Introduction to the Marketing Lyfe Podcast Ep. 116
Episode one 16 of the marketing life podcast. And today guys, we have a special guest on the show, a man by the name of Casey. I forgot his last name, but he reached out to me and he shared, he wanted to share his system on what he does to follow up with leads. Now the reason why I wanted them on the show is because that’s a super important art. All my marketing is actually the, we follow up. A lot of times we generate the leads, we get them into the systems, but sometimes there’s not a proper system of followup in place. Now that’s where the disconnect of online marketing kind of starts to happen, or the lead generator starts to happen right now. That starts to kind of turn over to the sell side of things. So I thought that by bringing him on the show, it would help you guys better understand how you can follow up with your leads that are coming in through your pipeline. So let’s dive in. Okay guys. So we’ve got Casey on the show. So today he’s going to share those three tips with following up with his lead. So I’m going to turn it over to you, Casey.
Introduction to Casey
All right, awesome. Thank you for having me. I am a big fan of the show and I’m excited to be here. So, uh, my name is Casey Yoder, a founder of a company called nudge. We’re based in Stillwater, Minnesota, so the twin cities area. Um, and I just wanted to share, I’ve been listening to the podcast and so much great information you’ve touched on lead follow up a little bit, which is what we do. So I wanted to share our three by three method to convert more leads into sales opportunities. So kind of just, uh, best practices and very simple steps that we think any business can take to improve the amount of leads that they’re able to engage, connect with and qualify and get a sales opportunity with. Awesome.
1. Follow Up Within the First Five Minutes
Yeah, so kind of the first one is to follow up fast. Um, there’s all sorts of statistics out there. You can follow up with them. The first five minutes of getting a lead and you’re like 600 times more likely to engage them, qualify them, and get that sales opportunity. And then, you know, waiting 15 minutes, it goes down to like 200 times. And if you wait an hour, it just plummets. So, right. You want me to get a lead? You know, they’re thinking about you. They’re in an action frame of mind. So you want to follow up as fast as possible, ideally within five minutes. So that’s a simple first step to take.
What Does The Five Minutes Look Like?
Okay. So just give the audience a little bit an idea. Within those five minutes, what, what does that look like? Like are you calling, I’m texting them, emailing them all the same time. Like how does that window of five minutes actually look? Yeah, so the back half of our three by three is we, we, when we manage our clients’ campaigns, uh, we use text, phone and email to communicate. Uh, we’ll run a lot of tests to see if their customer base is more responsive to text or phone.
Response: Get the Lead Right Away or Call Them
Um, but for us it typically looks one of two ways why they’re get that lead right away. We’ll pick up the phone, call them. If they don’t answer the phone, we’ll leave a voicemail, tell them that we’re going to send them a text message and then we immediately hang up the phone. I have that text message send and then they can respond either with a phone call or a text and the response is overwhelmingly done via text. Awesome. So, uh, yeah, that’s kind of how we approach it. We, we don’t even email until typically like day three of a campaign trying to get in touch. So we’re very much phone and text message, SMS based. Okay, cool.
2. Following Up Frequently
So you get that fast response time in. Then the second step, um, is following up frequently. So we kind of call it like being politely persistent. Our frame of mine is these people reached out to us. They want us to get in touch with them. If it doesn’t happen after the first time, we’ll continue to follow up, uh, with our clients. We will follow up basically until we hear back and they told us to get, they tell us to get lost. Um, but at minimum you should be attempting to follow up at least six times. And again, that’s just kind of best practices where you’re going to have the best luck connecting with them. And it’s almost counterintuitive. We found those people that, uh, you continue to reach out to continue to reach out to and you don’t hear back until six 17th attempt at contacting them. Uh, typically they will actually move forward with you more frequently I think because you’re the only one that’s still running, reaching out to them. So whenever they get back into that decision making mode, you’re in the top of their mind. Um, and you’re kind of who they think to reach out to. So be politely persistent and continue to follow up.
“Its usually 7 or 8 times until these people are interested.”
Awesome. I like that. So like it’s interesting. So you’re saying it’s usually like seven or eight times that these people will move forward? You know what? I would say the majority of people get back to you right away. Um, but those ones that do not get back to you, like most companies are going to attempt to call them once, text them once, call them twice, maybe very few are going to do it three times. Maybe on the customer’s end, something came up, the timing got pushed back a couple of weeks, whatever it is, we have no idea if you’re still continuing to reach out to them, you make it super easy for them to get in touch with you
“Keep reaching out!”
Um, you’re the ones that they’re going to reach out to whenever they get back into that decision making mode and are ready to move forward with whatever your product or services. So most people are going to respond right away. But those ones that don’t, for whatever reason, like we just don’t assume that we know why that is. So we just keep reaching out, keep reaching out until we hear something. Gotcha. I like that. Just cause like the whole concept too is like online marketing is, it’s proven that sometimes it takes like eight touches before people turn into buyers or even like fill out a form. So it’s like the same concept is like, okay, well we get a form fill after eight times, but now it’s like, well, maybe even more times again, we’re having to reach out to them. So that’s really interesting information that you guys have seen on your end. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah, absolutely. And it is, it’s cool to see and uh, it’s hard to do. It’s kinda hard to get over that mental hurdle of library shelf two, three, four or five times. Nobody’s called me back. I don’t just want to keep calling, but, uh, things happen on the other end, so we just encourage everybody to continue to do so. Awesome.
3. Keeping a Good List of your Leads
The last thing that we would recommend there in the first of the three by three is keeping a good list. So obviously CRM, they’re huge. Hopefully your company has one, if not like the little sheets, whatever it is. Keep track of all the leads that you have coming in. Um, the ones that go hold the ones that are still marked, the ones that turn into customers, we track and we recommend companies track as best they can. Um, all the conversations that they have, all the different touch points and then that can be super valuable down the road.
