In other words—how can you be persistent without being annoying? Because persistence pays off, and—well—being annoying just makes you annoying.
This post will step you through how, when, and how often you should be connecting with prospects to build relationships and increase sales.
How You Can Contact
There is a whole slew of mediums you can use to contact prospects, and each has a time and place. You have to assess which is the most appropriate.
Email is easiest, quickest, and least invasive, but it’s also the least personal.
Picking up the phone is the exact opposite. You run the risk of catching the client at a bad time, but it’s very personal, making it easier to build a relationship.
Social media is right in between. It’s a touch more personal than an email because you’re connecting via a non-corporate medium like LinkedIn or Twitter, and it’s not quite as invasive.
When You Should Contact
I briefly touched on this above when talking about a phone call—timing is everything.
When you reach out to a contact is just as important as how you do it.
It’s nearly impossible to contact a prospect at the perfect moment, but you can make safe assumptions. Mondays are typically busier, and no one wants to hear a sales pitch on a Friday afternoon. Does your contact even work on Fridays?
Always consider the time difference if your contact is located in a different time zone. You may have to inconvenience yourself to make it more convenient for him/her.
How Often You Should contact
Keep a calendar and always track when and how you reached out to a contact. Have a communication plan.
As a rule of thumb, you should email about once in 5-7 days. Depending on the engagement, you may want to bump that up or scale back.
For other more personal mediums, I would suggest reaching out at least half as much. LinkedIn invites and voicemails get annoying much quicker than a simple email.
Now it’s time to get the most out of those clients' follow-ups.
How do you approach follow-ups with your clients?