Studies show that about 40-50% of all inbound sales leads are never followed up on. That equals A LOT of conversations, potential business deals, opportunities to help left hanging, and too many lost possibilities, all due to follow up failure.
Yes you’re busy, but you should never be too busy to follow up with those you have connected with and met. You should never be too busy to keep a sales conversation going. And you should never be too busy to make good on a promise you made.
Follow up is important — it’s your opportunity to build on your first impression and create a lasting impression, to show the other person you do care and you can be counted on, and to add value to your growing relationship.
Here are 5 marketing tips to help you fix your follow up:
Follow Up Marketing Tip 1: Follow up on everything. Failure to follow up leaves massive amounts of money on the table
Failure to follow up is one of the most common ways that entrepreneurs and business owners sabotage their own success by simply not collecting the money on the table. Millions of dollars are lost by businesses around the world every year simply because they get busy and they fail to follow up with leads from networking events, conferences, social media, email, voicemail, referrals, and more. If you want or need to make more money, fix your follow up and you’ll see an increase in your bottom line.
Follow Up Marketing Tip 2: Invest in quality follow up / auto responder software
Following up doesn’t have to be hard, tedious, or unenjoyable. If you invest in the right software, you can make following up easy, fast, and simple. There is software available to small businesses that allows you to write, pre-schedule, and automate your follow up, to schedule reminders to follow up with specific leads after a set amount of time, and even to automate follow up print mail pieces, emails, texts, and phone calls. With the right software, you can make your follow up as person or as automated as you want — you’ve just got to make the decision to do it.
Follow Up Marketing Tip 3: Follow up on contacts made and leads generated at an event right away … waiting will make your follow up harder
People are busy and they will forget about you if you don’t follow up with them right away. Plus, the faster you follow up the easier it will be because they will remember you, and the conversation you had will still be fresh in their mind. It’s much easier to follow up with someone a day or two or even a week after an event, and those you are reaching out to will be impressed with your action and follow up. It gets much harder and the return-on-effort plummets when you wait too long. Following up a couple weeks or a month later makes people think 1) they weren’t very important to you; 2) you forgot about them; 3) you’ve got enough business already and you’re too busy for them.
Follow Up Marketing Tip 4: Use your auto responders to maintain a connection with your clients and customers and continue to deliver value
If you invest in follow up / auto responder software, use it! Use it to create follow up and nurture campaigns for your clients and customers to help you stay in touch with them after the sale is made or after your work together is done. Use your follow up sequences to deliver even more value, ask for referrals, upsell other products or services, surprise them with free gifts, and more. The opportunities of what you can do with your auto responders is limitless. You just need to come up with the strategy that works best for you.
Follow Up Marketing Tip 5: Create your follow up in advance to save time
If you own a business you’re probably the busiest person you know. Even though you know it is important, finding the time to follow up may be a challenge for you. The solution is to create your follow up materials and sequences in advance so you can follow up quickly and efficiently. Whether you’re attending an event or conference, or speaking to a group, create your follow up materials before the event, meaning you write your emails, craft your follow up sequences, print your note card or thank you cards, and get everything ready to follow up in advance. Then after the event, add some details and insights from the event to your emails and follow up sequence and you’re good to go!
What about you? What tips do you have on following up?
