Setting up shop - Chapter 2: Stakeholder mapping and how to reach them

In our Setting up shop series we will today look at how to map our stakeholders, how to reach them and touch upon message tailoring.

In Chapter 1 I touched upon the tools on finding out what you love to do, what you are good at and finally finding the market that actually needs what you are good at and what you love to do. The below assumes that we have already done the tasks in Chapter 1.

Step 1: Mapping out your customer landscape

The first task is to map out your customer landscape, meaning: who are the people or companies that might find your services / brand / product useful and for whom you are solving a real business challenge or issue? Remember: your customers need to find your services / brand / product valuable to them.

Ideally you will want to map them according to the services that you provide and to the problems you solve for them. Below is an example of how it might be done. It's a very simplified way of looking at it as you may want to take into account several factors for your product market fit such as demand (how relevant is your solution?), competence in the field, relevance for the segment, etc...

A second step, not shown here is that you also need to understand who your prospect inside of a business is, who the target audience is? For example in the case of my own company, Root Node (www.root-node.com) depending on the service it will be either the CEO, CMO, CSO or the Founder / Owner in the case of start-ups.

Step 2: Mapping the channels and how to contact your potential prospects

In today's digital age it has never been easier to advertise yourself as the tools are literally at the tips of your fingers, but the channels and tools are so diverse it is at times difficult and daunting to even get started. Terms are thrown around such as SEO, SEM, Blockhain, Growth Hacking, the Pirate Funnel (AAARRR), CTR, CPM. Enough for anyone who is new to have a serious headache.

The thing is, there is no way around not learning the essentials of all the tools. As a business professional, no matter your field of work, it is your duty to never stop learning about new ways to contact your prospects or customers in a meaningful way and to understand how you can best use them to achieve your targets.

Go out there and learn about it. In today's world when information is freely available ignorance is a choice.

The good news for those who have been around the block several times is that the principles remain the same, the tools to achieve them change.

I hear you say - "but you selected all channels for all business types!" That is precisely the point. All channels are valid as we live in an "omnichannel world". Your prospects, users or consumers are people above all else. Therefore ultimately all channels can be used to contact them because they do consume all the channels, at different intensity and affinities, but they are there.

The next exercise to be done by yourself is to evaluate the efficiency and cost effectiveness of each of these channels and what your ultimate target achievement is. If you have just secured a 100 MEUR investment and they want you to grow, grow, grow, burn that cash and generate leads left and write. If you are more strapped for cash, look at how much you have, allocate the resources in a smart way, but never not invest in contacts and lead generation.

The power of weak links

One topic I want to dive into is the power of weak links (or weak ties). If you are in the services industry and are a one-man band (or a garage / basement start-up), as I am at the moment, you most likely understand cashflow at an existential level and any investment you do into growth or marketing your product or service is euros out of your pocket directly.

Your personal and business network can get you a long way and it is an effective channel to land your first prospects to start generating the cash needed to invest in your lead generation further down the road, and you will likely throw as much as you can afford to into it. This topic was flagged to me by a very close business friend of mine. Below is a link to his post on LinkedIn and also another link on the topic that is a great resource.

Read up on the topic, it will be time well spent, to quote a campaign from a brand of my previous employer.

Step 3: Tailoring your message to the channel and recipient

Wouldn't we all love to advertise ourselves with a plane flying a banner with our sales message and wait for the horde of prospects and clients to come hurling to us at the speed of light?

We would.

It doesn't happen like this. Unfortunately...

It is the brutal reality that you have to tailor your message to the channel in order to achieve the channel fit, recipient readiness to absorb the message, in the right place, at the right time, with the right content. It is the only way to receive a response to it and to ultimately generate a lead. Just looking at the picture below it is becomes clear very fast that the number of various messages you might have to create increases very fast.

Step 4: Measure the efficiency of your communication channels

In order to make sure that you are advertising your brand, product or service via the right channel it is necessary to measure the efficiency of that channel. The measurement doesn't need to be extremely scientific, it just needs to be unbiased. Any measurement is better than no measurement at all. It is said: "If we're not measuring it, we cannot manage it". It is true.

Finally, our stakeholders, our channels of communication and our messages evolve over time and we all live and work in the "great ecosystem" of communication. Billions of messages are sent yearly and we are being bombarded by them - breaking out of the clutter to land you message to a ready recipient is a Goliath task, make sure you are the David.

If you would like to discuss about your approach to stakeholder mapping and how to approach them, drop a line in the comments or send me a PM.