Example of Lead Follow Up: Home Services
So obviously some leads are gonna convert for you. They’re going to turn into customers. You can give yourself a huge leg up, you have that information. And so we work with a lot of home service businesses. So let’s say an HVAC company, um, we’re in Minnesota, so furnace tuneups are big in the fall and early winter here. Well, our clients are able to, because they’re keeping a good list to have a good database circle back with the people who did their furnace tune up a year ago, reach out to them via text. I get them to schedule an appointment very easily. So it’s really boosted their retention rate, um, and made, made it very easy to fill up their candor calendar without spending a ton of money on additional advertising every year.
Benefits of Keeping an Updated List
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, definitely money’s in the list. So especially in those home service industries like that you’re talking about. So that’s one thing that you know, I’ve talked about on this podcast, you know, you have like local listing, like, like fixed locations and things like that. Then you can, you know, you have companies that are online and they just shipped products. And to me that’s one of the huge benefits of like a fixed location is that you can just have a database of people and customers. As long as you’re keeping them happy, they’re going to keep your business afloat. So I think that’s awesome. What you guys are doing is keeping those lists organized and making sure that you know that those customers are happy and when something goes South or whenever they’re ready for an upgrade or whatever, you guys just send out a text. So that’s really awesome that you guys are doing that.
Communicate 1 on 1 With Customers
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And we totally agree. And you know, we’ve found once you open up that line of communication with people, especially via texts people, it’s so easy and kinda on their terms when you go back and forth. But when you, when you’ve established that communication, you do a good job. And I’ve heard you touched it, touch on it on other episodes, like it’s way easier to get ask and get reviews. It’s way easier to ask and get referrals. So when you’re able to communicate one-on-one with customers at scale, which texts I think is the easiest way to do, I can do a ton of really good things for your business. Awesome. That is awesome. So
Calling Campaigns
the second half of that, three by three is just kind of how we communicate. Um, and, and texts has grown to the top of our list. Without a doubt. Uh, we still will do a lot of calling for our clients. Um, I think part of that is generational, but I think there’s, depending on where the lead come from, Thomas from specially the more digital leads, right? Even if you don’t ever talk to the person, if he ended up leaving him a voicemail, they like to hear a voice and know that it’s somebody real on the other end. So that’s still powerful.
Email Campaigns
And then, uh, we do email as well. Um, and some people just, I prefer to communicate like that. So if you can keep all three in the mix, uh, we found that to be very beneficial.
Text Channels
And then we always recommend, like if somebody’s, uh, texts you back, well they prefer to communicate via text. So stay on that text channel if they email you back, same thing. Um, and if, if you have to guide it somewhere else, make sure you let them know. Don’t just start texting them after you’ve been emailing them. Gotcha. No, that makes total sense. Makes total sense. So, well, cool man. Is that like your basically your three step process then? As far as everything goes?
Summary of the 3×3
Yeah. Yeah. That’s uh, that’s what kind of we put out, um, for companies who don’t want to use our service for whatever reason, uh, those are kind of the basic steps you can take. It’s not rocket science, but it’s all in the execution. So if you can figure out a way to a follow up fast, follow up frequently and keep a good list, I think you’ll be ahead of, uh, what most companies are doing. And then of course, uh, the companies that we work with, we are able to do a ton of split testing and phone versus tax response, all that sort of stuff. So if you get really into it, you studied the lead followup process and best practices, there’s, there’s some things that you can do to really optimize, uh, the amount of revenue you’re generating from your advertising campaigns.
Softwares for Call, Text, and Email Campaigns
Awesome. Cool. Well, I’m going to ask a little, a broader question about this. Just curious. So what softwares do you recommend as far as like call, texts and email? Is there a specific software that you recommend? So, uh, we, we at nudge provide a fully managed solution and we built our own, um, SMS software that we use, which is what we’re kind of, that’s kind of our differentiator and part of what we offer. Um, there’s frankly, uh, not a shortage of tech companies out there. Mmm. I would say the biggest thing is make sure you find one that you can be interactive with. So two-way texting, not just yeah, check service where you can send them out but can’t get them in and respond. So, uh, you know, yeah, I would just Google it. I don’t want to throw any names out. No, you’re totally fine. Yeah, there, there’s a lot of them out there. Just make sure that they’re interactive. They’re two ways so when you’re getting texts back you can respond individually to each one. Gotcha. Well cool. That’s awesome. Sounds like you guys are, you guys are crushing it, so,
Contact For Casey
yeah. Yeah. And it’s good stuff. Really appreciate you having me on. If anybody wants to look at our website, it’s just another system.com. There’s some good blogs on there about the weed followup process and all that that might be able to help somebody out. So, uh, appreciate it and I learned a ton from you, so thank you for continuing to put the podcast out. I look forward to it every week. Sounds good, man. I was, I can ask is a goalie mirror review helped me keep pushing. I’m on it. I sounds good. Casey. Well thanks for your time and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us. Yes sir. Absolutely. And we’ll talk again soon. Have a good day, Taylor. Thank you. Sounds good. Thanks. See ya. Alright, peace.
Conclusion to the Marketing Lyfe Podcast Ep. 116
So guys, thanks for listening to the show. If you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. If you want more questions about lead follow up, like you said, like Casey said, you guys can reach out to him and ask him questions as well. But guys, I realize that it is super important that you have a system to follow up. When you generate your beats, make sure you’re texting them, emailing them, calling them, and really have a dialed in system of the followup in place. And this again will help your company scale and grow. So thanks guys for listening to the show today. And if you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Other than that, guys, peace.
Recent Comments