Subscribe in a readerStudies claim more than 37% of B2B leads are ignored, I've seen as high as 50% within one week of an event. What does this mean to your business and its B2B lead generation efforts?
First, this is a shocking area for improvement, especially since without even increasing conversion and just a little more follow up, you will increase sales. How man of your leads do you actually follow up on?
Worse, each of these leads has a cost associated with them. If you are not following up on these leads, you've had the cost without the upside gain. Basically not following up leads is wasting money.
Even worse, the relationship value of a prospect raising their hand, then completely being ignored hurts your long term ability to close. Basically you are telling an interested party that you are NOT interested in them.
How do you follow up on more leads faster? It all starts with planning your lead qualification funnel in advance. That starts with planning lead response before acquiring the lead.
Should you jump on every lead with a sales person the day you get them? Not necessarily. You still need to qualify each lead, prepare them for a specific response, and give each the attention they desire as you are setting appointments.
If at all possible arrange lead follow up before you go to the trade show, or run the marketing campaign, even if it's just a well written letter. Get these leads into an organized system, for some return touch telling them their request is important.
You can increase your bottom-line today just by following up with more leads that you already have. You will improve your buying relationships, close more sales, and increase overall selling productivity, with very little additional effort if done right.
© 2008 Center for Strategic Relations, All rights reserved.
Justin Hitt designed automated lead follow up systems for business-to-business service firms who want more sales from every lead generation effort. Improve your lead follow up at https://HittPublishingDirect.com/
By Justin Hitt at February 27, 2009 8:02 AM
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