Whipping Your Lead Follow-Up System Into Shape Doesn’t Have To Hurt.
Unless you like it that way.
I can feel your pain.
I got my own latticework of scars, each with a story behind it, of enthusiastically getting new leads and faithfully following up with them to develop our relationships of trust until they would just hop on the phone in a few months or a few years, ask a few low-hurdle questions that screamed, “I’m about to hire you,” then magically transform themselves into A BRAND NEW CLIENT!
In my real estate brokerage career, which occurred in pre-internet days, I sent 8000 personalized direct snail mail pieces on the 1st of each month. Investors came to depend on my hard, specific market info while other brokers merely carpet-bombed them with “Please Pick Me” sales pitches. By 10:30am, the 8000 entered letter carrier sacks, and by 1:30pm, people were hopping on the phone and transforming themselves into new clients in order to watch me transmute their property into glittering gold.
Apparently, I love it when it hurts, because I did it all myself. But I would have been hurting without the system I created. If you’re going to travel the high (volume) road, you need a system, a machine. But you can always travel the low (volume) road.
I reveal that next week, so watch your email inbox.
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I tried the direct snail mail approach long ago, and it took me almost a week to gt out a tiny fraction of your number. Even without a system, you must have been doing something remarkable to get 8,000 pieces of mail stuffed in envelopes, labeled, stamped, and sealed that fast. Even starting at 6AM, that’s 2 seconds per piece for 4-1/2 hours without a second’s pause.
How did you do that without a system, and even more interesting, how did you get the letters from the mail carrier sack at 10:30am to being delivered, opened, read, and processed by 1:30pm?
The key to the system is not to do it all at once. Mailing 8000 pieces on one day means he probably spent several days photocopying and stuffing. It’s manageable if you only have to do it once a month.
Ian and Tony: The Postal Service has a remarkable system, and I took advantage of it to see my local mail delivered in 3.5 hours (or less). It’s called carrier route presort, and is the cheapest rate. The mail is not processed by them, but by you. They spot-check 0.1% or less, then your mail goes directly to each postal carrier.
The key was that I had a system and, although I did the work myself, it took only 8 hours from start to finish and only took a fraction of my time. Keep in mind each piece had information unique to that property owner: their name and property. The system involved merging hundreds of databases, then printing them out in the order for the postal carrier bags, printing the envelopes out in the same order, stuffing and sealing them, processing them for the post office, and delivering them to the special unit of the post office. There was no stamping nor photocopying involved. Also keep in mind that I had a special program to merge all the databases, and purchased $13,000 of special equipment to handle the paper (high-speed printer with double high-capacity trays, and a folder/stuffer/sealer). The laser toner cartridges alone cost $450 per month (about 6 cents per mailed piece).
Everyone: have you ever seen manufacturing operations to produce items in the millions (such as 2-liter soda bottles or chewing gum) profiled on the History Channel? That’s a system.
Although I have never seen that system in person for printing, folding, stuffing and all presorted, I have heard of it. Sorting right down to the individual letter carrier is definitely possible and brilliant in time and money saving.
Applying that to the internet is actually similar. An autoresponder can be set up to not only send out specific e-mails at certain times of day but also which day. Taking it a step further, a specific type of mail can be sent according to triggers. These triggers can be:
1-new sign-up
2-confirmation for double opt-in
3-congratulations; here is your free download
4-or here is your purchased product after a payment action was taken
5-here are your bonus links or downloads because you did such and such
6-an offer is repeated after 3 days, then 7 days then 10, 7, 10, 7 days if no action of purchase was made
7-a one-time-offer whether one action was made or a different OTO if no action occurred
8 follow ups for actions taken or not taken with different offers
9-each auto send is dependent on the original sign-up date
10-not every mailing should be an offer; free info or products build trust and eventually bring sales
11- timing is everything and so are anti spam laws; include unsubscribe option and privacy statements each time
12-another 100 ways to use an autoresponder
Bill,
Great job in describing the features of autoresponders very well.
For you folks who’ve only known “autoresponders” as “vacation messages for your email,” autoresponders use technology to automate your follow-on messages. “Triggers” are follow-up actions taken based on what a subscriber or customer does. Think of a salesperson doing their followups. Technology automates this.
In a later post, I’ll describe how to use autoresponders easily, powerfully, and effectively.