The Short Life of the Online Lead

By: Brandy Haslam, MBA – So you’ve done just about everything to bring in leads to your business. You’ve hired a top-notch marketing agency, Image Bloom, Inc., and forked over the cash to ensure the success of your marketing campaigns. Online leads are coming in hot and you are waving the flag of success.

But what happens to those leads once they’ve reached your team?

Data throughout the years has given us some pretty startling statistics regarding the very short life of the online lead.  A more recent study of 1.25 million sales leads from hundreds of top companies showed that customers that were contacted within one hour were seven times more likely to convert than those contacted even just an hour later. Waiting 24 hours or longer drastically reduces the chances of contacting and converting the lead. Most surprising for us as a marketing agency is the fact that the average response time by phone is around 37 hours. A costly mistake for a business of any type.

The bottom line?  Obtaining leads through successful marketing efforts is only step one. In order to successfully connect and convert those leads, there has to be a plan in place to ensure that once leads get to you, they are contacted promptly and diligently.

Another important practice that we like to tell our clients is that if you are not able to reach the lead on the first attempt, don’t give up! Make at least three attempts to reach each lead by phone and send a follow-up email.  Try calling at different times of the day and leave a nice voice message each time.

If you have questions about good lead follow-up and documentation practices, Give us a call or send us your info here.