to track industry news, names of customers, names of competitors in your customers industry, anything really. Just think of a word or better, a set of words which may be included in an article of value to your customer. Then type those in to Google Alerts and set up an alert.
You can set google alerts up really quickly and easily, and you can turn them off just as quickly. You can choose how often you’re alerted and get alerts packaged in one nice succinct email.

If you set up an alert for specific terms such as “Manufacturing Industry” you can track news and articles including that specific phrase. It’s worth considering setting up alerts for your customer’s industry too.

Tip: Make sure you use “inverted commas” to track a specific phrase or set of words.

Check out Google Alerts

Feedly

Feedly is fantastic. We won’t go into detail about it’s features here, but it can probably be equated to your own curated magazine. Those of you familiar with news aggregators will be familiar with the concept. Those of you who are not, I’d suggest you head on over to Feedly and take a look around.

You can choose from news sources within Feedly, or when you find a Blog or news website you like just copy and paste the web address into Feedly and you’ll get all your articles in one place.

Check out Feedly

Something worth sharing with more than one customer?

Social media is built for sharers. We live and work in an age where “sharing” has become an actual thing you can do during your day job, sharing is what keeps the social media world spinning. There are however a lot of listeners out there, your customers included, and potential customers. So sharing an article or a piece of news with a question directed at your customers could help re-start a conversation, or even spark off a new one.

You gain some of the credit

People value information, they value insight slightly more. But by employing some of these methods you not only get to know your customer and their industry better, but also become a valuable source. You didn’t write the article, but they might not have seen it without your help, that means you earn some brownie points. With many potential customers this could help them go from knowing you, to liking you. With some it could help them move from just liking you, to trusting you.

This may turn into your first venture into the business blogging or content marketing scene, but once you see the opportunity it won’t be your last.

Build and capture your knowledge

We’ve talked about Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) in previous articles, and some may have already made the link. Capturing background information using these methods and capturing the conversations you’re having with a customer can all be done within a CRM. It’s as simple as making a note against a customer record and pasting in a link. Most CRMs offer some form of email integration so the articles and the conversations can all be captured for future reference. But we’ll keep that for another article.

Keep conversations going everywhere

This doesn’t just work in conventional B2B sales situations, this works inside your business also. Want to share a post with an employee to help them develop themselves or better understand a topic? Want to share a post with your boss or another department to get a conversation started in a certain direction? Trust me, starting a conversation with ‘I was reading this article online the other day….’ is a great way to direct a conversation, whilst adding value.

Stop Stumbling, Start Subscribing!

So the next time you’re searching the web for some nuggets of information and you stumble across a great article, (and you have done this since you are reading this article...), seriously consider subscribing. There's greater value underneath the surface than you first might think. We call it ‘thinking outside the inbox’ - call it what you want, it’s spotting an opportunity to keep the conversation flowing, and opening people’s eyes to what you have to offer.

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