Use a ranking system to market more effectively

Not all contacts are created equal so they shouldn’t all be treated equally. Knowing which contacts are the most likely to provide new work helps you to choose the best way to spend precious marketing resources.

While you might have a general sense of how “hot” a prospect is, it can be very useful to have a system that gives each contact a numerical rating. This will show you where to spend your time and money by clearly identifying the most promising prospects. A ranking system also lets you measure the quality of your pipeline for new work.

A system for ranking your contacts is easy to set-up and maintain as long as you develop clear guidelines for assigning each prospect a “grade.” The approach outlined below uses a ranking system of 1–5, with each grade representing a specific business relationship.

1- You have worked with them before. They loved you and your work. You loved working with them. Getting more work with them is just a matter of identifying the right opportunity. The most efficient way to get more business is have previous clients become repeat clients.

2- You haven’t worked with them before but they know about you and you know about them. Preferably you have met them in person. Perhaps know them through from networking or you were recommended to them a by previous client. Never underestimate the power of personal contact or a trusted referral.

3- You don’t know them but they know you, and they like what they see. This might be someone who saw your work or promotional material and decided to contact you, or they signed up thorough your Web site requesting to be added to your mailing list

4- You know them but they don’t know you. You know they buy the type of photography that you do. You are a rock & roll photographer and they are the photo editor of a music magazine. You shoot cars and they work for an agency that specializes in the automotive industry. The odds are reasonably high they will at least take a look at your work.

5- You don’t know them and they don’t know you. All you have is their name, organization, title and contact information. The odds that you can show them the type of photography they might buy is exceedingly small.

As a general rule you can assume that each contact rating is worth 10 timesthe next lower rating. For example, a contact rated #1 is 10 times more likely to lead to new work than a contact with a #2 rating given the same amount of marketing attention. Following this down the rating scale, this means that with equal effort (a phone call or email) you are roughly 10,000 times more likely to get new work from a past, satisfied client than from someone included on a bought list with whom you’ve had no previous relationship.

Ranking contacts is nothing new. Large corporations give a rating to prospects based on a variety of behaviors, with the goal being to identify those who are the most likely to become new customers or repeat customers. This is why when you call your bank, the first thing you are asked is to enter your account number. In most cases, this alerts the system to your status. If you a highly profitable client to them, or seem likely to become one, you should experience shorter hold times and be connected to their top-rated customer service people.

It should be easy to incorporate this rating system into your current contact management system. If your contact manager lets you create new fields, like FileMaker or Access, create a pull down menu or radio buttons listing the numbers used by the ranking system. At the very least, you can use the notes field available in virtually every contact manager. Just be sure to spell out the numbers (one, two, three, etc.) so that when you do a search for contact by rating you don’t get results that include records that just happen to have that number in the filed as part of a note.

Of course you shouldn’t base the growth of your business soley getting more work from your previous clients. You need to continually grow and refresh your client base as your business grows. Previous clients move on to new positions where they may not have a need for your work, and perhaps your style or market focus will change. Your goal is to always move as many contacts as possible up to the next level. If you know they buy photography, find out what type they buy. If they buy the type you create, get them to know who you are. If they know who you are, get them to look at your work. Most of your work will come from your contacts that are rated 1-3 but you need to continually prospect and promote yourself at all levels to ensure that you have a pipeline of new contacts to move up through the rankings.

And it’s important to continually conduct broad brand building through print ads, direct mail and even email blasts. These give you another point of recognition so that when, for example, someone hears a positive reference about you, your name might already have a familiar ring. But don’t think these activities will make your phone ring off the hook. Quality of your contacts, not quantity, wins the day.

Quick Tip
Sound Similar? Grab the Domain Name

If your name, or the name of your company sounds like it can be spelled more than one way, you should register all similar sounding domain names. It’s an inexpensive way to prevent losing out on new business just because someone can’t get to your site on the first try. For example, if your name is Kathy Smith and your Website url is www.kathysmithimages.com you should register cathysmithimages.com.

Domains names can cost as little as $15 a year and it’s usually free to have it forwarded to primary domain. This way, if someone hears your name and looks for your Web site, it greatly increases the chances that they’ll find it more quickly. You should also consider getting domain names that might sound similar to your name in conversation. For example, Suzanne and Susan. (i.e. suzannemiller.com and susanmiller.com).

It may not seem like it takes a lot of effort for someone to try a few different Web addresses in order to find your site, but clients lead busy lives. Help them out. Never underestimate the importance of making it as easy as possible for potential clients to find you.

Jon Hornstein is Principal of Creative Touchpoint, a marketing services firm for photographers, reps and stock agencies. You can learn about Creative Touchpoint here. You can send Jon email at jon@creativetouchpoint.com.

Copyright © 2007 Creative Touchpoint, LLC. All rights reserved.