Lead Love

5 Mistakes Resellers Make Early On That Scare Leads Away

Valentine’s Day is here and in many ways, dating and following up with B2B leads and prospects have a lot in common.

As marketers venture further and further towards revenue marketing (or at least marketing automation), here’s some insights into the 5 mistakes resellers make when following up and how to appropriately follow up with B2B leads/prospects.

1. Desperate Creep

Have you ever filled out a form online to download something and 2 seconds later, you see an email asking to schedule a meeting or conversation?

There’s three ways leads can feel about this.

  1. They think you’re desperate and annoying.
  2. They think you’re interesting and cool.
  3. They don’t care.

Generally, it’s best to avoid the first and third.

So the question is then, how do you come off as interesting and cool so the lead wants to interact with you?

As marketers, make sure you communicate the calls to action to your sales team when you pass on form submissions.  If someone fills out a form to download a whitepaper, a call isn’t necessary.  Now, if someone fills out a form to be contacted to set-up a meeting… sales can’t pick up the phone fast enough!

That said, there is a way to follow up without being a creep. This is related to the next point.

2. All you think about is… selling

After all, that’s the whole point of business right, closing the deal?

Wrong.

Doing business is a lot like relationships. If you don’t really care about your leads, it will come off in your talk track, landing pages, white papers, and other marketing collateral.

Your leads will feel this and this will make it very difficult to establish any sort of trust and loyalty.

No trust, no sale.

No loyalty, no repeat sales.

3. Being unsure of yourself

When marketing is unsure of itself (like it doesn’t know where it’s going), it’s unrealistic to expect the lead to just magically go through your sales funnel and end up at the ready state of buying.

Also, while it may sound logical to just go for the low hanging fruit of people ready to buy, the problem is that the majority of marketers are already doing that. Unless you have major brand power then most likely when the lead is ready to buy, they’ll just come to you for a price quote.

But when you have the sales funnel mapped out and your marketing content is in sync with it, you’re in control.

You’re “leading the lead” through the sales cycle.

4. Always show-up with Flowers and Chocolate, or Relevant Content.

Regardless of being a male or female, it’s always a good rule to show-up with a gift for your date.  In the same way, marketers need to provide their leads with relevant content!  If you send an email or direct mail piece that talks about your business, an offer, but has no way for them to interact and learn more, then you’re not getting a second date.

Include multiple ways for your leads to interact with your campaign… phone numbers, email addresses, website links, blog links… anything that the lead can do to stay in the mindset of being a self-directed buyer.  Your marketing “gifts” will pay dividends when they are ready to speak to a sales person.

5. Calling the next day

This point is a bit different than the first. It may be marketing and sales 101, but when a lead proactively reaches out (via form submission, a phone call, an email) and asks for something, make sure you do so!

By sending them a campaign, the implication is you’re ready to answer a question at their beckoning need. Your follow-up should be within minutes or hours, not days.

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