Woody Allen said, “75% of success in life is just showing up.”The Database Diva says, “25% of success is showing up.
The rest is Drip Marketing Follow-up Campaigns.”
Are You Ready To LaunchDrip Marketing Campaigns
From Your Customer Database?
As salespeople, we’re ALWAYS ready to sell. That’s our job. We’ve got overhead, mortgages, payroll and vacations.
But customers are not always ready to buy.
Thus, we have a collision of realities. These two truths simply don’t go together.
More Bad News…Sales Follow Up Is Time Consuming
- It takes 12 contacts to convert a prospect to a customer. In the old days, it was three. Then six. Then nine. Now, it’s up to 12. It’s probably closer to 52 because we have such short attention spans, and there are so many messages coming at us 24/7. We’re bombarded. So it’s a continuous struggle to capture a prospect’s attention, let alone keep him interested, entertained and motivated to buy from you.
- 90% of all salespeople quit after 4 contacts. If you’re that one in 10 who keeps going, merely showing up often means making more sales than the other 9.
- 80% of all sales happen after the fourth contact, but 50% of all salespeople quit after only 1 contact.
- 50% of all leads result in a sale for somebody. Think of the times you primed the pump for a competitor. You did all that hard work-sold the prospect “in theory.” Then your competitor stepped in right behind you and closed the deal “on paper.” He made the sale because you weren’t there when the customer was finally ready. But how can you be in all places at the same time?
- Your customers are your competitor’s prospects. When ignored, they go elsewhere. Even though this is a no-brainer, customers’ #1 complaint is still neglect.
Wake Up! Your Business Is at Risk!
As a long-time mailing list broker, the second most asked question I get (right after “Do you sell email lists?”) is, “What kind of list should I buy? I need new customers.”
Fortunately, I do most of my work by telephone, so no one sees me roll my eyes and say to myself, “Oh no; here we go again.” I think…
“Oh, I feel sorry for you. You seem like such a nice person. Why are you seeking new customers when I bet it’s been FOREVER since you appreciated the customers you already have, up-sold them on another order or asked for a referral? Could those customers even pick you out of a lineup?
“There you sit on a goldmine called a customer database, tucking it away because you believe ‘I’ve already sold them,’ while all of your competitors (every one of them!)is prospecting the heck out of your customer list.
“Pretty soon, those customers on your database will be made an offer they cannot refuse-and it won’t be from you. Then it will be defection time, and you won’t have a clue what happened.
But you’ll whine about how bad business is and what a poor response you got on your prospecting postcard because-and you knew this all along-‘direct mail doesn’t work! Prospecting never works!’”
Prospecting is expensive.
Why buy a prospect mailing list when you haven’t squeezed every drop of profit from the customers you already bought and paid for?”
Here’s a cost/benefit analysis?
It’s 10 times more expensive to prospect for new business
than to retain an existing customer.
You already paid the prospect-to-customer conversion fee!
You already own them!
Cold Call Sales Prospecting Is Not Fun
Cold calling is painful and inefficient. No one likes it, and you’ll lose good staff (and great salespeople) if you make cold calls a requirement. But, guess what?
It’s 3 Times Easier To Sell Someone Who Calls You First
When you make the phone ring with motivated buyers, you’re way ahead of the competition. In fact, the competition doesn’t have a clue what you’re up to. Isn’t that a nicer way to start a business relationship?
List Building Makes Drip Marketing Possible
The list is the most important ingredient in making the phone ring more (or the website shopping cart ring up more sales.) List building can be automated. Here’s how:
Application Guide To Starting
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Identify every one of your incoming contact touch points, such as a website opt-in form, a sales call, a networking event, a referral, etc.
- Collect complete contact information on each one, including address, email and phone number. Once your automated follow-up system is in place, you don’t want to stop in the middle because of a missing zip code or email address.
- Code each contact with its source and marketing category. Now you’re ready to enter…
The Secret (and Subtle) World of Drip Marketing
With our Drip Marketing Series of Services, we help you create an automated follow-up system that will handle at least 12 months of follow ups. You’ll find out how “hands free” it can be to stay in touch with your customers and prospects in a subtle, yet very personal way-as if you were sitting at your keyboard composing each one of those 12,000 messages yourself! No business opportunity will ever fall through the cracks.
Ever again. Starting now.
It’s Impossible To Follow Up Without a Drip Marketing System
Let’s do off-the-cuff, cocktail napkin math really quickly.
