It’s the frustration of most business owners I meet: You prospect, network, and mingle to generate leads and then… radio silence. Those people you worked so hard to turn into clients are not moving forward.
What are you doing wrong?
You meet so many quality leads that selling should be easy, right? Not quite.
Consider this: You need to contact your prospects at least 6 times, according to a study by Leads360. When you do that, you’ll have a 96% chance of getting through to your prospects.
Contacting each lead multiple times is a draining process. You need to stay organized, stay on top of your contact schedule, and churn out email after email just to stay relevant. It’s exhausting, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Here’s a breakdown of how you can easily and effectively follow up with prospects in a way that’ll drive sales.
Where to Start
Now that you know you need to make multiple contacts with your prospects, you’re ready to jump right in, right? Not so fast.
Starting with thousands of potential clients might sound ideal but it can get quickly overwhelming. In turn, you dilute your effectiveness and lose opportunity.
Start with a handful of target contacts.
There are a few ways you can capture the contact information for the decision makers at the companies you’re trying to reach.
- You can use the business cards that you received at networking events.
- Or, you can use the online networking resource, LinkedIn, to find the top players at your target companies.
Get in the Minds of Your Prospects
With the contacts in place, think carefully about each person in your initial contact group.
- What problems do they have?
- What stresses them out?
- What keeps them up at night?
- What could you solve for them that would make their life a little bit better?
The answers to these questions should guide all of your communications with this group of leads. Write your own blog posts answering your target customers needs and guide your audience to your blog for the answer. Or, you can send your prospects to another reputable blog with helpful information.
The goal with this initial contact is to be helpful.
Today’s world is all about sell, sell, sell. Your leads and prospects have become deaf to your pitch.
To break through the noise they hear every day, you need to offer tips and guidance that’ll help them accomplish something in their business. This is how you earn their trust and how you establish your credibility in the market.
When you send your prospects to your blog posts you can end with a call-to-action. Guide your reader to take a next step with your business by enticing them with something valuable. What’s ideal?
- Free reports
- Whitepapers
- Videos
You can also guide your reader to call you or contact you in some way. The goal is to have a meaningful call-to-action that your audience is likely to take. This is how you turn prospects into customers.
Automate Your Connections
Prospecting without follow up is a waste of time. Without it, your business doesn’t get in front of the people interested in what you have to offer. It’s a time consuming but necessary evil.
Following up consistently is one of the most productive marketing activities there is, but it won’t work if you don’t do it. – C.J. Hayden, Get Clients Now!
Now, technology has made it possible to automate this time draining process.
There are a few ways to connect and reconnect with your audience over email. Quickmail and Infusionsoft are two platforms we highly recommend because they are intuitive and they provide you the type of feedback needed to know what’s working and what’s falling flat.
Recommended Solution #1: Quickmail
Quickmail is not your typical email service.
Like most email marketing providers, you can pre-schedule emails in an auto-responder type format. Where Quickmail goes a step further is by letting you pre-schedule these emails directly from your company’s Gmail account.
Create your sequence of emails (remember, we suggest at least 6 points of contact) and choose when they will go out.
If a prospect replies, you don’t have to worry about manually stopping the correspondence. Quickmail does that for you.
Recommended Solution #2: Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft CRM uses a similar approach.
With Infusionsoft, you create “campaigns,” which are essentially a series of emails to your prospects. Throughout each campaign you can design “what if” scenarios. What happens if a client replies to your email? What happens if they don’t?
You design the entire funnel just like you would like to see it play out. You no longer have to rely on your memory. Instead, you can go into ‘set it and forget it’ mode, which will help you get back to focusing on what you do best.
What Happens Next?
You’ve sent your emails, so now what?
It’s inevitable that after 6 contacts, you won’t hear from some people. Maybe someone clicked on your links but they never reached out.
When your series of emails is complete, Quickmail or Infusionsoft will tell you what’s happening with your contact. It’ll keep track of the people who have not responded or engaged with your company, giving you the opportunity to swoop in and make the connection.
Document everything in your CRM or email so that you can quickly reference times and dates of contact. This will make your communications look more personal and professional, giving you the upper-hand.
Quick Recap
Stop missing opportunities because you have the wrong setup! Here’s a quick recap of what we covered to help you get started following up easily and effectively with each person you’ve met.
- Think about their needs. What problems can you help them solve?
- Send them content that’s helpful. This is the best way to generate trust and prove valuable to your prospect.
- Use a mail solution that’ll make it easy to automate and adjust your communication funnel. You’ll also want something that gives you analytics to show what’s working and what isn’t.
- As you’re sending content, guide your prospect to take the next step with you. That can be through a phone call, sign up, or email.
- Document all of your contacts, even after the sequences of emails stop. This way you can continue to nurture and grow your prospect relationships in a personal and meaningful way.
This sales cycle is simple AND it’s enormously effective. Your business stays top of mind, you establish yourself as a credible resource, and when your prospect is ready to buy, you’re their first call.
Your Turn
Now that you know how to follow up with prospects, it’s time to go out and do the work to fill your funnel. The best place to start online? LinkedIn.
If you’ve never maximized LinkedIn to generate leads, we’ve got you covered. Download your copy of The Complete Guide to Leveraging LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation. In it, we reveal how you can position yourself as an expert in your field and sit back while a flood of new leads and prospects come your way.
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