In the dynamic B2B sales world, you can’t underestimate the importance of a well-thought-out follow-up strategy. In this practical guide, we’ve gathered some insights, spilling the beans on the art and science behind effective follow-up practices. While it might seem like a walk in the park, rest assured it’s a powerful tool that can seriously boost your sales conversion rates.
What is Follow up?
A follow-up is the subsequent communication or set of actions that occur after an initial interaction, which can include activities like a sales call, email, meeting, or event. These follow-up actions are designed to nurture relationships, provide solutions to inquiries, or advance the progression of a business process.
Why do you need to follow up?
First, we have to remember, your persona is probably busy people, as probably as you, who ignore a lot of emails, LinkedIn messages and calls. So, you must follow up to try to Capture the Attention of your prospects. They’re – probably – not ignoring you because they don’t want what you have to offer, but they are in a hurry and with a lot of problems to solve, so you need to capture the prospect’s attention in the middle of a lot of noise.
Second, as I said above that will increase your conversion! If you try to reach out to your prospect more times, you increase the probability of a return.
That graphic shows a study made in Brazil, by the company Meetime.
If you try only one time per prospect, the conversion rate to scheduling a meeting was 19%, but if you use a cadance, and try different ways, that conversion increased to 93% in 8 follow-up attempts.
Follow up’s Tips to increase your conversion
Try different channels: Use a variety of follow-up methods. Try email, call, LinkedIn, SMS/WhatsApp, that will increase the chance of return.
Space it out: Don’t bother your prospect, so space out the communication. For New Leads (1 day a 1 week) and for Old Leads (1 week a 1 month)
Always define the next steps: Always be specific about the next step, for example, you should suggest the specific day and hour and what subject.
Keep it brief: Time is precious, everyone is in a hurry, so be objective in messages, calls and meetings.
Provide value with each follow-up: Remember tt’s not about you or even about your product. It’s about them.
- Begin by asking the prospect how they are and how business is going and
- Keep notes about the prospect’s pain points and the problems they are trying to solve
- Include a link to a relevant article, blog post, or video in your follow-up email
- Notify them of a special offer or limited time discount
Subject lines matter: No just to emails, but the start of your messages and calls, you must capture the attention quickly.
- Keep it short, to-the-point, and conversational in tone.
- Create a sense of urgency. This might include referencing a specific time (e.g., “meeting on Wednesday at 10 am?”), or a limited-time offer (“We’d love to offer you 20% off this week only!”)
- Ask a direct question. A question like “can you help me out?” or “what do you think about…” can entice the recipient to open the email and respond.
- Make it clear the email contains valuable content. A subject line like, “saw this video and thought of you” or “thought this article might be useful to you” demonstrates value.
- Remember that your first hurdle is to get them to open your email, so take the time to craft an irresistible subject line.
Know when to stop.
- If you reach out completely cold and have never interacted with the potential client, follow up a maximum of 5–10 times. You really don’t have the relationship that gives you permission to do much more than that. Try with different channels and send a “last chance” message.
- If you already had some kind of interaction and that interaction was not a clear, definite NO, then follow up as long as it takes to get a response. Some experts said that you should never stop till you get a response and others you should try 5–10 times, sometimes the silence is an answer.
You are offering a solutions
Sometimes we are afraid of bothering the customer, and we need to remember that we are here to offer something that will help him! DON’T BE AFRAID OF FOLLOW-UP’S
Contact Speed
It is the most important driver for our conversion rate in inbound sales.
Making a call attempt within a minute of receiving a lead increases conversion rate by 391%.
The same when a prospect open a email or click on a link, it’s the best time to send a new follow-up attempt like a call or message.
Editorial: Jessica Aires Saravia
