“Wait, why would I want to market to non-customers?”
That’s a good question, and you are 100% right to wonder.
Your business lives and dies by its sales… isn’t it better to focus only on buyers?
Not necessarily – here’s why…
Apart from paying customers you obviously need (duh!), there are many types of valuable stakeholders who can help your business grow. If you can attract them, that is.
Investors, employees, thought leaders, potential business partners – none of these are likely to buy from you directly, but your company still needs them to thrive. Entrepreneurship is hard; but with top talent, loyal partners, and interested influencers on your side it becomes a little bit easier.
So, how do you market to these important non-customers… and what do you say to them? That’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this week’s blog post.
We’ll focus on three categories on non-customers you will definitely want to attract, no matter what industry you’re in, or what stage of growth you are on:
- Likely business partners
- People you want to hire
- Influencers to amplify your reach
For each of these groups, we’ll give you some actionable principles for creating a ridiculously magnetic, exciting message – and a real-life example of how it’s been done with whiteboard and cartoon animation video.
First up: attracting business partners you can trust…
Creating an irresistible partnership pitch with whiteboard video
A successful business partnership has to be based around a mutual exchange of value.
Your potential partner has something you want, say:
- Access to a big audience of your ideal customers…
- The kind of expertise that would benefit your business…
- Name recognition you want to borrow for credibility…
Whatever it is, you want it. But something critical needs to happen before you go ahead and ask for it. First, you will have to answer the most important question that your would-be partner will ask as soon as you contact them:
“What’s in it for me?”
Any marketing message you put forward needs to be built around addressing that question, the more explicitly the better. Only after that can you actually go ahead and make your request.
If you craft your partner-facing message like that, you will not have any problems getting their attention – and the process of developing a mutually beneficial relationship will be much easier.
For more guidance on how you might create such a message – as a script for a whiteboard and cartoon animation video, for example – check out this post we did on copywriting formulas.
Let’s see how that might look like in the real world, shall we?
Here’s how it’s done with a whiteboard and cartoon animation video:
This “Netflix Preferred Vendors” video is a great example of how to issue a compelling but low-key message to potential partners. Let’s dig into it and see what’s going on in that video…
To bring its content to millions of people around the world, Netflix needs exceptional vendors. This process resembles not so much as hiring a freelancer as choosing a trusted, long-term collaborator. It’s a partnership.
So what can Netflix offer to those vendors? Well, for starters, one of the biggest platforms in the world for their work! But also: competitive pay, an inexhaustible supply of work, and the name recognition of being “those guys who do work for Netflix.”
That’s a very compelling offer, and it’s all disclosed within the video in a very low-pressure way. Because, let’s face it, Netflix don’t need to get in people’s faces to attract them – that would be like someone shouting in a Mercedes commercial!
Bottom line is, this whiteboard and cartoon animation video addresses the “what’s in it for me” question thoroughly, and that’s why it works.
How to use whiteboard and cartoon animation video for attracting top talent
Hiring good employees is more important than getting awesome customers.
It’s a controversial thing to say, but we believe it wholeheartedly.
If you get a low-quality customer, it’s barely a blip on your radar. If you make a poor hiring decision, you might be feeling the aftershocks for years to come.
That’s why marketing to potential employees is so important. Without attracting good candidates who share your values, you won’t be able to hire the kind of people you need to run a profitable business.
So let’s say that you need to put out a recruiting message that will attract exactly the kind of people you want… how do you accomplish that?
In our opinion, the key principle here is elimination.
That’s right, one word. Before any potential candidates flood you with enough resumes to build an extremely flammable fort around your HR person’s desk, you want to qualify them as much as possible.
That means you want to do two things:
- Appeal to the right people.
- Repel the wrong people.
Most business owners make the mistake of doing too much of the former, and not enough of the latter. Now, let’s take a look at a whiteboard video that (in our opinion) strikes the balance..
Here’s how it’s done with a whiteboard and cartoon animation video:
Take a look at this recruiting video we created for Omaha Steaks. Listen to the positioning and the framing of what the company is all about, and what is expected from candidates…
Sounds like a lot of work, right?
Sounds like, if you were to apply for a job there, you would be presented with expectations to excel, work hard, and provide an amazing service no matter what.
The good people at Omaha Steaks know exactly how important the service component is, and they are calling for candidates who can measure up. People who are only good at moving product are, emphatically, not the ones they are looking for. The stakes are simply too high (pun absolutely intended).
And that’s how this recruiting video neatly achieves both things we’ve discussed earlier: attracting the right crowd, while turning away the candidates who would make a poor fit.
Whiteboard video can rally thought leaders to your cause
Influencer marketing is tricky. It’s hard not to make every mistake in the book when reaching out to thought leaders. Most entrepreneurs treat influencers in a similar way to potential customers or partners, trying to “sell” them on doing something for them.
Predictably, it gets them nowhere. So we humbly suggest a better strategy…
If you want to market to influencers, you should either:
- Appeal to their values, or…
- Make them fall in love with your ideas.
Preferably both. And here’s why:
If we were to make a parallel with different levels of market sophistication, marketing to influencers would be Level 5. They don’t care about you, don’t believe in your product or service, and have no incentive to change their mind (yet).
If you want to create a message that resonates with an influencer, instead of trying to convince them, focus on inspiring them. Making them curious. Getting them to see that you share the same values.
Does that sound a little vague, like we’re about to build a fire, sing kumbaya, and tell you to trust the wisdom of the Universe? It probably does.
So let’s look at how this might work in practice. Or rather, has already worked…
Here’s how it’s done with a whiteboard and cartoon animation video:
“Exponential Technology” is a video used by Peter Diamandis (entrepreneur, polymath, engineer, and a forward-thinking visionary) at one of the summits he organized – Abundance 360.
Peter believes, with good reason, that the world around us is getting better, not worse. His mission is to spread this hopeful message of abundance and prosperity, inspiring as many people as he can to improve the world along with him.
It’s not the kind of message that can, or should be, “sold” to influencers. So we worked with Peter to create a video that appeals to people’s values, and paints a vivid, exciting picture of what the future will be like.
That’s it. If you are an influencer, and you share Peter’s values and aspirations, by the end of the video you can’t help thinking, “I am so in! What can I do?” And that’s why it works.
A little-known secret of business growth is…
…it’s not 100% about how many paying customers or clients you have.
The three types of stakeholders we’ve mentioned are just as important to the success of your company as actual buyers.
If you can market to them effectively, they will bring you all the customers you could possibly desire: by working on your team of exceptional people, collaborating with you as business partners, and amplifying your message by many thousands of times as influencers.
We hope that we’ve given you some actionable ideas on how to reach these non-customers with whiteboard and cartoon animation video – or in any other way you like. Enjoy!