It was recently my pleasure to interview via webinar Craig Elias, author of SHiFT!, and renowned guru on all things sales, but in particular the theory of "trigger events". Trigger events start buyers on new buyer journeys - if we can recognise or even better CAUSE trigger events then we give birth to new sales opportunities, WELL in advance of our competitors knowing about them!
Over the coming weeks, we'll be writing up various components of the interview - expanding on Craig's comments - and giving you links to the various literature he mentions.
To start things off - Craig made some very interesting comments on how best to follow up when a prospect downloads a piece of content - perhaps from your website, or maybe via the landing page associated with your recent email blast.
Via the link at the end of this article you can hear Craig for yourself - but by way of summary he made the following excellent points:
- When building a form/landing page - the critical questions you need to ask are:
- Name
- Phone
- How did you hear about this resource
- Once someone fills in a form and downloads your content, you MUST call them within 5 minutes(!)
- Craig referenced The Lead Response Management Study - carried out by Kellogg/MIT - that informs that the chances of contacting and hence qualifying a lead in 5 minutes is 21 TIMES GREATER than doing it in 30 minutes
- Craig also referred to Aaron Ross's work around Predictable Revenue
- So - once someone has downloaded your content - your have 5 minutes to call them. What do you say? Craig's advice is:
- State that you're following up on them filling in the form - and you have 3 quick questions, so can you take 2 minutes of their time(?)
- Question 1 - "Did you get the email that has the link to the resource you were looking for?"
- Question 2 - "How did you hear about this resource?" OR "What about this resource caught your attention?"
- Question 3 - "I am curious - what happened recently that made this resource more important/relevant to you?"
What you're listening for as you ask these questions is to determine where on the buyer journey the prospect is ie are they:
- Calm
- Their status quo is shattered ie they're in the "window of dissatisfaction"
- They're searching for solutions/alternatives
So - having determined where they are on their journey - what's the CTA (Call To Action)?
Based on information gathered - you may offer to send them a new resource to advance them on their buyer journey - or ultimately you may offer them some sort of "scoping study", wherein you can fully analyse their situation, and make specific recommendations.
So - are you responding to content downloads within 5 minutes? And are you then asking the 3 key follow up questions? Click on the link below to hear the relevant part of the interview with Craig.
Craig Elias - Following Up a Form Download
