10:42am Staring at my inbox trying to make sense of it: 4 new ICP prospects have emailed me / booked a call, and it's not even lunch time. How? I suck at SEO. I'm not running ads. I didn't do any outreach today. I don't travel to events (probably should). I didn't go on any podcasts (again, really should). My LinkedIn post from this morning has 32 likes and 3 comments—Questioning why I even bother So I asked these folks once I talked to them a few days later: Why'd you reach out? 🟢 "I saw a couple of your posts and they resonated. Was going to comment but Slack started pinging / kids were yelling and I forgot" (Similar response from 2 ppl) 🟢 "Your comments keep popping up on my feed and I remembered I've been meaning to book with you" 🟢 "It's been a few years but we're exploring your agency's services" --- Some of these calls turned into great clients and added five figure MRR to my agency—Here's what I make of the responses: 🌀 You don't need to go viral. Many influential decision makers see LinkedIn posts and never engage, but they remembered me when they needed me 🌀 Commenting + Posting makes you 25x more visible than posting alone (stat from research by Teamfluence) 🌀 Maintain genuine, mutually helpful relationships with people over the span of years. Keep in touch. Help people and don't expect anything back. Give advice. Ask someone how their business is going. Don't sell. 🌀 Direct 1:1 attribution is very difficult in B2B (without a $5K/mo tech stack). Asking people on calls why they got in touch is one of the highest fidelity signals I can get for free. --- You don't need to go viral.
The elusive dark social at play here. It will never show up in any attribution dashboard unless we ask. Good tip.
Great insights Evan. And I often think the people who reach out are those that don’t post or engage as much….because they’re too busy. Good to see that you’re getting good value from the platform. And I particularly like your final sentence!
I feel you, Evan, on this one so much! One of our recent deals (and the most exciting ones - series B startup!!!) came from a CMO who booked a call with me out of the blue. When I asked her how she found me, she said, “Someone in my network liked your post and I loved how straight to the point it was. I love practical marketing.” Later, I checked the post — it had around 50 likes. Not viral by any means. Just a simple, clear piece of content that resonated with the right person. Sometimes, the real magic happens quietly.
The best thing you can do to improve your marketing and messaging is ask these two questions from anyone who buys as soon as they buy: 1. What made you decide to buy NOW? 2. What almost prevented you from buying? The answers are GOLD. When people join my Clients From Content membership the welcome email includes those two questions.
I am having a very similar experience :) All praise Linkedin, tbh
Most people don’t comment, like, or engage, but they watch. They remember 👏🏻
This is awesome. It is very obvious with your content that your aiming for quality/impact and not just posting engagement bait. And clearly, it's working!! Congrats!
ICP ICP ICP. I’ve been off LinkedIn for so long. And I’ve recently jumped back in. LinkedIn is amazing @ finding people who your content resonates with which is the problem. Because it doesn’t matter if you go viral if it’s with folks who don’t match your ICP. As long as your reaching your audience. 1,000 impressions is way more valuable than 100,000 to the wromg crowd. Keep churning out the gold Evan 😀
Love these posts. Inspiration for me becoming more active here. So far, I do personal follow ups with all the random people that connect with me, asking why they reached out and exploring synergies that we may have. Next, I will post more :)
Founder | Advisor | 2 Exits | <-- Sharing what I've learned
6moAll credit to the team at Shield for coining "You don't need to go viral."