Welcome to Episode 4 of What's Working Now! If you've ever given yourself the freedom to focus deeply on something, devoting dedicated attention and energy to it, you know the power of focus. In marketing, it's easy to feel like you need to do everything — all the strategies, all the tactics — and if you can't, to feel like you're falling behind. But it's often more effective to focus on just a few things and put your resources into those few things. In this episode, Sesame Mish, Growth Marketing Director at Intellimize, is going to share how she and her team have harnessed focus for impressive results. 

(2:46 ) When choosing where to direct your marketing focus, high-quality leads are key.

We have a very high bar for an MQL (marketing qualified lead) here at Intellimize. The lead not only has to have requested a demo of Intellimize, but they also have had to take that critical next step of scheduling that first call on the calendar with our sales team. So at any given time, I am focusing on the right channels and opportunities that come my way that have the best chance of producing these high quality leads for us.

(4:39 ) There comes a point when the way things have always been done in the past no longer produces the same results.

Over time, our email strategy had become stale. And unfortunately, the open and click rates were dwindling. When COVID hit, everything changed, and there were other circumstances that meant that I was going to have a lot more trouble generating MQLs. I really was thinking deeply about this, and I envisioned the recipients of our nurtures getting to a point where they were actually excited to receive our nurture emails and would even look out for them in their inbox. What could I create, what could I offer, that would create that great situation for us?

(8:06 ) Create email nurtures that actively involve your customers by answering the exact questions they are already asking.

It seemed like a no-brainer to answer these frequently asked questions through a series of emails. And this was also our way of going back to the customer, listening to the customer, and giving them literally exactly what they've been asking for.

(14:56 ) Make your target accounts list more manageable by narrowing down your criteria for adding accounts. 

I look at technographic data to see whether the account is already using competitive tools. And therefore I know that that account is probably experiencing pains and challenges that our solution can solve for. Second, I look for a customer of ours that's in the same industry or has a similar use case that I can put in front of that target account and know that it's relevant to them. And the third thing I look for is whether or not we have any relevant personal connections into this potential target account, because that would help facilitate an intro that much easier. And so, therefore, if one of the accounts that is showing buyer intent also meets these three other criteria, then they go on the target accounts list.

(27:47 ) You can’t do everything at once. It’s much more effective to put all of your energy and focus into just a few projects or channels than to spread yourself thin trying to do it all.

Once I embraced this mindset that you can't do everything at once, I became much more effective. At any given time, I'm only focusing on about three or four projects or channels at a time, so that I can go full force in each of them. If you're trying to do every last thing, then you can't go 100% — or anywhere near close to 100% — in any of them. And you're not going to be as detailed, you're not going to be as personalized, you're not going to do the follow-ups as well. And things are going to fall through the cracks. That's how marketing is. You need to be fully focused on the channel that you're in and completely embrace this mindset.

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