Does everyone who calls you book a job? Probably not. And they probably don’t reconsider on their own and call back later, either. If you’re not proactively following up with unconverted leads, you’re leaving money on the table.
Every lead that contacts you costs something — whether it’s ad spend, call center time, or just the opportunity. If you have a process to convert more of them into paying customers, your revenue per lead goes up. So it makes sense to keep the conversation going.
The Manual Way
There are plenty of reasons a prospect doesn’t book the first time. Maybe they were just checking pricing. Maybe your schedule didn’t line up. Maybe they need to save up before committing.
Whatever the reason, they’ll forget about you fast. Hopefully you’re at least sending periodic email campaigns — maybe once a quarter — to remind them who you are, offer a seasonal discount, or highlight a promotion. The cost is next to nothing beyond your time, and even a few conversions make it worth it.
ServiceMinder’s Email Campaigns add-on makes this even easier — no downloading and uploading contact lists.
Getting Automated
Bulk emails are great for casting a wide net. But the best results come from following up close to the point of original contact. If someone reaches out in January and your next email blast isn’t until March, you’ve already lost the window.
What you need is a way to communicate on their timeframe. That’s where ServiceMinder’s Drips add-on comes in.
Drips has two components: Triggers and Campaigns.
A trigger detects when something happens in ServiceMinder — a new contact is added, an appointment is scheduled, a proposal is created. When a trigger fires, it can send an email, create a task, send a notification, or add a tag to a contact.
A campaign sequences those actions over time. This is where marketing automation gets powerful. By adding the time element, you create the effect of an ongoing conversation — automatically.
Some Recipes
Convert more tire-kickers into customers: A prospect calls in but doesn’t schedule. Set up a campaign that sends 2-3 follow-up emails over the next week or two, with progressively better offers. Add a delay before the first email so you don’t message someone who’s still on the phone booking. One trigger starts the campaign when a contact is added as a prospect. A second trigger stops the campaign if they schedule an appointment. For prospects who do book — nothing happens. For those who don’t — you’ve got an automated follow-up running in the background.
Get more conversions from proposals: ServiceMinder sends open-proposal reminders, but that may not be enough to tell your full story. Create a campaign that sends a series of emails describing your value, how the project improves their home, or why your brand is the right choice. Trigger it when a proposal is created. Stop it when the proposal converts or an appointment is scheduled. Spread the emails out over whatever timeframe makes sense for your business.
Automate Your Marketing
Drips lets you set all of this up once and let it run. You can probably pay for it with just one extra conversion per month — and you’ll likely get a lot more than that.
