Expert Feature: Why the Fortune Really IS in the Follow Up
The Undeniable Truth for All Businesses
There is a problem that you’re facing and it is the one that all businesses face: only a small percentage of any market are ready to buy immediately.
It doesn’t matter what you sell, this is always true.
And that fact leads you to a common problem.
The problem is this: If the only offer you make to your prospects is “buy now,” then you’ll miss the ones who would be willing to buy from you later.
A guy named Jim Obermayer came up with something he calls “The Rule of 45”…
“The Rule of 45 is the basic measurement premise from which you can measure the effectiveness of virtually all lead generation programs. It is a steady, reliable rule which simply says that 45% of all inquiries (not just qualified sales leads), will buy from someone. The timeframe for this purchase is usually, but not always within 12 months. The percent that buys in three months is between 10%-15% and the percent that buys in six months is 26%.”
That means that if you’re ever going to be able to sell to anyone besides the people who are ready to buy right now, then they can only be attained through following up with them.
But the problem with follow-up these days is you need more of it than was needed in the past.
So I believe the challenge is to find a way to follow up enough, build trust, and – at the same time – not appear to be overbearing.
The “7 Marketing Touches” Principle
One well-known marketing principle is that you need, on average, 7 marketing touches before your marketing gets through to someone. That means it takes minimally 7 marketing touches to produce a sale.
I believe this is true today more than ever.
In fact, with how flooded our lives have become with marketing and advertising hitting us from all directions, we probably need much more than 7 touches.
Why? Because with so much information coming at us we’ve learned to block most of it out.
Even if we see an ad, and have interest in what is being offered, we usually will forget about it unless we act on it right away.
The problem is that nowadays we’re all much less trusting of people, businesses, and organizations. We’ve been burned too many times by false promises to believe everyone.
This keeps us from acting on things right away, because we don’t want to look stupid.
We want to wait and find out more about this thing, person, or service. We want to make sure we don’t move too quickly and look stupid.
That’s why multiple marketing touches are needed today.
But the question is: how does a business do that nowadays – without looking pushy and without being drowned out from all the other marketing noise?
Two Solutions Ways to Follow Up Without Being Annoying
1. Content marketing is the perfect way to create these touches.
When you’re providing powerful tips and information, you will keep your prospects engaged and not enraged from you continually hitting them over the head with sales messages.
If you’d like to learn more about how to use content marketing to follow up in ways that aren’t annoying, then sign up here to listen to my audio recording.
It’s called “How to Use Content Marketing to Apply the ‘7 Marketing Touches’ Principle.” (It’s only 6:25 minutes long.)
2. Email marketing is the best way to capture leads who aren’t ready to buy today, but will probably buy in the future.
Offering just a “buy now” offer, without gathering any other follow up information, means that you’re basically letting the majority of your future sales walk away.
That makes no sense. You have people who are interested, just not ready to buy today. 45% of these interested people are going to buy what you offer from someone in the future.
Why not ensure that the person they buy from is YOU?
The best way to do that is by using email marketing.
You can do this by offering them some information that they’d like, in exchange for their email address. (That’s what I did above.)
You can then program multiple follow-up emails to be sent that give more helpful information and allow you to continue the sales conversation.
If you don’t have an email marketing tool that you already use, then consider signing up for Aweber’s FREE Trial below.
It’s the program that I and 120,000 other people use. (Note: I am an affiliate of theirs also, but I won’t get any commission unless you decide you like it and want to pay for it when the free trial is over.)
Photo by polarjez
Related article
- Do You Know These Two Keys To Email Marketing Success? (baybusinesshelp.com)
