Sales Tips

How to warm up cold leads?

August 29, 2018

5 min.

Nothing is more frustrating than a potential hot lead turning cold. Unfortunately, it happens to even the best sales agents, with the best sales process available to them. A lead can turn cold at any point of the sales process, and no matter when it occurs it is still equally frustrating. But, just because a lead goes cold, does not mean all hope is lost. In fact, with the right approach, it is entirely possible to reheat your cold leads back into hot leads. Particularly in the summer, when business naturally slows down, specifically targeting cold leads is a great way to boost your team’s productivity. If you are looking to to re-engage previously existing leads, but are unsure of the best way to go about it without being a nuisance, follow these few simple tricks. With the right strategy your team can turn just about any missed or potential opportunity into a hot and eventually closed lead.

1. Casually Remind Cold Lead Why They Connected

The first step would be one of the most obvious: simply reconnect and re-engage with the lead. However, instead of simply just saying hello, provide context to the interaction. You want to reconnect to remind the lead who you are, and utilize this previous information and context to refresh their memories. One of the easiest ways to keep track of all of your cold lead interactions would be to set a status for cold leads in your sales funnel. More in-depth information will come in handy as well, like the best time of day to contact each individual lead, and even a previous history of interactions. This context will help your agent remind the lead exactly what your business does, how the previous interactions ended, and why they were even interested in the first place. You should also always strive to end your conversations on a positive note, to leave a positive impression in the lead's mind. This will give your agents the leg up when they attempt to reconnect: the lead won't feel bothered or annoyed to hear back from your team. Context also helps provide a personal interaction, which we will get into next.

2. Provide Personal Interactions and Offers to Cold Leads

A critical element of the customer experience and their expectations is a personalized experience. No matter how your agent will engage with the cold lead, they should strive to provide a personalized experience in anyway possible. Studies have shown that the more personable you are with a customer or client, the more likely that individual is to make a purchase or carry through with the sales process. This falls in-line with our tip to utilize context. Greet the customer by name, note the last time you spoke, and reference and address the individual’s specific needs or questions as noted in your CRM solution. Beyond simply reaching out with context and a personalized email, however, your team should also strive to provide personalised offers. For example, if your last note with that lead states that they had a concern with pricing, send a promotional offer with a lower price for a limited time. If the lead was looking at a specific product, promote that individual solution as opposed to an entire platform they might not need. Focus on what the lead needs, and not necessarily making the biggest sale.

3. Don’t Spam, But Try More Than One Channel

When connecting with a cold lead, it is important to reach out to them in a number of different ways. It is suggested that you use at least three different forms of contact when attempting to get the point across that you would like to reconnect. The best methods of communication to utilize would of course be a phone call, an email, and even social media engagement. A short 10 second phone call or message will let the client know you are interested without being too much of a bother. If using email, keep the content short and concise and end the email with your own name, and even contact information, adding to the personalization of the experience. Setup DMARC for your email domain so that your emails look more credible and do not end up in spam. Now, we must be very careful when attempting to reconnect with a cold lead. What could be a sincere approach could easily be seen as an annoyance or spam by the potential lead. Weigh the different approaches carefully to find a mix of what you feel will work best for your specific leads.

4. End Every Interaction With a Call-To-Action Prompt

In all of your attempts to reconnect with the consumer, you should include a clear and concise call-to-action. This could include a phone number to call back, or a link at the bottom of an email to sign up for another sales call or product demonstration. You want to not only encourage the lead to re-engage on their own terms, but remind them of what it is your solution does and how it can help them. Make it super easy for the cold lead to get back in touch with your agent, and re-enter into the sales process without much hassle. Provide them with the information they need to decide, and resources then can utilize to learn more. For example, point customers in the direction of online reviews or testimonials so they can better understand how the solution works and how satisfied other users are. You do not want to just remind the consumer that you exist, but also provide them with call-to-action prompts to re-engage in the process.

The Bottom Line

Just because a lead goes cold does not mean it is completely dead. You should never let cold leads sit on the back burner to fade away into the void. In fact, you should strive to reconnect with cold leads at least once every six months, or even more often if possible. At the end of the day, the best way to keep track of your cold leads is to organize and segment the customer data in your CRM solution. Your team will then be better equipped with the proper context, information and details necessary to re-engage these cold leads on a personal level.

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Matt Grech

Matt Grech is a technology journalist @ GetCRM focused on business communications solutions and just about anything B2B related.

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