The Art of Follow-Up

The Art of Follow-Up

What's the most important marketing skill? You might be surprised at the answer.
It's not having a great marketing message, powerful marketing materials and a bullet-proof marketing plan. All of those are certainly important but not as important as...





***Follow-up***
But people want to believe that myth, so they spend forever trying to perfect their message. Look, all your message can get you is some initial attention. That's all.
And virtually every single marketing action after that is follow-up.
When someone shows some interest in your services (when you deliver a decent, but not mythical, marketing message), you need to follow-up with some more information.
Once they've read that information, you need to follow-up to determine if there's a deeper interest. And if there's a deeper interest, then you need to follow-up to set up an appointment.
But it doesn't end there.
Once you have an appointment, you need to follow-up to confirm that appointment (yes, people flake out). And once you've had the appointment you need to follow-up with a proposal or to close the sale. Follow-up never ends.
Follow-Up Secrets
Here are some follow-up secrets I've learned over the years that are important to understand and master if you're going to attract more clients.
1. Know where you are in the game

When you follow-up with someone, the purpose is to move the prospect from one base in the marketing game to the next base. If you try to jump bases (or move too fast), you tend to get rejected by the prospect. If you move too slow with your follow-up, you loose the interest you've generated up to that point.

2. Don't move too fast

When you get someone's interest (say at a networking meeting) and then say you'd like to call back to talk with them, that's fine. But when you make that call and immediately try to set up an appointment, you'll likely get some resistance. Remember, people want more familiarity and some information before they meet with you. So your follow-up system needs to build that in. One way to do this is with pre-written emails and links to articles or to your web sites.

3. Don't move too slow

If you give a talk and get cards from people who are interested in knowing more about your services, how soon should you follow-up? The very next day. For each day you don't follow-up, interest wanes. If you have only a few follow-ups, use the phone. If you have many, send an email to set up a time to talk in the upcoming week. Stale follow-ups are just that. They've forgotten what interested them in the first place, so when you call back after several weeks it's like starting all over again.

4. Balance fast and slow

The key to effective follow-up is balancing the fast and the slow. Fast to get back to someone when they show interest; slow to get to know them. Fast to provide information requested; slow to discuss what this information means to their business. Fast to get a proposal in the mail; slow to discuss the details of that proposal.

5. Watch your assumptions

What if someone doesn't get back to you? You've followed up promptly and you don't hear back right away. What does this mean? Only one answer: Who knows? It could be anything.But we are quick to jump to the conclusion that it's bad news. Not always. They might be very busy with a big priority or could even be out on vacation. So don't jump to conclusions. Just keep following up. Just watch that you don't sound desperate!

6. When to stop following-up

Let's say you have a prospect you've either met with or done a proposal for. You thought everything was going well, but they aren't returning your calls. Do you keep leaving messages or do you give up? What I recommend is leaving one last message that goes like this:"Hi John, I've been trying to get back to you about the project but haven't heard from you for a couple weeks. I don't want to keep pestering you, so if I don't hear back from you, I'll assume you don't want to move ahead. I'll leave the ball in your court. Please call if you want to take the next steps, but this is the last message I'll be leaving. Hope to hear from you. My number is ..."
This approach works. If they actually are interested, they'll call you back. If they don't, well there's your answer. It's time to move on.

7. Create follow-up systems
To streamline your follow-up, create systems you can use over and over again. A follow-up system consists of specific steps you take each step of the way.
It might work something like this:

a) prospect learns about your service and visits web site
b) prospect fills out form on the web requesting more information
c) prospect receives an automated email from you with web link
d) you send out personalized email requesting an appointment
e) you follow-up by email until appointment is set
f) you meet with prospect by phone
g) after phone appointment you send agreement
h) after a few days you send another email
i) after a few more days you leave a phone message
j) prospect ultimately gets back to you with a yes or no

Once your follow-up system is designed and fine-tuned, you can use it reliably to turn many prospects into clients. This is exactly how I built my business. It didn't happen by chance.
I invite you to use it to build yours.


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The More Clients bottom line: The skill of follow-up is the glue that holds all of your marketing together. It's what bridges the gaps between initial connections, information, meetings and proposals. Make it a priority to master this skill as soon as possible.

Convert Prospects to Clients Through Drip Marketing

Convert Prospects to Clients Through Drip Marketing

 Posted in Campaigns, Email Marketing by Kristen Luke on July 5, 2009

 

In early June, an advisor who reads my blog sent me an email called “Sales Statistics.” It provided some interesting statistics about how many times one must contact a prospect before making a sale. Here is what the email said:

48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect.

25% of sales people make a second contact, then stop.

12% of sales people only make three contacts, then stop.

Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts.

2% of sales are made on the first contact.

3% of sales are made on the second contact.

5% of sales are made on the third contact.

10% of sales are made on the fourth contact.

80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

I don’t know the source of this information so I can’t verify its accuracy, but even if it is not completely accurate, it demonstrates a valuable point: You must regularly contact prospects if you wish to convert them to clients. Just as you should touch your clients 24 times in a year, you should touch your prospects 5 to 12 times. If only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts, you will obviously be at an advantage if you make more than three contacts. If 80% of sales are made on the 5^th to 12^th contact, the formula is simple – contact your prospects 12 times. Simple, right? And while this can be a time consuming process, if executed as a systematic drip campaign you’ll be able to touch your prospects 12 times without much additional effort on your part.
A drip campaign is a marketing campaign where an advisor or firm sends communication to a prospect on a regularly scheduled basis. There are several ways you can do this. If you already have a plan to touch your clients throughout the year, you can just add your prospects to the same schedule with a few modifications. For example, if you are already sending monthly or quarterly newsletters to your clients, you can add your prospects to the email or mailing list. If you host client educational seminars or webinars, invite your prospects to attend as well. If you send holiday cards, make sure your prospects are on the mailing list. By adding your prospects to the same communication program you have created for your clients, you’ll be able to touch your prospects five to twelve times in no time.
If you don’t have a communication calendar for your clients, or you want to reach out to your prospects in a different way than you do with your clients, you may want to consider setting up a drip email campaign. There are plenty of email services available that will let you set up automated email campaigns that will deliver messages to your prospects at regularly scheduled intervals. All you have to do is decide what kind of information you want to send to prospects and at what interval you want to send them and the system handles the rest for you. Aweber, iContact, Constant Contact and GetResponse all offer drip marketing services (also known as autoresponders).
Some advisors are uncomfortable with email marketing because of their own feelings about receiving marketing emails. If you fall into this category, you may want to try another approach using direct mail. There are services like Vertical Response and SendOutCards that allow you to create postcard or greeting card campaigns that can be created and sent directly from your computer. This is a more costly option than email but can still be a good alternative.
To get started on creating a drip marketing campaign, begin by pulling out a calendar and writing down the one way in which you will reach out to prospects each month. Educational information will always be more effective than sales messages, so focus on articles and events that bring value instead of advertisements. Also focus on relationship building activities such as birthday and holiday cards. You will find this is more successful than constantly reminding your prospect of the different services you offer.
The next step will be to make sure you implement the campaign as scheduled. Try to find automated systems that will market for you so that you don’t have to be involved. Finally, if a prospect doesn’t convert to a client after 12 touches, consider removing them from your list. If your drip campaign does not have much cost associated with it (e.g. email marketing), you can probably leave them on the list. But if there is a cost (e.g. direct mail), consider removing them from the campaign so that you don’t waste any more money.
Remember! You spent your valuable time meeting a prospect. Don’t let your efforts go to waste. Let your marketing help you efficiently convert your prospect to a client.
Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.WealthManagementMarketing.net.