Maintaining a steady stream of sales leads is fundamental when growing a business. All B2B businesses thrive on an ongoing bundle of other companies that have a reason for needing their products or services. This is not an environment where forgotten leads are acceptable.
“The way you position yourself at the beginning of a relationship has a profound impact on where you end up.” – Ron Karr — Marketing Consultant
If a business gets sloppy about garnering and exciting their leads, the company is going to lose revenue. Let’s talk about what that means, exactly.
The Marketing Team
No matter the size of your company, someone, whether it is your staff or your marketing manager, or your marketing team, should be bringing in qualified leads. Dropping the ball in the marketing leg of your business is going to affect your bottom line. According to marketing experts, these industry statistics are occurring for B2B sales:
- 80 percent of leads, passed on to the sales division, are dropped
- 90 percent of marketing collateral is unhelpful
- An average of $500,000 is available to win a new enterprise customer by direct sale
- 80 percent of enterprise technology deals accrued are not influenced by marketing in any manner
Obtaining Leads
All B2B entities must begin to distinguish between good leads and bad leads. What B2B marketers need to understand is that quality leads are what to look for, not weak ones. Some ways a business can discern if a prospect is a sales-qualified lead include:
Nurturing Leads
Build relationships with your potential customers. When that client is ready, he or she will choose the business that they already know and trust.
Be Available to Your Customers
In 2018, an infographic published by Invoca showed the inbound call industry generated approximately $4.17 billion. Incoming calls, in other words, can generate revenue.
Low-Quality Leads
If you follow up on 200 “bad” leads monthly and spend 10 minutes with each lead by way of calls and emails, you have wasted over 11 hours. For example, a salesperson brings in a gross profit for a car dealership. It’s possible, however, that ten cars go unsold, and holding costs are approximately $40 a day. The dealership would be losing $28,730 in lost gross income, along with holding costs.
As is true in most businesses, the lead volume does not equate to lead quality.
Defining a Forgotten Lead and How to Win Them Over
When you consider that the cost of a lead in 2019 was an average of $.05 to $20 a prospect, and for paying customers, selling a product costs about $40 to $3,000, you can understand why leads are expensive and valuable at the same time. But there do exist ways to get those leads involved again.
- Consider repackaging your original offer and proposing it to the forgotten prospect.
- Remember that it is not unusual for someone who has expressed interest in your product to wait before buying at the first offer.
- Make sure your timing is right. If you sell in a place where a professional team of any kind has a home base, you may want to time your sales pitch to occur when the season opens.
- Give your leads a deadline or a special offer.
- Remind your prospect that the product in which they were interested is about to sell out, and it is time for them to make a move.
The tried and true “bonus” still comes in handy, as well. Some oldies are still goodies, such as:
- T-shirts
- Mugs
- E-books
- Personal guidance
7. Mix up the actions you take to reach out to customers. If your first email does not increase interest for potential buyers, try something else:
- a text message
- a phone call
- a letter
- a Tweet
- a Facebook message
People live busy lives these days. Distractions are a daily occurrence. Some buyers don’t use email or texting. And some individuals just do not pick up the phone or turn on their computer every day.
8. Do something you have never done before. Some examples might include:
- Partner with another business that is complementary to yours to surprise and encourage your leads to spend.
- The time may come when you decide to purge a certain percentage of customers who have never responded to your product.
- Informing your leads of new changes in the product, new offerings, and price changes is usually beneficial.
9. Touch base with forgotten leads about every six months. You could ask them if they have changed any of their company priorities; if they have met the goals they made for themselves, and query them about their challenges.
No Marketing Department?
If a company does not have a marketing department, how can an enterprise generate its leads and keep those leads interested? It’s good to remember that prospects do not become leads until they have qualified by determining their level of interest and have a positive fit as a potential customer.
If you are on your own when it comes to accruing leads, then you are probably stumped about the ways to get cold clients back. These steps can take place easily:
- Total up how much you are spending per month on marketing. (with assistance with marketing, such as Google Ads, emails, a white paper, etc., your costs might be $1,000)
- Sum up the number of leads you had in one month. (Let’s say you have 30 new prospective customers.)
- Divide your total marketing expenses by the total new leads, and you will get your Cost Per Lead. ($1,000 divided by 30 =$33 per lead)
Now you know your cost per lead. You must now figure out what amount of Cost Per Lead is best for your company.
Bash Foo
Our company uses digital marketing tools to help those small businesses improve their online reputations affordably and inspirationally. We are also in the business of lead generation services. Your SMB will not need a marketing department because Bash Foo is your digital marketing agency. You can look forward to more leads, more exposure, and more sales.
