How To Use Dark Social To Get Clients

“Traffic…. I want traffic and lots of it!”

Traffic obsession is the typical mindset that so many marketers and company owners get into and for a good reason too. We always assume that by gaining more traffic to a website we will solve our business issues.

But here is the catch; gaining web traffic does not always mean that your business will grow. You have to get the right kind of traffic to your site: people who want to buy your goods and services.

Of course, it is easier said than done.

In this post, I will spill the beans on how you can use Dark Social Media and ‘The Delivery Drone Technique’ to gain clients and grow your business at scale.

Ready? Let’s do this.

What Is Dark Social?

Many of you may have heard what the dark web is, however few know what dark social is.

Dark social is a term coined by Alexis C. Madrigal, a senior editor at The Atlantic and it refers to the sharing of content via social media that cannot be measured by analytics programmes.

To put it in simple terms, imagine getting an email or a ‘WhatsApp’ message with a link to a piece of web content. You click it and head to the website, but the analytics can’t track where that visit came from. That is dark social, and it is only going to get bigger.

It is believed that 82% of social sharing is done via ‘dark social’ and this same data suggests that Facebook only accounts for 11% of global social shares.

What Is ‘The Delivery Drone Technique’?

You might be aware that Amazon is now starting to test the use of delivery drones. The idea being that these drones will whiz from the depot to your doorstep with your chosen packages.

But what if you could deliver your business or service to your ideal customer. The person that could change your business overnight.

This is what The Delivery Drone Technique is all about. It is not about getting traffic; it is about getting business through delivering helpful content to one or a few people and leveraging the law of reciprocity to get your foot in the door of that business.

Once you have your foot in the door you can start to offer your services, and because you have already been helpful, the law of reciprocity states that they should be willing to help you in some way.

Execute the following 5 steps to put this into action and start getting more clients today!

Step #1 Find The Person You Want To Get The Attention Of

This step is all about finding the person who will make the most impact on your business. Now I will say this; it is not always about getting the email address of Alan Sugar. Instead, think ROI (Return On Investment). Find a person that can really help you to grow if they come on board as your customer or even just a contact.

Here is how to do it;

1. Go out and make a list of 10 companies you want to do business with.

2. Next, head over to LinkedIn and type the name of the company in the search bar.

You will find that the process automatically asks if you want to search for people who work at that company. Just check out how many results it brings back.

3. You can literally go down the list to find someone that works in the department you want to make contact with and add them to your network.

PRO TIP: LinkedIn desktop will not allow you to add people you do not know unless you use their premium subscription. So instead, once you have the name, use the phone app as this allows you to connect with anyone at this time.

Step #2 Research Negative Feedback About Their Company

This is the main part of the task. You want to grab the target person’s attention with a piece of content you know will help them and their colleagues within their company. Therefore you need to do research. This is how you do it;

1. Head over to Mention.com which is a service that monitors the web for mentions of a company’s name or social media presence.

Sign up for a free account.

2. Go through the stages to monitor ‘A Competitor’, adding your target company’s details. This will allow you to start to see what people are saying across the web about the company, both good and bad.

Another cool feature is that you can check out Twitter Influencers and Instagram Influencers within the company niche.

3. After a period of a few days, look out for patterns of negative things people are saying about the company.

4. Once you see people mentioning negative things about the company a few times, note these things down. This will give you some ideas around the content you can create to help your target business improve in the areas they are currently receiving negative feedback in.

But it is not over there.

5. Head over to Buzzsumo and repeat this process. Sign up for a free account and then type in the company you are targeting and look at the most shared content about their business. Make a note of the content titles.

Step #3 Find Out What Types Of Content The Target Person Shares

Once you know who your target is and negative feedback about the company they work for, you need to find out the types of content they share online. This is how you do it;

1. Head over to the target person’s LinkedIn profile (By the way I don’t know this girl, but Bet365 are based down the road from me so it is a good example).

2. You will see a small folder called contact information. Click on that folder, and it will often give you their Twitter handle.

3. Head over to Twitter and look at the kinds of content they share. Make notes.

Step #4 Create A Piece Of Content Based On Your Research Findings

Ok, so now we have some ideas of the types of content your target person shares and what the company they work for might be having issues with. Now it’s time to create a piece of content that will grab their attention and help them improve their company’s performance.

