Following up on leads and opportunities can take up the majority of a sales rep's business day. From making calls to sending follow-up emails, there are many tasks to perform in order to nurture a prospect.
But this doesn’t have to be the norm. By using the right technology and processes, you can automate many of the follow-up steps.
A study by Drift found that out of 433 companies, only 7% responded to new leads within the first five minutes. This provides a great opportunity for organizations looking to improve their follow-up processes .
Based on automation, let's see how to equip your reps to close more sales and save time at the same time.
Start with your CRM
Your CRM is the heart of your sales strategy and acts as the belgium whatsapp foundational platform for your follow-up system. Without a good CRM to manage sales leads and conversations at scale, your reps will waste a lot of time digging through their inboxes.
A good CRM platform should free you from common administrative tasks, rather than forcing you to do them differently. If you're evaluating different CRM providers, make sure you find one that delivers on the following:
Business Function – Does it help you perform common tasks and achieve specific goals for your organization?
Cost : Does it offer those features within your budget?
Data quality : Does it enrich your data and help you personalize your follow-up messages?
Brand : Does this sound familiar? Does it have a strong presence in the industry and a proven track record?
Scale : Will it be able to handle your growth and expansion plans?
The CRM platform you choose should have the necessary features to automatically follow up with leads. For example, Pipedrive allows you to create workflows that automate various follow-up tasks.
At the very least, your CRM should be able to integrate with tools that automate these tasks. Visit our Marketplace to find out which tools can integrate with Pipedrive.
Knowing when to automate
With the right technology in hand, it's time to automate! But let's take it step by step. First, you need to identify the tasks that don't require you to perform them manually.
Any task that doesn't require your presence should be automated, not just those in the follow-up process. This will allow you and your reps to focus on the tasks that have the highest impact.
Here's a simple process to help you determine what can be automated:
Can it be eliminated? If it is not adding value to your company (or your prospects), it may be best to eliminate it from your sales strategy.
Can it be automated? Not all tasks can be delegated to technology. For example, if it is a type of email that requires a lot of customization, it will be difficult to automate it.
If it can't be automated, can it be delegated? Is it possible to assign the task to someone else?
Once you've put together a list of common follow-up tasks, you can start working on automating them. To do this effectively, you need to know what the triggers and actions are for each task.
For example, when following up on a proposal, the trigger and action could be:
Trigger : Email with proposal sent five days ago
Action : Send new pre-designed email
Act promptly
Sometimes your emails get lost at times when the lead has other priorities. No response doesn't automatically equate to rejection.
So your follow-up sequence should have multiple touchpoints. Consider all eventualities. Maybe they are legitimately busy, or they don't trust you enough yet and need more convincing.
Keep these factors in mind when creating your follow-up emails. A simple four-step sequence might look like this:
Follow-up-1 : A simple message asking them if they have considered your proposal
Follow-up-2 : Similar to above, offering to answer any questions they may have
Follow-up-3 : Offer insights or results you helped an existing client achieve
Follow-up-4 : Share some content that provides information about a specific difficulty
Spread this sequence out over time and chances are your response rate will increase significantly.
Of course, don't overdo it. After about five follow-up emails, a lack of response may mean "no."
If this happens, limit your follow-up emails to one per month. Send them something that prospects find valuable. These are all activities that can be automated.
