Follow Up Marketing How to Win More Sales with Less Effort
Follow Up Marketing How to Win More Sales with Less Effort
But don’t be disheartened if you’re among the 90% of business owners I talk to that don’t do any follow up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement. Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers that buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow-up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.
After asking many small business owners the reason they don’t follow up I often hear responses such as, "I don’t have the sales staff to chase down all our leads", or "We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow up." These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up. The problem is not that they don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it.
What Does a Good Follow Up System Look Like?
A good follow up marketing system should have three attributes.
It should be systematic, meaning that the follow up process is done the same way every time.
It should generate consistent, predictable results.
It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.
Sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to "follow-up marketing" is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger but the job still gets done. With today’s technology it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work "on" your business rather than "in" your business.
Three Types of Follow Ups
There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store / office. With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give your referrals.
Obviously the hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in a pool or hot tub and you usually don’t have their contact information. But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information. And if you follow up with your customers with consistency you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.
Your Follow Up Marketing Tools
Your principal follow up marketing tools are the telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make the mistake of jumping right on the telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson. Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.
Remember to always include a "next-step-offer" to accompany your educational materials. If the next step is to visit the store, then entice them with an appropriate offer or if the next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately. People move through the buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items such as hot tubs or pools. Your offer should always help them take the next step.
Your Follow Up Sequence
The power of your follow up will lie in your follow up sequence. Your follow up sequence is a series of communications with your prospect that are "linked" together, with each communication building on the previous message. For instance, you might start your second letter by saying, "10 days ago I sent you a letter..." You might also consider stamping the message, "2nd Notice" on the envelope to let people know this is the second time you’ve contacted them. Referencing the previous communication links what you’re saying with what you’ve already said and reminds your prospect that you care enough to continue the conversation.
Usually, when doing direct mail you should include three to five mailings spaced out about seven days apart. When using a sequential autoresponder you can have as many follow ups as you want because using email is basically free (that’s why you always want to get a prospects email address). One of my clients has over 20 follow-ups in his autoresponder sequence that go out over a six month period.
Each sequence should follow a logical argument and you might consider bolstering the offer with each communication using a deadline as a motivator to act now. As an example, in the third communication you could say, "I’m surprised you haven’t taken me up on my generous offer. What’s holding you back?" Or consider saying, "I’ve written you three times and you still haven’t taken me up on my offer so I’m going to pull out all the stops and make you an offer you simply can’t refuse." Notice how the language always links the previous communication and increases the boldness of the offer. It’s the same type of conversation you might have in a regular sales conversation.
How to Put Your Follow Up Marketing System on Autopilot
What I’m about to reveal to you is the key to developing a powerful follow up marketing system because it overcomes the number one reason most businesses don’t follow up. You must automate your follow up system as much as possible so that there are few, if any, physical interactions from your employees with the system. It’s the required physical interactions (i.e. printing letters, sending emails, inputting leads etc.) where 99% of all the breakdowns happen in well-intentioned follow up marketing systems.
To automate your follow-ups you should consider using robotic marketing systems and outsourcing any manual interactions to a dedicated service. For instance, to capture your leads you should consider using a toll-free automated recorded message system that captures your prospects contact information and automatically transcribes it and sends your leads to you in a spreadsheet every morning via email.
If you’re using a direct mail follow up system (and you should be), find a fulfillment house to do the mailings for you. To find a fulfillment house, simply go to your local printer and ask them to refer you to a fulfillment house in the area.
Now step back for a moment and see the power of what I’ve just revealed to you. Imagine running an ad, having your prospect call up and give their contact information via your recorded message system. Then having your leads automatically sent to your fulfillment house via email, after which your prospect receives a five-sequence direct mail package containing your most persuasive marketing message -- without you lifting one finger!
You can set up the exact same type of "hands-free" follow up marketing system using an email autoresponder system. Your prospect will not only be receiving your direct mail messages, but you can insert your email messages in between your mailings.
What About Calling to Follow Up?
You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about calling your prospect. That’s because you want your prospect to have already received your educational marketing messages and have most of their questions answered before they call you. An educated prospect is your best prospect.
They already know why you’re different, what your value proposition is, and how you’re uniquely qualified to meet their needs. In essence, they’ve pre-qualified themselves before you ever have to spend time physically speaking to them. This drastically reduces the sales cycle and increases your conversion rate because you have positioned your small business to be their only logical choice.
Conclusion
Follow-up marketing will boost your closing rate and dramatically increase your customer satisfaction. Following up with systematic processes allows you to leverage your salespeople’s time and enhance their productivity, which will result in more sales with less effort and isn’t that what you want? Start winning more sales today by implementing your own follow-up marketing system.
Follow Up Marketing How to Win More Sales with Less Effort - To learn more about this author, visit David Frey's Website.
