For most B2B businesses one of the constant challenges is how to create new sales opportunities. The key is to make sure there is a continuous stream of potential new customers and that they are converted into a sale as early as possible. Sometimes in life, it can be sensible to wait before making the first move and to not appear over eager and potentially too aggressive. However, the same logic often doesn’t apply in the B2B world of sales.
The go-to response for a lot of companies dealing with new contacts that have subscribed or land on their website is simply to add them to an email database to receive a campaign that might be sent at some future date. It’s not that this isn’t a viable response, it works, and it works well. The problem is that it takes a lot longer to see results than getting in touch straight away. There are actually a few reasons why you shouldn’t delay.
Firstly, the statistics speak for themselves. It is estimated that only 37% of companies get in touch with contacts within the first hour, these companies are already seven times more likely to have a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker than those doing so even an hour later. It’s hard to say exactly what is driving these statistics, but it might have something to do with the short attention span of people in the business world and their workload volume. Consequently, sales people need to move rapidly. In fact, research has shown that 35-50% of closed deals can be attributed to the providers that got in contact with customers before their competitors.
If it proves difficult to contact a website lead, there are a couple of options to overcome this challenge.
Firstly, try emailing them, although there is the risk getting lost in the mass of other emails (with business inboxes receiving an average of 90 emails per day). It can be a good idea to aim for an eye-catching subject line to grip contacts, but with the average inbox attention span lasting only five seconds, this still might not save the email from being ignored. The other option is to leave a well-planned and thought-out voicemail. It can be a lot more personal and is a lot less widely done, so if it’s done right, it might have the desired impact.
But when calling a company or office, it’s not just ‘missing the contact’ that could stand in the way. There is a risk of getting stopped by a gatekeeper who may refuse to pass the call through to the key decision maker too. With software that can tell you exactly who it is that should be contacted, it becomes easier to achieve the desired leads.
Something to remember about getting in touch promptly with contacts is that even if they aren’t interested in a sales pitch straight away, it’s a great way to start a relationship and help build the brand. Some 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy, so it’s important to find out what they are interested in. That way a company can continue to intrigue them until they decide they want to buy.
Due to a lack of nurturing campaigns, 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. It’s also surprising that, with nurturing emails getting a considerably times higher response rate than an average email blast, 65% of B2B marketers aren’t using lead nurturing. Whilst it might seem like a company is coming across as too eager, generally getting in contact right away is more beneficial to its business. The advice is to let the contact guide the conversation, and if it’s felt that they aren’t ready yet it doesn’t do any harm in waiting. Even if it’s decided not to sell straight away, the initial call can help to start a loyal relationship with leads early on.