by Heidi Williams | Jan 6, 2023 | Sales Enablement
Effective lead follow-up is a critical part of the sales process, as it helps businesses connect with potential customers and turn them into paying clients. However, it’s not always easy to get it right.
If you follow up too quickly, you may come across as pushy or desperate. On the other hand, if you wait too long, you risk losing the lead altogether. So, what are the best practices for an effective lead follow-up?
Follow up quickly
Research has shown that the chances of making contact with a lead decrease significantly after the first hour, and the chances of qualifying a lead decrease significantly after the first 24 hours. This means it’s important to follow up with leads as soon as possible after they express interest in your product or service. If you can’t follow up immediately, aim to do so within the first few hours.
Personalize your follow-up
Use the lead’s name and any other information you have about them to make your follow-up more personal and relevant. For example, if you know the lead is interested in a particular product or service, mention that in your follow-up. Personalization helps show the lead that you’re interested in them and not just trying to make a sale.
Use multiple channels
Follow up with leads via email, phone, and social media to increase your chances of making contact. Some people prefer to be contacted via email, while others may prefer a phone call or a message on social media. By using multiple channels, you increase your chances of reaching the lead and making a connection.
Be persistent but not annoying
It’s important to follow up with leads, but you don’t want to be a nuisance. Strike a balance by following up a few times before giving up. For example, you might try following up via email and phone, and then give the lead a few days to respond. If you still haven’t heard back, try reaching out via social media. Just be sure to give the lead enough time to respond and avoid sending too many messages too close together.
Keep track of your follow-up efforts
Use a customer relationship management (CRM) system, like HubSpot, so you know when and how you have contacted a lead. This can help you avoid duplicating efforts or missing opportunities to follow up.
Follow up with a clear call to action
In your follow-up, make it clear what you want the lead to do next, whether it’s setting up a meeting, filling out a form, or making a purchase. By providing a clear next step, you make it easier for the lead to take action and move closer to becoming a customer.
Use automation
Use automated email campaigns and other tools to help you follow up with leads efficiently and effectively. Automation can help you reach out to leads at the right intervals, without requiring you to manually send each message. Just be sure to personalize the automated messages to make them more relevant to the lead.
By following these best practices, you can effectively follow up with leads and increase your chances of turning them into paying customers. However, it’s important to remember that each lead is unique, and you may need to adjust your follow-up approach based on the individual’s needs and preferences.
The key is to be proactive, personalized, and persistent, while also respecting boundaries and not being overly pushy. With the right approach, you can build strong relationships with leads and turn them into loyal customers.
If you are looking for assistance in building this approach within your business, reach out to SmarkLabs here.
by Kayla Kingston | Jul 12, 2021 | Sales Enablement
As more and more information has become available online, sales teams no longer have control over what information buyers have. In fact, over 60% of the sales process is typically over before a sales rep can even enter the picture. Because the sales process relies so heavily on marketing efforts such as social media, blogging, and SEO, it is necessary for the two departments to work together more than ever before.
Unfortunately, it often leads to friction between marketing and sales departments, with sales complaining about marketing failing to generate quality leads for them and marketing blaming sales for not being successful with the leads they get. Smarketing provides a solution to this friction and can increase your ROI in the process.
Defining Smarketing
Smarketing (sales and marketing) involves integrating the sales and marketing processes of a business, leading to better growth and larger profits. This alignment is about more than just big picture goals. The departments should agree on a lead generation process, data systems, customer profiles, account scoring, and anything else utilized by the two teams.
How Does Smarketing Drive Growth?
- Alignment drives growth. Highly-aligned organizations see a 32% year-over-year revenue growth. Less aligned competitors saw a 7% decrease in revenue.
- Better alignment, bigger profits. Highly aligned companies are 15% more profitable.
- Top-line revenue is a good thing. Highly aligned teams drive 208% more revenue as a result of their marketing efforts.
What are the Key Steps to Smarketing?
There are several steps you can take to better align your sales and marketing.
- Audit your customer journey and attack major friction points in the sales process that don’t add value for the buyer. Look to marketing to “digitize” these manual processes.
- Skill-up sales teams to align with the buyers’ process, including the content and tools required to facilitate this alignment.
- Align 80% of your sales reps with your ideal customer profile (ICP). Let executives or “whale hunters” develop the other 20%.
- Track and analyze your losses more than your wins, including sales objections along the way. Use this data to feed content ideas for marketing teams.
- Create a playbook that maps content to the customer journey. Show sales teams how to use this playbook to overcome objections or provoke urgency in buyers.
Overcoming Smarketing Challenges
As you create a playbook for smarketing, be on the lookout for potential pitfalls. In today’s tech-driven marketplace where most of the buying process occurs online, communication and understanding between the two departments is a must. In order to collaborate effectively, they need to be equal partners, not separate silos.
Here are six tips to keep in mind:
- Have sales and marketing meet frequently: Establish that no new sales project will proceed without marketing approval and vice versa. Hold each other accountable.
- Build multiple relationships between sales and marketing: Ensure that both teams know each other well and function as one team rather than only leadership meeting together.
- Mix marketing and sales desks together: Structure your office so that sales and marketing employees understand each other’s work on a day-to-day basis.
- Provide many types of feedback between marketing and sales: Empower all team members to give feedback, and listen to that feedback.
- Agree on terminology: Develop a similar language and vocabulary for your smarketing team and build that into your reports and culture.
- Use data to communicate: Utilize daily reports that show exactly the progress of both sales and marketing each day.
The Bottom Line
Building a playbook to align your sales and marketing is a great way to increase revenue. Your marketing team will deliver increased high-quality leads, and your sales team will be equipped to transform the leads into new customers.
Want help with your brand’s B2B smarketing efforts? Let’s talk.
