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Leads represent potential work to a business, and shifting circumstances, team capacity or significant changes within a business can cause a lead to be lost or go cold.
However, if the lead is cold, that doesn’t always have to mean that the opportunity to work with that particular person is lost.Re-engaging leads and taking steps to revitalise leads that run the risk of being lost can help businesses access work and revenue that could have otherwise fallen by the wayside.
What causes leads to be lost?
Leads can be lost in a number of ways, including:
- Poorly-defined processes
- Failing to communicate
- Communicating the wrong information
- Misplacing leads and therefore losing contact
- Staff ignoring leads
- Prioritising leads poorly
It’s important to be aware of any issues that might exist within your sales process and lead management. Refining these processes and eliminating different behaviours and issues can help to create a sales process that is a lot more focussed on engaging and retaining your sales leads.
Use tracking to find potentially lost leads
Lead tracking can help you to identify which leads have run cold or not been picked up.
Look for leads that haven’t been in contact for a while, haven’t responded to their most recent communications or have potentially been overlooked early on in the sales process. Better still, implement automation within your lead management platform that will control this process for you.
These are good indicators that these leads could be picked back up and re-engaged. This also allows you to identify areas where your lead tracking and sales processes might be falling short, especially if there is a large volume of leads in this situation.
How to re-engage leads
The best way of re-engaging lost leads will vary depending on the state the lead is in.
If the lead hasn’t responded to an email or any communication, then trying to get in touch to see if there is still a level of interest is a good start. You’d be surprised how many emails will either be accidentally deleted or end up in the SPAM folder, so do persevere – often a follow-up phone call is the best approach here.
A lead that has been overlooked or ignored might need a more delicate approach. It might be helpful to gauge any frustration on their part for being in that situation before working to identify if there is still any level of interest. Additionally, you should expect that they have received a response from your competition – so build this into your follow-up and don’t act surprised if they tell you this.
You might find that you have a lead that hasn’t engaged with your business via email or the other methods you’ve used. Is there an option you haven’t tried? Perhaps you’ve attempted contact at the wrong times or in the wrong ways. Often SMS is a great method for warming-up a lead as you can ask questions that require a very simple answer, such as “what time is best to contact you” and they can quickly reply.
Helping you on re-engaging lost leads
Identifying leads which have been lost or are potentially going cold is vital for any business looking to increase their sales effectiveness. Whether you paid to acquire these leads or they naturally found your business, a lead is someone who is potentially interested in your goods or services.
Understanding the value of each potential lead and tracking their progress accurately can help you and your team stay informed of the stage each lead is at, ensuring they are able to act accordingly.
FLG’s dedicated software can help make lead management easier to handle, which, in turn, helps your team focus their efforts on the best possible leads to pursue. Our toolset can:
- Efficiently process leads to help a team follow up and achieve more sales
- Integrate with other software platforms, including Trello, MailChimp, Quickbooks, and Campaign Monitor
- Use powerful workflows to automate call centre sales processes
If you’d like to learn more about FLG and how it can integrate with the rest of your business, take a look at our Intelligent Workflows page.
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