A successful inbound marketing campaign can flood your website with leads, but many people don’t take advantage of their leads correctly and let potential sales and revenue slip through their fingers.
A lot of the times this is due to poorly executed lead nurturing and follow-up, as well as a general fear of being viewed as annoying. When you are dealing with other business professionals and consumers alike, the last thing you want to be is annoying, especially when you are trying to land a sale, a business relationship, and revenue.
Do you think you are the only person or business contacting the lead? They could be receiving a couple emails a day or several hundred. When an individual is receiving so many emails they naturally cannot respond to them all at once. If you reach out to a lead and you don’t receive an immediate response it doesn’t necessarily mean you are being ignored and the prospect isn’t interested in your products and or services. It can simply mean that they are extremely busy and will eventually reach out to you.
Many businesses make the mistake of not following up when they don’t receive an instant response. This is the wrong approach and it can lead to a lot of missed opportunity. The lead requested information from you so there is obviously a certain level of interest, so follow up with them often until you speak with them. There is a way to do it without being annoying about it, so take a look at the following 5 tips to help you follow up with your leads in an effective manner.
Tip #1: Don’t Pester Your Leads
Understand that your prospects have jobs to do and a lot of responsibilities on their plate. Calling them and emailing them every day is going to appear to be overly eager and pushy, but you don’t want to let meek go by and have them forget about you. Start with an initial email and phone call introduction and inviting them to contact you at their earliest convenience. You can then follow up weekly for a couple of weeks and then switch to a couple follow-ups each month.
Tip #2: Be Respectful and Knowledgeable
Going back to tip number one, don’t forget your leads are extremely busy, so acknowledge that in your communications. If you are not hearing back from a particular lead don’t let your frustration show in your emails or voicemails. Let them know that you understand they are busy and ask them to contact you when it is convenient for them. Also, provide some knowledgeable and useful information for them the communications. This can be great bait to cause a faster response.
Tip #3: Ask Leads if They Would Like You to Stop Contacting Them
You will notice that your leads will respond well to honesty. If you have made several attempts to get them on the phone or reach them via email with no response simply send them an email acknowledging that you understand that they are busy and ask them if they would like you to stop contacting them. Some will say yes, and this is great because it will save you from chasing a dead lead, but you will also notice that some will apologize for not getting back sooner and reach out to you.
Tip #4: Give Them a Reason to Contact You
A good percentage of your leads will be receiving emails and phone calls from other companies as well. You need to make sure that you stand out in order to grab your leads attention and trigger a contact back. Give them some tips, some information, or make the contact personal if possible. If you take the time to stand out form the others it will help your chances of connecting with your leads.
Tip #5: Change Your Approach
If you are not receiving a good response from your follow-up emails and calls then you need to change up your approach. Change your email messages, the times of the day you send them, and even the tone that comes across in the emails. Your leads are busy, so the time that they come into contact with your messages has a lot to do with the response you receive. Keep trying until you find messages as well as times that work well to deliver a good response from your leads. This is not something that will happen overnight, but in the long run it can help you make great improvements in your lead follow-up.
There is no need to be shy or to be afraid of upsetting a prospect. Follow up until you get the answer you are looking for: either a sale or a request to stop following up. You owe it to the prospect to attempt to touch base with them to inform them about the product or service they inquired about.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/marketing/5-tips-effective-lead-follow-0846690#Qm5GcqmMTkvkVJr2.99
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