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featureed image Published 2015-10-09, by Josh Harcus

Don't Let Cold Leads Freeze Over – 3 Tips To Help Heat Things Up


In the sales world, it's accepted that not all leads will end in a conversion. It happens. People get disinterested, lose your contact information, you name it, and suddenly their hot lead has turned oh so cold. So, how do you help to heat things up?

SEE ALSO: 3 Tools that will Supercharge Your Indirect Sales Team

Reminders

It may seem obvious, but it is overlooked all too often. Send your leads a reminder every so often. It doesn't need to be anything special, you aren't starting from square one trying to sell them on your product, you're instead targeting the leads that fully intended on becoming a customer but forgot to pull the trigger, or that lost your previous contact information. 

A second reminder is also recommended. While it probably won't be as successful as the first, a second one allows you to grab those last stragglers that procrastinated getting your product during the initial contact and your reminder. If that fails, it's up to you to decide if third, fourth, or even fifth reminders are warranted. Many a good sales story can be told about the prospect who closed after the X infinity followup, so use your best judgment. Lead management can help a lot with the process of issuing reminders.

Promotional Prices

Balancing promotional prices for cold leads can be a little tricky. They are great at motivating a cold lead to heat up, but constant use of major promotional prices can lead to perspective clients intentionally becoming one of those cold leads just to capitalize on the extra savings. Do an internet searches and you'll see sites devoted to this practice, and while it does get you some profit, getting on those lists limits your potential.

A good range for a promotional price is around 10% off. Those prices won't cause people to line up to become cold leads, but will help you motivate those that do run cold to warm up and convert.

Cold lead promotional prices also address those leads that weren't quite set on making a purchase to begin with. It provides them a little bit more motivation, and that extra motivation can put them over the line from a warm lead to a hot one, ready to make your product part of their life.

Holiday Cards

While it may seem like something stolen out of the pages of a 50's marketing book, holiday greeting cards sent through snail mail are actually a good way to address cold leads. They attack the two different issues that can separate you from competition:

First, they provide a reminder. We've already gone through the benefits of a reminder, but a physical one like a card is not subject to that pesky delete button, and can thus act as a reminder for quite some time without any added expense on your end.

Second, people in this day and age are familiar with getting nothing but bills and junk in the mail. Seeing something that isn't either one of them, sent specifically to them, lets them know that you consider them special. It's a way you can show you go out of your way to make them feel good, and that is a wonderful feeling to get out of a marketing operation.

Final Thoughts

It's important to remember when dealing with cold leads that they aren't necessarily cold because they don't want your product. You don't always need to resell them on your product, but rather simply remind them that you exist.

Because they haven't converted yet, they don't have any form of brand loyalty. You may not be a household name to them yet, they just simply need a little nudge in your direction again so that they can develop that brand loyalty that will cause them to become repeat customers.

So worry not, sales people. A cold lead doesn't need to be considered a dead lead. It just needs to be heated up a little, and that isn't terribly hard to accomplish if you follow these simple tips.

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