06 Apr The Most Effective Ways to Reach Unresponsive Leads
Ideally, every lead you have would turn into paying customers without much effort. They would see the intrinsic value of the services and products that you provide and immediately take the next step through the sales funnel.
Actually, it wouldn’t even have to go that far. Most sales people would be happy to have leads that consistently responsive to emails and phone calls.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Someone that you’ve been working with for some time could suddenly go quiet. That contact who seemed so interested just a couple days ago now ignores all your best attempts to keep the conversation going.
It can be terribly frustrating, but that doesn’t have to be where the story ends.
There are a few simple and effective ways to reach those unresponsive leads and get the conversation back on track.
Persistence with Awareness
A single call probably isn’t going to turn a cold lead warm again. A single email probably isn’t going to get an immediate response from someone who went unresponsive a while ago.
Persistence will pay off, though. Studies continue to show that leads are far more likely to be more responsive after four or more attempts to connect with them. (Unfortunately, all too many sales teams only make one or two contact attempts.)
However, you need to be very aware of the needs and desires of your lead. There is a big difference between “not yet” and “go away.” If they are very clear about wanting you to stop contacting them, then that’s exactly what you need to do. Showing that kind of understanding may just keep the door open for something in the future.
So, the key is to stick with it, but know when it’s time to remove them from your list.
Diversify Your Approach
There could be any number of reasons for a lead to go unresponsive. Sometimes we look for deep, complex reasons behind the behavior, when, in fact, the reason could be as simple as they don’t bother checking their email very much.
You can diversify your approach to these leads and start to see more responses.
Try texting instead of emailing. Maybe after a couple texts, it’s time to try a phone call. Maybe they’ll respond better to a message over Twitter or Facebook.
Use more than one type of outreach and you’ll increase your chances of finding the best way to restart a conversation.
Stay Focused on Their Needs
It’s safe to assume that if a lead is now classified as “unresponsive,” then there was a time when they were responsive and they spent some time getting to know you and your products.
This means that, when you manage to restart a conversation, you should not waste any time talking about yourself, your company, or your products and services.
You need to focus completely on what they need, whether that’s just the answers to a few questions, some guidance about their options, or even just a link to a helpful article. It may not be the immediate sale that you were hoping for, but it will contribute to your ability to fully rive an unresponsive lead.
Automate the Process
Reconnecting with cold leads is tough. Let’s not pretend that it’s not. And it is even more difficult when you have other, newer leads that may be putting demands on your attention.
But you still don’t want to miss out on the potential in these potential leads just because they’ve been unresponsive to a few of your efforts.
The solution is to automate the outreach process. You can continue to engage with leads that may have gone cold without taking time away from those leads that remain plenty warm.
This will allow you to make more contact attempts without having to expand the sales team while setting more appointments and even gathering data to discover more about why they went cold in the first place.
Keep Track of Your Attempts
Did your sales team reach out to their cold leads this week? This month?
What happens if they say they did, but they can’t seem to remember much about the attempt.
It’s critical to know exactly how those leads responded – and if they responded – to further tailor your outreach attempts.
Tracking every phone call and text and any responses you get can inform your attempts in the future with this lead and any others.
Should You Ever Give Up on a Lead?
The unfortunate truth is that sometimes, despite your best efforts, some leads will remain unresponsive. While it is possible to reactivate a lot of them, there is a time when it just becomes very apparent that there are better prospects on which to focus your time and resources.
There will come a point where you need to prune your list of potentials and start looking at leads that fit better into your target market.
If you haven’t been able to reengage with potentials, if they haven’t visited your website, opened your texts, or viewed your emails even after several attempts to restart the conversation, it may be time to let them go.
That doesn’t mean you have to declare them officially dead. You don’t need to give them a “last chance” email to try and goad them into responding one last time. Just let them know in that final email that you’ll always be ready to talk to them if their situation changes, and then start focusing on those other leads who are more responsive to your efforts.
If you are ready to give Aktify a try, contact our team today. We are happy to talk more about how our unique software can help reactivate your stalled leads.
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