Experts say that the average sale takes about seven contacts before it’s closed. If you are contacting your sales leads only once (i.e. by mail, phone, or e-mail), you are wasting your hard earned marketing dollars. Think about following up several times with your sales leads before moving on.
For example: Visitors to your Web site are more than likely pre-qualified target customers. However, if they don’t buy or do anything, they are likely to never return. Offer to let people join your guest list/e-mail list, or register for a prize contest. By doing so, you capture information about visitors so you can contact them again. This is a form of followup strategy.
If you get a lead from a classified ad save their email address. Followup by e-mail (or by mail if you get their mailing address) in about 1 week to remind them about your offer and do they have any questions sort of message. Test ing will determine how many times you should followup.
The more contacts you make, the more sales you will close. If you contact a prospect 5 times, your overall conversion will likely break down as follows:
- First contact: about 47%
- Second contact about 16%
- Third contact about 14%
- Fourth contact about 12%
- Fifth contact about 10%
Close to 50% of the overall conversion comes from followup marketing!
And the beauty about followup marketing is the dramatic reduction in costs. You have no advertising lead cost because you already generated the lead.
