How to Use Sales Engagement to Close More Moving Leads, Faster

Don’t Make Your Hot Moving Leads Wait

Inbound moving leads are like fresh bread: the second they land on your table, they start going stale. That’s why quickly responding and advancing leads is crucial to closing marketing-generated deals. Time is of the essence, especially for moving businesses who are competing for comparison-shopping customers.

Here’s how vital lead response time is: According to the seminal Lead Response Management Study by Dr. James Oldroyd, “the odds of making a successful contact with a lead are 100 times greater when a contact attempt occurs within 5 minutes, compared to 30 minutes after the lead was submitted. Similarly, the odds of the lead entering the sales process, or becoming qualified, are 21 times greater when contacted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes after the lead was submitted.”

People are impatient. So what can you do to speed up the process?

1. Automate to Accelerate

Some people think automation means handing over the keys to machines. Not true. Think of automation as a tool. Without people, tools are just pricey paperweights.

Using auto-replies and online scheduling can dramatically speed up your inbound process. Traditionally, when a lead hits your site and fills out a form, that information would land in a queue and a rep would have to manually respond to complete the qualification or scheduling process. If the rep was busy, or your office is closed, that process could take hours and your hot lead is now lukewarm at best.

Instead, consider using a sales engagement platform to immediately place that new lead into an email sequence. That sequence should include an automatic Thank You message and a task to send a follow-up email, to make sure they remain engaged.

2. Specialization Equals Speed

In the moving leads game, it’s good to have a dedicated response team so the leads generated are not allowed to stagnate. While you should automate most of the lead capture and immediate messaging, your website is like the internet version of a billboard — anyone can drive by, even the ones who have no business being there.

Use a specialized inbound response team to quickly reach out to hot leads and do some basic qualification. They’re probably in the right place if they are on your site but what if they’re not? They may be the right kind of customer, and they may not. Your lead response team can ask some probing questions about their needs and what they’re looking to accomplish. This approach ensures everyone is on the same page and ready to move forward.

Remember: this may seem like an added step that will just slow down the process, but a little due diligence up front may prevent a big headache later for both parties.

3. Data Doesn’t Lie (Often)

It’s time to reflect and evaluate if your inbound process is working. Because at the end of the day, it’s important to use data to determine if your marketing efforts are actually bringing you qualified inbound leads or not.

A Sales Engagement Exercise

Let’s assume marketing is driving 1,000 visitors to your site each month, but you’re seeing exceptionally low conversion rates; e.g. no one is requesting quotes or scheduling moves.

So what’s the problem?

Well, it can be one of two things: the people coming to your site don’t fit your ideal customer profile — they are just the wrong people for your service — or you don’t have a strong messaging or a call-to-action that is driving your visitors to take the next step.

Time to do some A/B testing on messaging. Does that move the needle? If not, maybe you’re targeting the wrong keywords. Make sure any content you created for website or blog (if you have one — which you should) is focused on strategic keywords that will help drive targeted traffic.

And if your process has sales reps reach out to leads before moving to the next step in the buying process, then it’s important the two teams, marketing and sales, are aligned.

Test, Measure, Improve

If marketing is generating 1,000 qualified leads a month, and none of those turn into opportunities despite efficient and relevant sales outreach, then it’s back to evaluating what marketing is doing. But if sales is getting those 1,000 leads and reaching out to just 250, and 200 end up as sales, then you need to increase the amount of moving leads your sales team engages each month.

Remember, both teams are working towards the same goal, and that’s closing more business — fast. Take a look at the data, find out what’s working and what’s not, and make changes accordingly to reduce friction and speed up your closing process.

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Joe Vignolo is Senior Content Managing Editor at Outreach.io, the #1 sales engagement platform for sales teams that want to secure more meetings, drive more pipeline, and close more deals. Once upon a time, Joe was an award-winning broadcast journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also believes Point Break is a shining example of American cinema.

Want to learn about how moving software with online booking can help you convert moving leads directly to jobs on your schedule? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.