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A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the business you’re losing. Not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!
But don’t be disheartened if you’re among the 90% of business owners I talk to that don’t do any follow up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement. Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers that buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow-up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.
After asking many small business owners the reason they don’t follow up I often hear responses such as, "I don’t have the sales staff to chase down all our leads", or "We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow up." These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up. The problem is not that they don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it.
What Does a Good Follow Up System Look Like?
A good follow up marketing system should have three attributes.
It should be systematic, meaning that the follow up process is done the same way every time.
It should generate consistent, predictable results.
It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.
Sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to "follow-up marketing" is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger but the job still gets done. With today’s technology it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work "on" your business rather than "in" your business.
Three Types of Follow Ups
There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store / office. With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give your referrals.
Obviously the hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in a pool or hot tub and you usually don’t have their contact information. But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information. And if you follow up with your customers with consistency you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.
Your Follow Up Marketing Tools
Your principal follow up marketing tools are the telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make the mistake of jumping right on the telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson. Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.
Remember to always include a "next-step-offer" to accompany your educational materials. If the next step is to visit the store, then entice them with an appropriate offer or if the next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately. People move through the buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items such as hot tubs or pools. Your offer should always help them take the next step.
Your Follow Up Sequence
The power of your follow up will lie in your follow up sequence. Your follow up sequence is a series of communications with your prospect that are "linked" together, with each communication building on the previous message. For instance, you might start your second letter by saying, "10 days ago I sent you a letter..." You might also consider stamping the message, "2nd Notice" on the envelope to let people know this is the second time you’ve contacted them. Referencing the previous communication links what you’re saying with what you’ve already said and reminds your prospect that you care enough to continue the conversation.
Usually, when doing direct mail you should include three to five mailings spaced out about seven days apart. When using a sequential autoresponder you can have as many follow ups as you want because using email is basically free (that’s why you always want to get a prospects email address). One of my clients has over 20 follow-ups in his autoresponder sequence that go out over a six month period.
Each sequence should follow a logical argument and you might consider bolstering the offer with each communication using a deadline as a motivator to act now. As an example, in the third communication you could say, "I’m surprised you haven’t taken me up on my generous offer. What’s holding you back?" Or consider saying, "I’ve written you three times and you still haven’t taken me up on my offer so I’m going to pull out all the stops and make you an offer you simply can’t refuse." Notice how the language always links the previous communication and increases the boldness of the offer. It’s the same type of conversation you might have in a regular sales conversation.
How to Put Your Follow Up Marketing System on Autopilot
What I’m about to reveal to you is the key to developing a powerful follow up marketing system because it overcomes the number one reason most businesses don’t follow up. You must automate your follow up system as much as possible so that there are few, if any, physical interactions from your employees with the system. It’s the required physical interactions (i.e. printing letters, sending emails, inputting leads etc.) where 99% of all the breakdowns happen in well-intentioned follow up marketing systems.
To automate your follow-ups you should consider using robotic marketing systems and outsourcing any manual interactions to a dedicated service. For instance, to capture your leads you should consider using a toll-free automated recorded message system that captures your prospects contact information and automatically transcribes it and sends your leads to you in a spreadsheet every morning via email.
If you’re using a direct mail follow up system (and you should be), find a fulfillment house to do the mailings for you. To find a fulfillment house, simply go to your local printer and ask them to refer you to a fulfillment house in the area.
Now step back for a moment and see the power of what I’ve just revealed to you. Imagine running an ad, having your prospect call up and give their contact information via your recorded message system. Then having your leads automatically sent to your fulfillment house via email, after which your prospect receives a five-sequence direct mail package containing your most persuasive marketing message -- without you lifting one finger!
You can set up the exact same type of "hands-free" follow up marketing system using an email autoresponder system. Your prospect will not only be receiving your direct mail messages, but you can insert your email messages in between your mailings.
What About Calling to Follow Up?
You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about calling your prospect. That’s because you want your prospect to have already received your educational marketing messages and have most of their questions answered before they call you. An educated prospect is your best prospect.
They already know why you’re different, what your value proposition is, and how you’re uniquely qualified to meet their needs. In essence, they’ve pre-qualified themselves before you ever have to spend time physically speaking to them. This drastically reduces the sales cycle and increases your conversion rate because you have positioned your small business to be their only logical choice.
Conclusion
Follow-up marketing will boost your closing rate and dramatically increase your customer satisfaction. Following up with systematic processes allows you to leverage your salespeople’s time and enhance their productivity, which will result in more sales with less effort and isn’t that what you want? Start winning more sales today by implementing your own follow-up marketing system.
Follow Up Marketing How to Win More Sales with Less Effort - To learn more about this author, visit David Frey's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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