While it is important to feed your sales pipeline, companies that lack marketing discipline often chase their tails just focusing on new leads, and don’t communicate with existing relationships.
Creating, managing and leveraging a sales database is one of the most proven ways to bring in more revenue for your company.
The leads you already have
I’ll often meet with new clients who want my agency to develop a lead- and sales-acquisition program – and they are prepared to spend advertising dollars to do it. While that’s what I do, my staff and I almost always ask what happens when a new lead comes in. We ask what type of information is collected from the lead, where the lead is routed, and whether the status of the lead/sale is continually tracked through the process, especially if they didn’t buy yet.
Let’s face it, the cost of getting a new lead is expensive. They were acquired through advertising, your search engine marketing efforts, or years of you building awareness. So don’t take these leads for granted. In one way or the other, you paid for them already.
Creating a formalized follow-up and communication program to close more of these deals should be a priority in comparison to spending dollars to bring in new leads. Handle the ones you have first, and talk to them – frequently. Often, that’s what marketing consultants fix first, before telling you to take out the checkbook to buy ads. If not, start asking questions.
Manage your database
Never let a client say I didn’t know you did (or sold) that. By communicating with your database with emails, mailings, events, meetings, learning sessions and other excuses to be top-of-mind with them, you can “sell ’em more stuff.” Growing sales with existing clients is another often missed opportunity. By developing a formalized program to communicate with the people in your database, you can get more share of their wallet and grow your own company’s bottom line.
Create and manage your sales database, and formalize a communication program to speak with that database. That may be free advice, but it will make you money.
