Follow-up: Increase conversion rates up to 80%

I’d like to share a way for you to quickly improve your sales conversion rates by up to 80%. All with a simple adjustment to your follow-up process.

When I say the adjustment is simple, it really is. However, right now, you may find it tricky. So, I’m going to show you what the adjustment is, then how to make it a simple process.

It starts with some data.

According to data from Sopro, “Sending three follow-up emails can increase your success rate by over 80%“.

There are lots of similar studies and all of them show very impressive results. The number of follow-ups changes and the success percentage changes, depending on your industry, etc. One thing is crystal clear though: if we follow-up enough times, our results will improve and the improvement will be considerable.

What stops most businesses from following-up often enough?

In my conversations with small business owners, it’s mostly down to 2 things.

• Not wanting to be seen as a nuisance.
• Not having a follow-up structure in place. When it’s random, confidence drops. I’ll show you a simple follow-up structure in a moment.

We’re not being a nuisance when we follow-up

When we follow-up on a prospect’s interest, we’re helping them avoid missing out. Our services or products are important enough for them to have responded to us or to have contacted us for information.

However, after a few days, our prospect has probably forgotten our email. They’ve had urgent requests from their customers, urgent meetings to attend… just like you and me. Yes, it’s important to them. But people’s attention is focused on the urgent, far more than the important.

How do we get the follow-up right?

Develop a follow-up structure

Here’s a simple framework that you can adjust to suit you and your business.

In general, I recommend you follow-up at least 3 times, 5 working days apart.

Use different send times.

• Send 1 in the morning.
• 1 at lunchtime.
• 1 later in the afternoon.

Why?

Different people have different times of the day when they’re busiest. By following-up at 3 different times, we ensure hitting their optimal time at least once.

A few notes

You can follow-up using different platforms. Email, phone or social media can all work great. It can be very effective to use at least 2 different forms of contact.

When following-up, it’s important not to say sorry for interrupting them! You’re not an interruption. You’re a professional who wants to help and do what’s best for the prospect. Only amateurs let things fizzle out.

No prospect is the same every time you contact them. They have times when their cash flow is a problem. They also have times when their cash situation is excellent. They have times when they feel anxious. They have times when they feel confident. You get the idea. Only by putting a follow-up strategy in place do you stand the best chance of catching their attention at the right time.

Before you decide not to give this a try, consider this. How many new clients or additional sales have you been 1 follow-up away from over the years?

A personal note: I discovered this the hard way. I used to only follow-up once or twice. I then discovered the difference it can make to follow-up at least 3 times. I’d been in business 2-years back then and it lost me a fortune.

Follow-up: Increase conversion rates up to 80% was written by Jim Connolly and originally published on Jim's Marketing Blog

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