Sales follow-up is an essential part of any successful marketing campaign. As its literal meaning suggests, follow-up is simply pursuing your customer after the primary pitch. It doesn’t sound too complicated.

But, the next obvious question that arises in your mind is, perhaps, ‘pursuing customers for what?’

You need to pursue customers to take specific actions – any actions that you want them to take. It can go from signing up for email alerts or a free webinar to buying your product.

When running a marketing campaign, your primary goal is sales, and sales will only increase if the customers take actions that lead them to buy your product. A sales follow-up precisely motivates the potential customer to do something.

According to an Invesp study, 80% of sales need five follow-up calls, and 60% of customers reject products or services four times before accepting them. But unfortunately, many people neglect this being unaware of its importance. The same study shows that 48% of salespeople never even make a single follow-up attempt.

Therefore, it is vital to do sales follow-ups to create and retain long-term partnerships. It entails a straightforward communication attempt to evaluate consumer interest, comprehends their challenges, and determine their core needs for which they may be seeking a solution. 

Salespeople will never grasp their product’s fit for clients until they follow up with the prospect to learn these details. Furthermore, if they don’t follow up, they might never hear about some of the most typical reasons for customer loss.

 

6 Tactics For Effective Follow-Up

 

You must have realized that adequate follow-up is critical in the sales strategy to increase revenue from existing customers, referrals, and new clients. Let’s learn the six most crucial parts of follow-up methods to skyrocket your sales.

1. Try And Experiment With Lots of Methods

So you have written your prospect two or three follow-up emails and received no response. It may be the time to call. If you keep calling and they are always too busy to speak with you, you might be better off sending an email instead.

Don’t limit yourself to only phone and email. It will not be attainable for you to track down someone on every possible channel, but if you’re linked on a professional platform like LinkedIn, there’s no reason you can’t utilize it to follow up.

In summary, if you’re not sure what someone prefers, experiment with several techniques of follow-up. People communicate in various ways, and what catches one person’s attention may be overlooked by another.

On the other hand, follow their instructions if someone specifies a specific mode of communication. You’ll lose their business if you keep calling a prospect after stating that they prefer to conduct all business via email.

2. Write Captivating Emails

While it is true that one should experiment with distinctive methods, it is undeniable that emails play a vital role in the follow-up process. 

An Invesp statistic shows that 70% of salespeople give up after delivering just one email. You have a 25% chance of hearing back if you send additional emails.

Most follow-up emails are sent to buyers while they are still in the awareness stage (unless they have already heard of your business). When the first follow-up arrives, 81% of prospects aren’t ready to speak with a salesperson.

You can only assure that your potential clients remember you when they are ready to buy by sending frequent follow-ups. After all, if you think about something regularly, you’re more inclined to do anything about it. 

But remember that this does not imply sending them a reminder three times a day, but instead sending them timely messages that ask great questions and deliver value.

3. Be Consistent

Don’t give up if you haven’t received a response from your first phone and email combination; wait two days and try again. This time, concentrate on solving an issue that your product or service addresses. 

Is there still no response? Wait two days before contacting them again. In a non-irritated tone, your third message reiterates that you’ve tried contacting twice before and offers more information. Strategic follow-up with someone who is not getting back to you can fetch positive outcomes.

You can include one or two relevant pieces from your blog in this email that address a problem you believe they’re having. Make it evident that you’re available to schedule a conversation to discuss their objectives based on your knowledge.

4. Do Sales Follow-Up Calls

A follow-up call is an essential aspect of the sales process. It’s more complex than making a cold call because you may run out of options on a sales follow-up call. 

The importance of follow-up after a sales call or meeting is paramount. This has the potential to build a relationship with the prospect and learn more about their difficulties and situation by asking relevant inquiries. Show genuine interest in assisting them.

Don’t get your relationship off to a bad start. Improve your follow-up call and make your call on time. You are not supposed to be late with your follow-up call, not even by a fraction of a second. The promptness and respect you demonstrate reflect on you, your company, and your products on a follow-up call.

Even if you are unable to close the sale, you will have a more extensive information base from which to better additional service prospects in their buying cycle.

5. Always Invite Opportunities

Speaking with previous customers who have previously purchased may appear to be a waste of time, but it is actually the key to future purchases. Regular interaction will aid in understanding their needs, provide suggestions for product enhancements, and pave the way for a complementary product to be offered.

By establishing a relationship with a client, you are going beyond a basic transaction and providing yourself the option to offer the client other products or services.

Also, always ask for recommendations from the customers. Pleased customers will always recommend your product or service to their friends, coworkers, and other associates. 

When someone who has really utilized your services or product makes a recommendation, it adds an added degree of legitimacy and confidence.

6. Evaluate And Analyze

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for a sales follow-up template that will work for all clients. Many elements influence it, such as the length of your subject line, the number of questions you’ve asked, and the emojis you used. 

Almost half of the email receivers open emails only based on the subject line.

As a result, in order to achieve the best results, you must figure out what works best for you!

For example, when it comes to cold email follow-up, X/Y testing is excellent. The objective is to send 1000 emails, half of which will have one subject line and the other will have another. 

After that, you can evaluate which formulation was the most successful and employ it in the future.

 

Conclusion

Many salespeople don’t contact or follow up after a sale. This is due to their concern of upsetting the prospect, being labeled a spammer, or even losing a possible transaction due to excessive follow-up.

You could even be hesitant to inquire further if you get a firm “no.” But you need to know something: a firm “no” is a gift. It means you can check that prospect off your list, save time, and go on to someone interested in what you have to offer.

Also, remember that while persistence is essential in sales, being unpleasant is always an option. You can elicit a response without being annoying if you stay nice, schedule your touches, commit to engaging in the relationship, and explore multiple communication mediums.

Meanwhile, do not miss out on implementing our tips to get more positive replies. If you start to think of follow-up as a component of developing a relationship with a potential client, you’ll realize its importance and stop being terrified of it.

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