5 common lead follow-up mistakes

Most marketing agencies out there would agree that lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any marketing business. If you have the leads you will most like to have a sale. Or you would think that if you were an inexperienced marketer. Lead generation is critical, but only a small percentage of leads will convert to clients on their own. To convert the greatest number of people into clients, you need to have contingencies in place. For example, follow-up marketing is among the most popular conversion tactics out there. There are many ways in which you can go about doing this. You can do it over the phone, by email, or in person. That being said, there is a way in which you need to do this if you want to be successful. For this reason, we are here to talk about the five most common lead follow-up mistakes.

1. Not outlining the next steps

Being a salesman requires quick thinking. Many marketing experts believe this to mean that they need to look for new people to whom they can market. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. To convert more customers, at least one-third of your marketing attempts need to be remarketing efforts. For this reason, you need to make follow-up marketing a part of your strategy. When you are planning out your campaign, always make the next logical step of direct marketing, a follow-up marketing attempt. This way, you will have a better grasp of your audience as well as a more consistent and successful conversion rate.

2. You are too slow on your follow-ups

According to conventional sales advice, it is courteous to allow your prospects enough time to absorb your marketing materials and make an educated purchase choice. This is a sound idea. However, it is also a balancing act. If you follow up too soon, you risk intimidating or overwhelming your potential customer. On the other hand, if you wait too long, you risk losing them because they lose interest. Prospects are busy people: if you stimulate their curiosity with marketing materials, by the time you follow up on the lead, they may have forgotten who you are or picked a competitor’s service. A widget, like the ConvertMore callback widget, is something that can help you out in this regard.

Understanding your prospects allows you to find a sweet spot that provides them space but does not allow them to cool down too much. Yes, purchasing choices take time, particularly for high-value items requiring the approval of more than one stakeholder. However, a hands-off attitude is not the way to proceed. Encourage participation from all stakeholders and provide enough information to build a solid business case to help your prospects make a purchasing choice. This is something that will help your business immensely. Additionally, you can use your website bounce rate as an indicator o how successful your follow-ups are. This means that if your site has a lower website bounce rate, you will be able to have more successful follow-ups.

3. Not communicating with the potential customers correctly

One of the most important aspects of business is communication, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about potential clients or converted customers. A prospect is unlikely to consent to a sale right immediately. It is normal for individuals to have questions and objections, therefore learning how to react to objections is an important element of the sales process. This is also one of the key areas where conversions suffer. Many salespeople often take objections personally. This is especially the case with smaller businesses. This is a big mistake, however. The axiom “The customer is always right” is not true because the customers are always right. It is there, because no matter the situation, you need to act towards them with respect and understanding, no matter the reason for their objection.

A typical complaint, for example, is that the service or product is too pricey. A reaction may be to go through all the features and advantages of your service in further detail. This way you will stay respectful, while also not diminishing the value of the product/service that your offer. However, this may sometimes not work. If it doesn’t, don’t worry too much. If someone doesn’t want to accept what you are offering even after you respectfully explain the value, then those are the people who would have never purchased it in the first place. From then on, you’ll be talking at cross purposes. A better strategy would be to disarm the prospect and take the discussion forward by asking why they believe the service is too expensive.

4. Not approaching the potential customer first

Many marketing agencies wait for potential clients to approach them. It’s understandable why that is. It goes back to what we mentioned earlier. They are afraid that a direct approach will intimidate or overwhelm the prospect. That is however not something you should be worrying about if you’ve identified your target market, and done everything else correctly so far. If you wait for your prospective client to make the first move, you may get lucky, but most often than not these leads just die. For this reason, try to be as proactive as possible.

5. Not letting your prospective client get a word

The last of the 5 common lead follow-up mistakes that you should avoid also has to do with communication. What you need to understand when this issue is in question is that you need to listen to your client, more than you talk. It’s important to let your potential customers feel comfortable. These days, marketing talk has become something frowned upon. Most individuals will tune out as soon as they hear you talk in such a manner. That is why it’s so important to just listen to what a prospect has to offer and start a real conversation with them right away. People are more inclined to conduct business with those who they believe appreciate and understand them.