In the last note we talked about the urgent need to follow up .
But the question is how to do the happy follow-up ? In this note I am going to share with you 7 practical strategies to follow up effectively.
7 Practical Strategies To Follow-Up Or Follow-Up
1. Follow Up Right Away. Do Not Let The Time Pass By
It’s easy to fall behind, but that’s how the impact of follow up fades. If you meet someone through a networking activity and tell them you’re going to get in touch, do it the next day. If you give a talk and promise to send something to those who give you their card, do it within 2 days maximum. Be sure to set aside time in your schedule to follow up.
2. Organize Your Tracking
First of all, make a game out of this. Find a way to make it fun, not a scary bummer. Reward yourself for making a certain number of follow-up calls. Make this process a regular part of your business and stick to a routine. Make a few follow-up calls each day.
You can also organize yourself using a CRM type software to manage and manage referrals .
3. Prepare A Follow-Up Script
That is, you must know in advance what you are going to say and where you want to take the conversation. A follow-up call is not a sales call, it is a call to study the possibilities.
So you must know what you are going to say and have a clue that allows you to set up a meeting with that person or keep them on your contact list.
Example follow-up strategy: Suggest times to meet instead of asking her to call you. “I have time to talk at 3:30 on Thursday. I will call you again that day. Is that okay with you or do we need to reschedule?
4. Do Some Research
Imagine someone contacts you after a networking event and says, “Hi, I met you at the Chamber of Commerce last night, can you tell me what you do?” Or the alternative: “Hi, I met you at the Chamber of Commerce last night and was looking at your website. And I wanted to talk to you about…”
It’s surprising how little interest we show in potential customers. No wonder we don’t succeed in making an important connection.
5. Use Value-Laden Messages
Follow-Up Strategy Example:
Don’t do this: “Hello, I’m Ana García from ABC Consultores, we met at the Chamber of Commerce last night. We offer a full range of consulting services designed to meet your needs. I would like to meet with you to explain our services and how we can help you.» This will get you fired on any excuse or not call you back.
Instead, guide your value proposition and give them a reason why they want to talk to you:
Hi, I’m Ana Garcia from ABC Consulting. When I met you at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, I thought about the problem of your managers losing productivity. I would like to share some ideas with you about how we have increased productivity by 25% or more in companies similar to yours.” You see the difference?
6. Be Persistent In A Friendly Way
If you meet someone who you sincerely believe you could add value to, don’t give up after a follow-up call. It may take a lot of contacts before something happens. In general it is said that 7 contacts are needed to produce the sale.
That earlier message could be followed by an email and a link to an online article. This, in turn, could be followed up by another message. If the person does not get in touch, it may well mean that your message does not contain enough value for them or that they are simply busy.
You can control the first and apply friendly persistence to the second.
After a few unanswered messages and emails, you should leave a final message. Hello, I’m Ana from ABC Consulting. I’m sorry we couldn’t connect. I’d love to talk to you about increasing productivity with your managers.
We’re just working with a client right now that we’re making big changes that will save them hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I don’t want to keep bothering you. If you want to talk about this topic, I’ll leave you my phone number and my email.»
This often prompts a call back when they realize the ball is now in their court.
7. Follow-Up Doesn’t Mean Harassing Prospects
One of the main reasons for not tracking is that we think we are upsetting people. We think that we are a nuisance and that we will be rejected.
Well, if you track incorrectly it can be! But if you make sure to add value to every call and are steadfast in your belief that your service is valuable, you are doing them a great service by following up.
After all, think about how you would feel if you found out someone else was after that prospect and managed to convert them into a customer. You would realize that this prospect needed this service and the only reason you didn’t get it was due to insufficient follow-up on your part.
Master the follow up and you will master the marketing.
In Conclusion
We avoid following up because we fear rejection. But we also avoid it because we don’t know how to do it efficiently. In this note we have presented several examples of follow-up strategies. Set the goal of learning how to do it because there is no more important marketing skill.
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