Prospects are a precious commodity, and so is time. All uses of time are not always time well spent. And all pursuit of prospects does not always yield a good result. You know these facts, of course. And they prompt the inevitable questions from marketers about how to generate not just leads, but leads that will convert into sales.
One place this issue arises most is online. We know how easy it can be for a prospect to shoot off an email and request additional information. Takes less commitment than making a phone call. So your online marketing efforts can yield the price-shoppers as well as those who are thinking about doing something toward home improvement – if it all works out, if they get around to it, somewhere in the range of the next two to five years.
These are the ones that are just trying to get a gauge, take a temperature, figure out what it might cost… the home maintenance equivalent of tire kickers. So they shoot off an email. But it’s going to take putting a persuasive human face in front of them to get them to move to Step B.
So how can you get your team of faces in front of the right prospects? You’ll need strategic and timely tactics, such as:
Map out the customer’s life cycle – Envision what it would take to get an online inquiry to become a prospect, schedule an appointment, close the sale, become a returning customer, a loyal customer… then envision the different marketing pieces that would be needed to persuade the customer to start that cycle.
Create a lead-capturing website – Strengthen your website content and offers to make clear how you can solve prospect problems and to compel them to respond. Let this be a place where your advertising sends leads, and make sure leads are enticed by what they see. Use forms to grab names and contact info with no-pressure language such as “Free estimate. No obligation whatsoever. Read what our happy customers are saying.”
Start the sequential email – After you get the inquiry online, be prepared to send out a series of emails to draw the prospect deeper into the sales cycle. With each, always encourage the prospect to call your company. And when the call comes in, get it to the CSR who has a scripted but natural method to …
Qualify your prospects – Here’s where you make your time and effort pay off, by focusing your in-person time on the ones most likely to pay. Develop a process for quickly assessing who is most likely to do business with you. This will involve finding prospects who have a need for your product/service relatively soon; have the funds to pay for your service; and are decision-makers for their household (not that you’ll get a lot of preteens calling to ask about HVAC maintenance … but still, a qualified prospect must have the power to say yes).
Developing a system for qualifying prospects will involve defining your target market, which includes such factors as demographics, location, household income, etc. This system will also include assessing need, time frame for buying and ability to buy – both in terms of financial status as well as decision-making authority.
Add in an adequate grading system, and you can evaluate your prospects based on the probability of making a sale. The point is to make sure you are able to send your team to the homes most likely to prove the right solution for your valuable time/resources equation – and, ultimately, convert into sales.