We usually look to the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (more commonly known as MIT) for breakthroughs in chemistry and engineering, not for advice on how to best follow up on web-generated leads. But MIT once again shows us the way with a groundbreaking study on how your business can best connect with a prospect.
This study, entitled “How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold,” serves as a virtual small business guide on the most effective approaches to closing a sale.
The number one fact everyone is trumpeting from the research is that fact that the odds of making contact with a captured lead drop by 80% five minutes after the lead info has been recorded. After half an hour? Those odds fall by 99%. If, however, contact is initiated within the first minute, there is a 391% boost in conversion rates. If it’s within a two minute window, that boost drops down to 160%.
Those are pretty staggering figures – and point to the fact that whatever follow-up system you have for contacting captured leads has to be fast, fast, fast, even if we’re just talking about a simple auto responder that takes the prospect to a sales-heavy landing page.
Slightly buried in the study, however, is another vital fact that can easily be ignored – giving up on a lead too early can easily cost you a conversion.
Multiple attempts at reaching a prospect pay off up until the sixth attempt. According to MIT, however, the average marketer only does 1.2 follow-ups – which even includes a telephone call without a message being left. Basically, this means that the average marketer quits after one try.
And the figures indicate that means the average marketer isn’t that much of a marketer. Making a second effort boosts contact rates by 55% and, on average, success rates keep rising right up until the sixth time, where that they peak at 88%.
The effectiveness of how you time those follow-up contact attempts varies from campaign to campaign. Doing six attempts within an hour of getting the lead aren’t going to work – but neither is spreading those attempts out over a week. Every business has to do a little trial-and-error to find out what’s most effective for them.
What is clear is there’s no point in abandoning a lead until you hit the “Buy or Die” point with them. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by aggressively pursuing a lead interested in what you’re selling.
For anyone looking for advice on starting a business, it’s clear that having lead management software in place that can quickly and automatically follow up on leads is vital.
Once you find out what works for your particular product or service, make sure that automated follow-up system is put in place across the board to maximize your conversion rates of prospects.
Author Resource:-
Independent Executive” Chuck Boyce is an experienced small business coach who can help you get the most out of your business. For more information on how you can achieve your business goals, go to http://www.breakingfreeblog.com
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