Here are some ideas:

METHOD 1: LIST POSTS

List posts are a great way to break the ice but remember the goal here is to help make the target person look good by sharing the positive list post with their boss (the person you want to chat with). However, you also want to have room to offer your services.

In my example, I chose BET365 an online gaming company, so perhaps my list post could be “10 Online Gaming Companies With Amazing Facebook Pages” or something like that.

Another example, if you offer social media marketing support and you have a local hotel chain in your sights, could be to write a post such as “15 Hotels That Are Crushing Social Media (And How You Can Too)”.

It’s a great way to show your target person what their company’s competitors are doing well on social media.

Here’s a great example from Marketing Land: Top 10 payment processing companies in the world

METHOD 2: REVIEW POSTS

This is the strategy I used to get my first clients. I just started reviewing their products and sending them the reviews. Guess what; they shared the reviews online with their audience and my profile went up as a result.

Now your review does not have to be all good, leave room for constructive criticism. This way you can leave room for further discussion.

The review technique is very powerful because it helps to generate traffic to the target’s website just look at how many visitors this review post gained:

If you were targeting the Chubba Chups sweets brand, you could create an awesome review video and embed it in a blog like the one below which has over 164 million views!

METHOD 3: AWARD POSTS

Award posts are another great way to grab the attention of your target person. By creating an award, it gives you a superb reason to approach a company and have a discussion with them.

It does not have to be an award as such, perhaps just recognition of good work. It could be a version of a list post such as “The 10 Best Business People In The xyz Area.”

A great example is Dan’s recent list of Content Marketing Influencers.

Or why not run a post such as “The 10 Best Social Media Managers”.

To ensure these awards/ ranking list style posts are credible, there must be some form of evidence to support how the list is judged. Don’t call someone a great social media manager or business person unless they are a good one and you can prove this.

For example, Dan used an influencer identification tool called Lumanu to identify the influencers he listed in his Content Marketing Influencers Post.

Another great example is Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs Award.

Awards are great, ensure you tread carefully and be honest.

METHOD 4: THE REPORT

The final method is the safest. It is a case of making a report for the target to see that shows how you could help them.

To do this (for SEO services) use the following steps;

1. Go to SpyFu and type in the website you are targeting.

You will have an overview come back with limited information (to get all the info you will need a paid subscription).

2. You can export the data there, or you can click SEO Overview. Once exported, you can see a range of data that would be useful for any manager.

Ok so there you have your content models; it is now time to send the piece of content through Dark Social!

Step #5 Use Dark Social To Send The Content

Now we have a great piece of content for you to use to grab your target person’s attention. It is now a case of getting that to the right person.

There are a few ways to do this and here are my favourite.

METHOD 1: MESSAGE

Simple and direct, if you have the target contact on your LinkedIn you can send them a message telling them about your article.

Wait for feedback from them (make sure you ask for it) and then ask for the article to be sent to the person you need to read it ie. the decision makers. Now this is the thing, you can actually go direct to the decision makers with your outreach; it just depends on how big the company is and how busy that person might be.

METHOD 2: TWEET

Sending a Tweet to your target person is another great way to make them aware of the piece of content you have created for them. Dan regularly uses Twitter to reach out and consistently gets a great response.

METHOD 3: EMAIL

Find the email address of your prospect and send it direct if you can. Simple but effective

METHOD 4: OFFLINE APPROACHES

Ok this is retro, send some flowers or something that will really get noticed by the target person. It could be a small attention grabbing gift or even a hand written letter.

However, do not put your name on the gift. Wait a few weeks and then send in your report/ article and tell them it was you that sent the gift. I got this idea from my business mentor who used this technique to generate a new client.

This list of 20 Offline Marketing Ideas That Work will help you get inspired!

Conclusion

Phew, we are at the end, thanks for staying with me.

The key to The Drone Delivery Technique is targeting the person you want to send your attention grabbing content to and then creating something that provides them with value.

But you may now be asking what next, what happens once you have got their attention?

Well, this totally depends on your goals. It might be a case of just nurturing a new connection, or perhaps you might ask for a meeting to discuss how you can help them.

When I used this technique, my clients actually called me to work for them! It is that powerful.

This technique flies in the face of traditional wisdom, but it works due to that very fact. Create great content that is helpful for a small number of people and get them to notice it in a creative way.

Have you used this strategy before? What do you think of Dark Social? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!