Best practices for follow up after a Folloze campaign

 

You don’t have to be in marketing or sales to know that a person who read your article is more interested in your product than a person who didn’t. In smarketing terms, a lead who is engaged has a higher propensity to buy than a lead who is not engaged. However, how do you harness that engagement and follow up in an effective way, one that gets you closer to that sales meeting or next step in the deal? The purpose of this article is to give guidelines on follow up with your leads or contacts based on their engagement with your Folloze campaigns. Please note the campaigns spread across multiple email touch points, follow up will have to happen in between and at the end.

 

As a reminder, when people engage with your boards, they fall into 3 main categories:

1. Clickers - clicked an action button on the board. These are people who actively raised their hand and showed interest. This also triggers an email alert that is sent to you.In that case, Folloze will also send you an email right away.
2. Viewers - looked at different content pieces on the board. We call “Viewers” the ones who viewed 1 or 2 items, and “Super Viewers” are those who looked at 3 or more items.
3. Visitors - landed on the Folloze board, maybe spent some time on it, but didn’t peruse the content.

 

Now that we’re on the same page, let’s dive right in:

 

1. Who to follow up with?

Probably the most annoying answer to this question is “it depends”, but it really does. It depends on the success of your campaign and the number of people who engaged. Our own Account Development Reps (ADRs) are telling us that if a lot of people responded to the campaign, then they will prioritize the clickers first, then viewers, and often leave the visitors alone. However, when response is  weak, they will call the visitors too. They approach a follow up call to a visitor the same as they would a cold call.

 

Also, it's good practice to call in between emails, and even leave a message (see below), as it can draw more attention to your next email. They will get used to your digital presence and more likely engage.

 

A few technical notes:

 

• when someone spends a few seconds on a Folloze board, it usually means they looked at the board as a whole and got a little curious, but not enough to click into the content. When there is no duration indicated in Folloze for that board visitor, this can indicate a bounce.

• How to identify web bots: Like in every other marketing automation system, Folloze web bots and crawlers sometimes find Folloze boards and show as board visitors. You will notice two distinct types:

• Web crawlers used by search engines - Folloze blocks 99% of those crawlers, but sometimes the more sophisticated ones do end up on the board. You will typically see activity by a Guest #, who is a “Visitor” with no duration indicated. You can ignore these visitors.

• Security software - large enterprise often use security software to check for viruses and malware in their email systems. If all recipients in a given account are indicated as “Email Opened”, or as “Visitors”, this is a clear indication for a fake board visit by a security bot. Example:

 

In contrast, here’s an example for an account that is truly engaged:

 

    2. Do your research

This step is by far the most critical to the entire process. Your job is to provide value in every touch point. Don’t try to take anything (their time mainly), before you give something. A good relevant piece of content is a gift.

 

Before you dial, look up your lead on LinkedIn, their role and maybe some other relevant context. Check if you  share the same connections , or groups in common. Then, make sure you know the company, the business, recent changes. Plan your call - find ways to make the conversation relevant, it's about them, not about you. Think about their content engagement in context to their background. Know the content assets by heart and think how they might be relevant.

 

Tip - when you visit their LinkedIn profile, they might notice you. It draws attention, increasing likelihood of engagement and response.

 

Then, carefully plan your goal. Build a few scenarios for the call, and make sure you have good answers as you steer the conversation. The goal is to schedule a meeting with your AE, not to sell them during this initial call. You have to be knowledgeable enough of their business and your solution to draw enough interest to schedule a full meeting with your AE.

 

   3. How to share what you've learned with your prospect

This rule is very simple but requires some practice on navigating the conversation. You do not want to reveal the fact that you tracked the leads’ activities. At the same time you want to have a conversation around very specific topics. The trick - if they pick up the phone, you can start the conversation with something along the lines of “Hi, this is <your name> from <your company>. Did you get a chance to see the article I sent you this morning? Do you have any questions around topic X?”. Another option could be “Hi, this is … Many of our customers in similar businesses had some questions about topic X, may I share some additional insight in case you were interested”

 

Sometime they might respond with “What a coincidence, I was just looking at it.”, some other times they must say “I don’t recall getting anything from you.” Don’t be discouraged, say it was an article about X, that might be relevant for people in similar positions, as they are about to do Y, or experience challenges of Z nature. Then, you can take it from there.

 

   4. What if they don’t pick up the phone?

Let’s face it, most of us never do! But we do listen to messages. Keep it short and simple, speak very clearly (leave some messages on your friend’s voice mail and verify that). Say your name and company name. Tell them what your company does in 4-5 words, and suggest it might be helpful to people with in similar roles and similar companies. Then mention you sent them an article about Xand  you are available to answer any questions. Provide your number twice to make sure, and then “Thank you”. As mentioned above, even if they only hear the the beginning of your message, they get used to your digital presence through more than one channel and more likely to respond at some point.

 

   5. What to talk about during the follow up call

When leads engage with the content on the board, they are basically providing you with the groundwork for conversation topics - take advantage of this and ask questions around the topic of the specific piece/s they looked at. Remember to always focus on the value conveyed by the content and how that value helps your prospects solve their problem.

 

   6. Prospecting best practices

Regardless of the platform you’re using for prospecting, you should follow prospecting best practices. Some of our favorite advice comes from Winning by Design, a sales consulting company.