Let’s say you or a salesperson in your company makes 20 sales calls or contacts a week, and you’re/they’re supposed to follow up 12 times each.
20 contacts x 50 weeks = 1,000 contacts per year
1,000 X 12 follow-up touches = 12,000 follow ups
This follow-up activity is required of just 1 salesperson. How is that humanely possible? (Plus, don’t forget he still has to stay in touch with customers, do paperwork, live life, etc.)
Say there are 5 salespeople:
That’s 48,000 sales follow-ups!
Clearly, this is ridiculous
However, if we buy into the concept that…
a) We must keep in touch with customers
b) Buyers don’t buy the first time we talk to them
c) We’re too busy to follow up and
d) Competitors live to eat our lunch
…Then automating the sales process is our only hope for survival (and double-digit sales growth!)
Follow-Up Drip Marketing on Autopilot
Here’s a simple example of how capturing leads at the “point of first entry” and putting them on a drip marketing campaign accomplishes these outrageous requirements.
Follow-Up System for a Networking Event
0 days Email a “nice to meet you” note
0 days Mail capabilities letter
7 days Email to Offer Tips
14 days Email 1st Tip
21 days Email 2nd Tip
35 days Postcard offering a Free Whitepaper download on your website
42 days Email “Did you like Tips and/or white paper?”
49 days Email 3rd Tip
75 days Voice Mail Presentation “New Info”
91 days Fax article of interest
100 days Email 4th Tip
120 days Determine final disposition
With your new Drip Marketing System, you will use this template after every networking event. You don’t know today who you’ll meet at the next networking event, but you know meeting people is inevitable. And you know you’ll exchange business cards with them.
Most of these people will go back to their offices and put your business card on top of their pile of other business cards.
But you’ll scan their business card (using a cardscanner)
into your database and start drip marketing to them that same day
using this Networking Event Drip Marketing Template!
You will likely be the only networker with a follow-up system!
The date of the networking event is Day 0. This is called the “anchor date,” because each successive communication message will be “X number of days” after that date. So, for example, on Day 0, you will send an email that says, “It was so nice to meet you. I’m going to mail you some stuff.” Also that day, you’ll mail the stuff you said you were going to send.
Seven days later, your database reminds you to follow up with a phone call–not to sell them anything–but to say, “Can I put you on my list to get my tips?” It’s an easy call, not a cold call, because now they know you.
Fourteen days later, you send Tip No. 1.
Twenty-eight days later, you’ll send Tip No. 2.
Skip down to Day 75, one of my favorite “drips.” Nearly 2 1/2 months later, you leave a voice mail presentation with some new information. You purposely call when your contact isn’t there. In less than 30 seconds, you leave compelling information so they’ll definitely want to call you back.
At the very end of the drip, approximately 4 months later, the database alerts you that it’s time to figure out what to do next with the person. Do you want to transfer him to another drip campaign? Or do you want to email him and ask, “I’m not sure you can use my services, but do you know somebody who could?” You can also take him off future marketing campaigns altogether.
In just 4 months, “you” followed up 12 times with this one contact. (Not including setting up this template the first time) these 12 follow ups took you all of-maybe-30 minutes. All you did was…
- Add the contact to your database
- Add him to your drip campaign
- Make one call to voice mail
- Determine a “final disposition” at the end of the drip series
Now, repeat this same process for every contact you meet at networking events throughout the year. Can you imagine how much more effective you’ll be now that you have a system to leverage your investment of time?
What’s the ROI…?
12 networking events (one/month) x 5 new contacts = 60 contacts/year
60 x 12 follow ups = 720 follow ups/year
Predict 10% give you one referral each = 72 referrals
Your closing rate = 25%, and your average order is $5,000
72 x 25% x $5,000 = $90,000 in additional revenue
Woody Allen said, “75% of success in life is just showing up.” I say, “25% of success is showing up. The rest is drip marketing.”
After you master creating your first drip, you’ll easily envision campaigns for all the “firsts” in your business, such as:
- Referral leads
- Referree thank you’s
- Following up with estimates
- Website and live sales orders
- Inactive customers
Get Help Setting up Drip Marketing Campaigns
If you would like help designing Drip Marketing campaigns to support your sales funnel, here are 7 ways we can help:
Listen to The Database Diva Interview on Drip Marketing (TO BE POSTED SOON)
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