How to Follow Up with Prospects and Clients More Effectively

It’s one thing to attract new people to your business initially… it’s quite another to keep their interest over time and cultivate a professional relationship with them. As such, it is important that you look beyond pure engagement… past the sizzle, so to speak… when communicating with your audience.

You also need to consider how you should follow up on your engagement efforts to reach a sale and how to keep these new clients engaged with your services and interacting with you long afterward. Let’s discuss a few strategies you may consider in your attempts to do just that.

What Can Be Considered Follow-Up in Sales?

Let’s say you sell Widget X, a new technology intended to solve a problem most businesses struggle with in their day-to-day operations. You’ve done a good job spreading the word so far, with many prospects reaching out to learn more or downloading resources from your website. This is a good thing—it shows you that your marketing efforts are successful.

However, you must follow up with those you interact with to maintain this success. Send an additional email to push your desired outcome, give them a call, and prompt them to continue the conversation. Otherwise, interest in Widget X is apt to wane as your prospects go unanswered. As a result, you must follow up with these prospects to encourage them to communicate with you further and progress down your marketing funnel.

Let’s review a few ways to optimize your efforts in doing so.

How to Unite Sales and Marketing Through Effective Follow-Up Strategies

First and foremost, it is essential that you properly time any form of follow-up you utilize. A business intelligence tool can help you use your collected data to determine when your audience will most likely be receptive to your messaging. Once you establish this, you can do a lot to encourage new opportunities.

Draft Templates for Different Circumstances

There are tons of variables and events that can warrant unique communications. Therefore, it pays to have these communications written and ready to go when appropriate. Have messages to send after someone makes a purchase, after meeting with them, after you’ve left a voicemail, and even after you’ve sent a few follow-up emails already. With these drafts prepared and only needing minor tweaks before being sent, you can save a ton of time moving forward.

This also makes it easier to standardize the amount of time between your attempts to reach out. As you do so, make sure you customize these marketing touches before sending them out to keep them pertinent to the audience you are addressing, both in content and format.

Communicate with the Parties Subject to Your Follow-Ups

In other words, standard operating procedures should be established early in the relationship. By communicating that you want to work with them as effectively as possible, you express that you respect their time and want to be proactive in interacting with them.

You also need to be prompt with your follow-ups. Don’t make your contacts wait to hear back, even if it's just an acknowledgement that you have received their message and will communicate again soon (which, of course, you should follow through with as well), the same day of your meetings or a submitted inquiry. Not only will this imply to your contacts that you already have a plan for handling their needs, but it also reinforces how important communication will be throughout your professional relationship.

Provide Value at Every Opportunity

Using all your communications to push a sale can be highly tempting. Resist this temptation, and instead focus on delivering value with everything you send. Offer free advice and resources at every turn, sharing them on your website for download and commenting on social media. Host free events and share case studies that help show your prospects what their needs are and how you can address them, inviting your contacts to take advantage of them with no expectations. If you’ve given them enough reason to, they’ll be inclined to continue communicating with you to see what else you offer.

Take Advantage of Analytics Tools

With all the data your business should be tracking throughout its operations, you can crunch some numbers and identify what you’ve done that has been most effective. This information will give you the data to improve your marketing over time by identifying what works and what doesn’t, enabling you to adjust and redeploy your efforts.

Ensure Your Departments are Collaborating

A successful follow-up strategy should involve your sales and marketing teams working in tandem to support and keep each other on track. Both will be critical to your success as you work to follow up and cultivate your relationships with these prospects and clients. It also helps to maintain communications with multiple people within a prospective client to ensure that you remain top of mind.

Need Help Shaping Your MSP Marketing Efforts, from First Touch to Follow-Up and Beyond?

We’re here to help! Call us at 888-546-4384 to learn more about what we can help you accomplish in promoting your business and its success. Give us a call or schedule a meeting to learn more.