With an ancient art like prospecting, it’s quite surprising why many of its modern practitioners still fail to follow up with leads the right way. It really goes without saying that marketing and sales folks who overlook this crucial step are wasting a lot of opportunities. From lead generation all the way to closing the deal (and beyond), a clear follow-up plan has to be part of your sales process.
Of course, the follow-up tactics you use vary as the prospect moves further down the funnel. The way you follow up a fresh lead is very different from how you would deal with a prospect who’s already in the decision-making stage. Today’s post looks at prospect follow-up at the first few points in your sales cycle, particularly lead generation. There are plenty of strategies and best practices for following up with leads at such a juncture, but thankfully you only need to take to heart these five timeless rules:
Rule #1: Time is never on your side.
The number-1 reason why marketers waste almost three-quarters of the leads they generate is their failure to follow up on time. Prospects are like most items on the supermarket shelf — they tend to have an expiry date. So, when’s the time to follow up with leads? There’s no universal answer or magic formula for this, but the sooner you do, the better.
Rule #2: Not all leads are created equal.
Every prospect deserves a chance to be contacted and followed up, but some leads are worth prioritizing over others. Some leads are more sales-ready, while some need to be nurtured further. This is why you need a standard lead scoring system, so that you’ll easily know which prospects require more attention.
Rule #3: ‘Follow-up’ starts with ‘follow.’
You just can’t spell ‘follow-up’ without ‘follow’ first. More specifically, this means being able to stay closely engaged with your leads. Communicate with them using more than one marketing channel and always provide good reasons for continuing your conversations. You want a consistent multichannel approach at follow-up.
Rule #4: Persistence stretches patience.
It pays to follow leads around, but following them too closely can cost you. There’s a delicate balance you have to carefully maintain between persistence and nuisance. There’s also no hard-and-fast rule to find the optimal number of times you should try to contact a lead, but you should learn to identify a lack of interest and move on.
Rule #5: ‘No’ is definitely a valid answer.
Your goal when following up is to get an answer, and that includes the dreaded ‘no,’ You should never shun uninterested prospects right there and then. They may not be interested now, but they’ll probably be willing to listen (or will even contact you) in the future.
So much for the rules. Now, it’s time for you to put them into action. Keep these five fundamental ideas in mind all the time. They’re probably all you need to come up with follow-up strategies that work in lead generation.
