When I talk to business owners, I am always amazed at how few have an email follow up campaign in place.
In fact, it’s surprising how little emphasis is placed on this important part of the sales and marketing process.
Here’s what it looks like:
- 48% of salespeople never follow up with a prospect
- 25% make a second contact and stop
- 12% only make three contacts and stop
Only about 10% make more than three contacts!
So why is following up such a big deal?
Check these universal stats out:
> 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!
(Source: National Sales Executive Association)
Check me if I’m wrong Scotty but…
Although these stats pertain to sales people, they are, by definition, transferable to us as business owners who are responsible for sales results.
Bottom line: Without a follow up system in place, you are leaving thousands of dollars on the table!
Follow up helps you in two ways: It keeps the relationship you have with your current customers alive. Second, it keeps your prospects warm until they ready to buy
Let’s look at current customers for a sec.
A very small percentage of customers will actually tell you that they are unhappy with your service or product. They just leave. And most companies only realize that a customer has left them when the sales figures for that customer have flat-lined.
In another life, I used to sell telecom services. A major bank was a client. I remember the first month the donut showed up on the revenue sheet.
‘Uggghhh, I thought to myself, how could those people in accounting have missed that?’ THEY must have made a mistake.
Well, the fact is, they didn’t. I had broken the golden rule of appreciating the lifetime value of a customer. I didn’t stay in touch and it ended up costing me.
The importance of systematic follow up is to keep the emotional connection warm.
It’s vital that you build a strong emotional connection with your prospect or customer, as about 80% of the decision to buy or stay on will depend on this emotional connection.
Eye opener huh?
That’s why you need an effective follow up system.
And an email follow up campaign is effective and inexpensive to implement.
This link will take you to an article I wrote a few years ago about following up that expands on this post.
And do yourself – and your bottom line – a favour.
Go back to the beginning of this article before you head off and review those statistics I whipped off.
They are irrefutable and pretty much determine the outcome of most selling interactions.
