Internet marketers often run into a unique challenge on
their way to "leaving the rat race" for their own successful
cyber-businesses.
Once their online marketing machines are running fairly
smoothly, generating a healthy flow of leads generally
isn't a problem. The challenge lies in generating the
most profit from the existing flow of leads.
What's one crucial key to generating maximum profit per
lead? Yes, there is a goldmine in follow up contact.
WHY WE SOMETIMES NEGLECT FOLLOW UP
The typical marketer may send one follow up email,
mail out a single brochure or catalog, make one follow up
call, or send out one fax, and then sit back and wait... Wait
for the prospect to visit their web site, place an order, email
with further questions, or take another desired action.
Even seasoned marketers that are keenly aware of the
value of follow up sometimes neglect this crucial activity.
I've been guilty of it at times myself.
Offline follow-up, of course, is more time-consuming and
expensive than online follow up, considering the time and
expense involved in long distance phone and fax calls,
mailing or shipping of marketing materials, and so forth.
Due to its speed and extremely low cost, email could be
considered the ideal follow up marketing tool. However,
without an efficient system for implementing email follow up,
problems can still arise.
WHY THE NEED FOR FOLLOW UP?
It's a fact that most people typically don't buy (or take
other desired action) as a result of an initial marketing
contact, even if they are perfectly targeted, prime
candidates for the offer.
What's more, it's not unusual for some follow up marketing
contacts to generate approximately the same percentage
of sales or other desired action as the initial contact.
There are a variety of things that can prevent prospects from
taking desired action as a result of initial marketing
contact.
For instance, they may....
have forgotten about your offer;
simply be procrastinating for one reason or another;
have misplaced your offer, or in the case of email,
accidentally deleted it;
be swamped with so many other things to do that they
haven't yet found enough time to act;
be distracted by "information overload" or other things in
their very busy lives that they either missed your first contact
entirely, or haven't had time to act on it yet;
not yet have enough information to decide what to do
about your offer;
not have enough money to buy at this time;
haven't yet developed enough trust in you.... or any
number of other reasons.
You've probably heard the following cliche before, but it's
worth repeating: "Marketing is a numbers game." The
greater number of contacts you have with a prospect, the
greater chance they will finally act on your offer.
Different prospects will, of course, be at various stages of
the sales process. Some may be just one follow up contact
away from acting on you offer; other prospects may require
several more contacts before they finally act.
The question is, will you persist at follow up long enough to
motivate your real prospects to act on your offer?
Follow up may seem like a mundane activity, but if you want
maximum sales (online or off), you should seriously consider
implementing a systematic follow up system. Otherwise, you're
probably wasting a significant percentage of resources you
invest to acquire your leads, and are overlooking a gold mine!
FOLLOW UP MARKETING RESOURCE
I've come across a nice desktop application for automating
email follow up, called Postmaster. It either works along with
MS Access 97 (which you may already have), or comes with
its own stand-alone database. It has an excellent
personalization feature, automatic scheduling, and much more.
Check it out at: http://post-master.net/rs/autopilot
Be sure to sign up to get your own Associate’s reseller
Website FREE and get paid for recommending this powerful
software to others.
http://www.post-master.net/rs/autopilot/
About the Author
Michael Taylor
IN JUST MINUTES A DAY
Turn three or four hours of correspondence a day
into a few minutes of work. Harness the true power
of your e-mail communication.
http://www.post-master.net/rs/autopilot/